Scariest Hike of My Life: Chutes and Ladders, Girdwood, Alaska, USA
Alyssa's Travel Letters | Adventures and Misadventures from Beluga Cabin in Southern Alaska
While my skin is still freshly scratched and before I take inventory of the bruises and sore muscles, I want to sit down and write about our adventures (and slight misadventures like the scariest hike of my life) from Beluga cabin, south of Anchorage.
Matt was nice enough to book the cabin for us and drive our motley crew consisting of himself, Madhi, me, and Riley dog down south along what may be considered the second most dangerous roadway in Alaska, the Seward Highway. It’s not as desolate as the Dalton Highway going up to the North Slope, but it’s more prone to car collisions thanks to high speeds, narrow lanes, and sightseeing tourists.
I sat behind the driver’s seat with my forehead pressed to the window looking up the mountain for bears, moose, and wild mountain sheep and goats.
“Bear!!! Bear!” I shouted.
“Where?!” they replied in unison.
“Pull over!”
Fortunately there was a pull-out right there, so we got out and had a perfect viewing of a yearling black bear at close range. He was just across the road about 20-30 feet up a cliff looking down at us while we were looking up at him.
Shortly up the road, at mile marker 101, we turn off for the campground.
We arrived just after 3 o’clock in the afternoon. Matt had told us about the chance of seeing a bore tide. A bore tide occurs when the leading edge of the rising tide forms a single wave as it passes from a wide bay to a narrow channel, like the Turnagain Arm which we were camping alongside. We looked it up to see the bore tide was expected to pass by at 3:45.
We bundled up and walked the very short distance from the cabin to the mud flats to await its arrival, but it never came or we missed it somehow. We still had fun looking for gold and fossils and slathering our faces with glacial silt. On the way back we even spotted a bald eagle and some cool mushrooms. Madhi and I ate a ton of wild cranberries.
Then we put on our finest sweaters and headed into the glacier town of Girdwood for dinner. We tried to go to a place that served local Alaskan fare called Jack Sprat but they were closed for a private event, so we went with our second choice, The Double Musky.
The smell of crayfish and jambalaya met us at the door. We snaked around hallways fully decked out with vintage posters, figurines, and Mardi Gras beads until we reached the main dining room and a man with curly hair and funny glasses greeted us, “Good morning, here for breakfast?”
Silliness aside, we were in for a Cajun feast of epic proportions! Here’s how the restaurant describes Cajun:
The name is a corruption of the word Acadian. Louisiana Cajuns are the descendants of the French Canadians who were expelled from Canada in 1755 upon their defeat by the British. Those early settlers traveled down the Mississippi River and settled in the Bayous of South Louisiana. Cajun food is 400 year old French country food adapted to the locally available game, seafood, vegetables and spices.
Creole is a less hardy mixture of French and Spanish.
We started with an order of halibut ceviche and cheesy crayfish dip to share. The ceviche with tomatoes and black olives stood out to me as perfectly tangy and yet still hardy. I loved it with the ripe avocado and Saltine crackers.
For the main course, I got Cajun fried chicken with mashed potatoes and gravy. Madhi got the jambalaya described as “hot, hot, HOT” and Matt got a French pepper steak and baked potato.
It was the grandest meal I’ve had in a long, long time. The flavors were so on point, especially the delicious fatty skin of my mustard-battered Cornish game hen well-seasoned with Lousianna hot sauce. Mmmmm!
I ripped the legs off my hen and fed them to the guys and reminded Matt to eat his Luxardo cherry at the end of the meal after it had been soaking in strong spirits.
We were properly fattened and fueled for the gauntlet.
I wrote that word gauntlet and then I looked it up.
Gauntlet refers to a glove covered in steel as a part of a suit of armor and “throwing down the gauntlet” means to challenge someone.
Which is curious because now I’m remembering something Matt remarked on during dinner. Looking at a particularly ostentatious piece of decor, he commented on the gloves of a knight in shining armor by the entrance.
“What do you think those gloves are made of?”
