In honor of Katmai’s first birthday today…

by Unimak Island, I was already pregnant

Speculations

We knew how to plan routes through a complicated landscape of cliffs, water, and brush. We knew how to packraft in a gale, set up shelter in a blizzard, and start a fire in the pouring rain. We knew how to pare our backpacking gear down to a fine-tuned minimalism. But we knew nothing about babies.

Wilderness expeditions were a thread of our lives we couldn’t imagine giving up. Yet we couldn’t imagine having an infant along either. Most of our early speculations revolved around babysitting grandmothers – wondering when the baby would be old enough to leave for an hour or two, a day or two, a week or two… We wondered whether it was possible to bring a baby bushwhacking at all.

In the year since Katmai’s birth, we’ve never been hiking without him. He’s more portable than we imagined.

diaper change in the snow

Winter

Katmai was squalling, his high shrill voice ringing from where he was curled in the wrap on Hig’s chest. The cry sent my new mom brain into a frenzied flurry of activity. I pulled a thermarest from my small day pack, plopped down unceremoniously with snowshoes still dangling from my feet, snatched the fussing newborn from Hig’s arms, and threw a down quilt over the pair of us. He started nursing immediately, eyes still closed, neither knowing or caring that his dark warm cave was on a snowy hillside. The awkward diaper change by unpracticed parents in 20 degree weather went a little less smoothly. But within a minute or so of us starting to walk again, all indignities and discomforts were forgotten. We continued for another couple of hours, repeating the nursing break once more – slowly building a new rhythm to our lives.

….

“See the snow? I know you’ve never seen anything else, but someday things will be green here.” At three weeks old, the world outdoors was probably not much more than a monochrome blur of white ground and black branches. It was probably also not much more important – the world beyond mom irrelevant to the tiny infant’s brain. My words trailed off as Katmai fell asleep, and I listened for the small sounds of baby breaths and snores from the wrap on my chest, over the din of snowshoes crunching on an icy trail. He’d never saw the top of the hill – the half hour it took to get there was longer than he could stay awake.

in the shade of the forest at Cape Yakataga

Spring

I covered Katmai’s ears with my hands as the 5-seater plane buzzed over the giant Bering Glacier, on its way to the lonely outpost of Cape Yakataga. As we neared the coast, Hig and I talked excitedly about the places we remembered from our year-long trek, excited to be setting off on this latest expedition.

We’d switched out our stretchy cotton baby carrier for a homemade version made of ripstop nylon. We had three backpacks for the three of us – only Hig and I carried all of them – a large one on each of our backs, and a small front pack for whichever parent wasn’t carrying the child. After many years of ruthlessly cutting down our pack weight, the bags seemed oddly bulky for just three days away from base camp – expanded by a collection of baby diapers, baby sleeping bag, baby clothes and a baby life vest. A much larger volume than the three and a half month old baby we carried it for.

On the scale of our adventures, it wasn’t much. Eight days in the field, two small backpacking trips, some easy packrafting, a few thick bushwhacks, a bit of scrambling, bugs, sun, and logging roads… It wasn’t something we thought we’d be doing this year at all. But the invitation to Yakataga arrived unexpectedly in the spring, tempting us with a trip that seemed both interesting, and surprisingly possible. Katmai was portable.

Katmai – 4 months, tree – 500 years

The rhythm evolved. Tuck baby into wrap, face into mommy or daddy’s chest. Walk a few minutes until baby falls asleep. Continue until baby screams.

Pluck him out, nurse him, and pop him back into the wrap, face out this time. Protect baby’s eyes from the bushes as he gets a close-up tour of river bank alders, logging road ditches, and forests. Try to keep mosquitoes off the baby’s face. Continue until baby screams.

Pluck him out, nurse him, and pop him back into the wrap, face in. Repeat.

With each venture away from our base camp, the packs grew smaller, as we realized that babies, like adults, need less gear than you might at first think. With Katmai, we floated down a braided glacial river in the packrafts, and crossed several more. We ducked and climbed and swatted our way through overgrown deadfall on the edge of a clear cut, and a smorgasboard of milder bushwhacks. We scrambled steep slopes of crumbly rock near the edge of a glacier – dad carefully picking his footsteps while the baby happily gurgled and kicked.