No one answered him. We had no idea. Now I realize what they’re made of…
Challenge. Matt was throwing down the guantlet and the gauntlet was a hike called Chutes and Ladders.
We got to the trailhead close to 8PM. See, the plan had been to ride the tramway to the top of the mountain to have a nice digestif at the Alyeska ski resort but the tram operators instructed us to come back later, in 45 minutes.
Matt took the opportunity to suggest the hike we had been successfully avoiding all day. Here’s a photo of what could have been. There at the top of mountain is the restaurant I didn’t visit and the digestif I didn’t enjoy.
Another golden thread to this story I’m noticing as I write is this…
When we walked by this statue of a horse and rider (pictured above) going down a treacherous slope, I told the guys a story about how I was riding a horse called Koa down a steep slope in Hawai’i when we hit a patch of loose rocks and gravel and started sliding. I knew I had to loosen my pull on the reins and trust the horse’s survival instincts since he had four hooves on the ground and knew more intimately than I how to avoid a nasty fall.
Trust was the idea God put into my head before we faced the challenge of Chutes and Ladders, this hike that had been looming all day.
“It’s wet, cold, and now it’s getting dark. Well this is a great idea!” I chimed with uncharacteristic sarcasm as I got out of the car.
“You said you were going to trust me,” Matt reminded me.
“Dear God, please don’t let us die on this hike. Amen.”
We walked into the old growth forest where towering trees were bent into strange shapes and covered in moss and ferns. We shouted and howled to let the bears know we were coming through. We heard some people howl back and passed two guys on their way out.
Matt had said it many times that day but he said it again, “The first part is the hardest. Once you’re past that, it’s smooth sailing.”
I believed him. So when we arrived at a beautiful slot canyon with a ladder and a tree toppled down into it, I saw the rope and knew I could handle it.
Actually, my exact words were, “I eat hikes like this for breakfast.” I can hear God laughing at my hubris and ignorance now.
It was difficult getting into the right position to climb down the ladder. I tried but started saying, “I don’t know if I can -” when Mahdi offered to hold my arm and Matt told me he’d catch me if I fell.
I tried again and noticed, with their support, my fear had gone entirely.
We continued through the canyon as it narrowed and water flowed beneath our boots. We scaled down a few more steep sections. I had to use my hands, feet, and occasionally my hip or backside to scramble through the obstacles.
Matt was ahead of me and Madhi trailed behind me. We all handled the course in our own way at first, so at one point they were both out of sight. I stood up and steadied myself against a boulder. I tried to focus my eyes but the light was fading fast.
“Madhi! Matt!” I yelled out.
I couldn’t see either of them. I imagined for a second I was all alone out there.
“Matt! Where did you go?!”
I thought I heard him screaming for help.
Madhi came up from behind and as if he read my mind, he said, “You’re not alone. Matt is in front and I’m behind. You’re protected.”
“But Matt, I called for him and I thought I heard him screaming for help!”
We picked up the pace. The canyon was opening up and there was the sound of rushing water. I started panicking thinking Matt slipped and fell into a raging waterfall.
We saw the waterfall and the whole scene was awash in mist. There was a bat flying overhead eating the last mosquitoes before even the twilight creatures settled in for the night.
Where is Matt???
Then I saw him. He was soaked. His hands swung wildly by his side and the look in his eyes disturbed me. I saw his mouth moving but I couldn’t make out what he was saying over the roar of the falls. I scanned our surroundings and noticed there was no clear way out. I calculated how far we had walked and how difficult the course had been so far.
Can we even make it safely back the way we came before dark?
It seemed Matt was saying something about this being the climax, or “the mental crux,” I believe he said. This was mental. Madhi was somehow taking in the beauty of the falls while I gawked at the predicament before us.
Are we going to walk behind the waterfall? Is that why Matt is all wet? Or are we scaling this rock wall or turning back?
Then I saw a rope by the near side of the falls. It ran up a wall double my height which bulged at the top.
Matt started to climb it. He struggled a lot.
But when he got to the top, he said, “This is the last hard part and after this the trail is smooth.”
I was up next. I thought about the possibility of letting fear overtake me and not being able to go forward or back and being stuck in the cold, dark, bear-infested wilderness all night. I thought of letting the guys down.
I stuck my foot in the first obvious foothold and took hold of the rope. I looked down at the waterfall pummeling the rocks below and imagined what would happen if I fell from there.
Would I hit the platform where Madhi still stood below me or would I careen into the depths?
It was hard to tell so I lifted my right leg to the next, less-obvious foot hold and reached for the next knot on the rope. I was almost to the top when I saw Matt with his cellphone out.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Taking your picture!”
“I DON”T WANT A PICTURE, I WANT TO LIVE!” I yelled at him.
He grabbed my hand and pulled me up. I landed on a platform half the size of the last one. It had a steeper grade and was backed by a rock wall now triple my height!
Where’s the smooth trail you mentioned Matt?
It was beginning to dawn on me that Matt didn’t actually know if we were on the right track and that he was just saying whatever he could to get me through the current obstacle so I wouldn’t succumb to total overwhelm from fear.
I knew that if I thought about the situation we were actually in, the one Matt was probably trying to protect me from mentally, then I would panic and freeze. So once we were all up to the second platform, I faced the next wall we had to climb.
I watched Matt try to go up it. His legs were stretched as far apart as they could reach and his boots clung to a lip in the rock the size of my pinky finger.
“I can’t do that. We’re going to have to go back.” I shouted over the noise.
Matt started coming down, apparently agreeing with my verdict.
“I think we have to take the path to right, closer to the falls.”
The rope was actually tied to a tree at the top left of the wall, so it was of little use when taking the right path. The mental game was being so close to that much water powering its way over the edge, in the exact opposite direction we wanted to go. To fall from that height into those rapids could have easily been fatal.
Matt did it. I watched him struggle and then it was my turn. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t second-guess or change my mind. I surrendered into full trust.
I went for it and somehow each step found its place. Before I could even fathom what was happening, I was close enough for Matt to grab me and pull me up.
It seemed impossible to get to the top without having someone to help pull you up but the platform at the top was even more impossibly sloped and teetering toward the falls. So the person at the top, had to be sure they were planted before letting the person below tug on them to get up.
I grabbed a nearby branch and shouted, “I’m planted, Mahdi, I’m planted. Grab onto my arm.”
It was half true and I understood why Matt had been lying. I wasn’t firmly planted. My grip was weak and the branch was half broken, but Mahdi grabbed hold of my hand and pulled. If he would have needed 5 seconds more of my grip to pull himself up, then we would have tumbled over the waterfall’s edge.
Thank God he didn’t.
So we made it to the top of the falls.
Where’s the trail, Matt?
I stood there in disbelief. There was yet another wall, except this one was made of dirt and Devil’s club, a plant covered entirely in spikes and needles. Night had come.
There was a tiny shelf that couldn’t even be called a trail because it was covered in dense brush, just like the sloped wall that ran up from it. We walked along the shelf, squeezing between the Devil’s spines, until it we couldn’t anymore and we had to go up.
We scaled this near vertical ridge with our bellies to the dirt and our fingers being pricked by plants. Matt’s steps brought dirt and rocks tumbling down into my eyes and I’m sure mine had the same impact on Madhi.
I scrambled up the hill on all fours, hands and feet or elbows and knees. The rocks and roots came loose as I gripped them and I had to move fast so they wouldn’t come down and leave Madhi without a place to hold, or worse… hit him and knock him out or off the wall.
We finally made it to the top of the ridge and the original trail came into view. I was so hyped up on adrenaline that I could hardly accept the resolution. I thought surely a bear or crazed man would come finish us off before we reach the car.
We took a shortcut out to the road. We walked side by side, the three of us, along the dark street. We replayed the whole adventure in our heads and out loud.
“We’re a good team,” Matt said.
“Yeah, we are, the three musketeers,” I replied.
“And Riley!” said Madhi.
“Oh Riley, I can’t wait to get back and cuddle Riley!”