Hig and I were acting as field assistants for Cascadia Wild, documenting the potential for restoration in the massive Yakataga clearcut. Hig measured stream widths, while I nursed Katmai. I scribbled notes on streamside vegetation, while Hig showed Katmai the varying textures of alder and willow leaves. We appreciated the dramatic face of the melting Yakataga Glacier, the broad valley of the Duktoth River, and the misty Lost Coast. Katmai appreciated gnawing on cottonwood twigs, grabbing at dandelion poofs, and watching the bushes rush by.

investigating the beach in Tutka Bay

Summer

Luckily for Kamai, his father is a master bushwhacker. With Katmai protruding from his chest like a strange second head, Hig ducked beneath the alder boughs, turning his body to delicately brush by the devils club. He pulled salmonberry canes out of the way of Katmai’s face. One small scratch on the nose was all Katmai had to show for his afternoon in 4th of July Creek valley. I wished my arms and legs could say the same. In the long light of summer, even a day hike can get overly ambitious.

The rhythm of baby fussing was sped up by the heat, and we rested beneath the shade of spruce tree islands in the brush, entertaining Katmai with twigs. My packraft spun in circles on the glassy water as I paused to nurse the baby under the light of the full moon – huge and red from the haze of distant forest fires. At 2AM, we paddled home.

…

scree glissade with Dad

Last winter’s meager snowfall was followed by volcanic ash, then a warm sunny spring, melting the mountains back to bare ice and rock. Even amongst high peaks, the usual snow slopes were boulders and scree, bare rock fields with barely a hint of vegetation. Some of the dime-sized patches of moss might not have seen sun in years. Some of the rock might never have seen sun at all.

For a four-day expedition in the moutains above Tutka Bay, we counted. About 17 pounds for a diapered and dressed 6 month old. 1 pound for the wrap to carry him in. Another 4 pounds of extra clothes, diapers, and sleeping gear for Katmai. Altogether, it was 22 pounds of additional weight to add to the 65 pounds or so we were already wearing or carrying between the two of us.

We walked on ice. We walked past newborn lakes. We skated down slopes of sharp scree, past cliffs scratched by vanished ice and decorated with mountain goats. We threaded our way down steep and narrow routes with cliffs all around. Katmai watched and slept and giggled from his perch on our chests.

Katmai trusted us. He trusted us to keep the bushes out of his face. He trusted us not to drop him on the boulders or ice. He trusted us to keep him warm and fed and dry. Katmai spent his days snuggling his parents, watching the world go by, and occasionally being set down to play in it. Each place we stopped, he found new bushes to chew on, new rocks to investigate, and new games to play.

peering though the grass

Fall

Katmai peered through the grass as his younger companions busied themselves with nursing and diaper changes. The air on the alpine ridge was crisp and cold, with a biting breeze. We ducked down in a pocket out of the wind, sitting on the bright red and yellow carpet of autumn tundra. Three babies, three moms, a dad, and a friend, out for a few hours hike on the trail above our yurt.

In the flurry of activity that was my book tour, I missed our backyard wanderings. I hiked through crowded airports with Katmai on my back, explaining to the TSA agent that the wrap was simply a long piece of cloth – posing no terrorist threat. We hiked the streets of Portland and Seattle, baby carrying oddities in a land of strollers. On a darkened stage, Hig gently bounced Katmai in the wrap on his chest, as we told stories from our year-long journey. Katmai smiled at the crowd and watched the pictures flash by – adventures from before he was born. Katmai fussed, sending his dad scurrying off to soothe him to sleep before returning to the presentation.

Katmai came with us on stage because he came with us everywhere – a smiling crawling appendage to our lives.

reveling in the snow

Winter again

Snow has opened up our backyard again. Nearly every day, Katmai and I wander the hills behind the yurt, sometimes on snowshoes sinking into loose powder, other times in shoes slipping on an icy crust. At nearly 20 pounds, Katmai rides on my back now, his head poking through a hole sliced in my raincoat. Asleep, his head rests on my back, fleece hat slowly accumulating snow.

Awake, he babbles happily over my shoulder, watching the dog run and roll in the snow with an excited “da!” that I can almost believe is a word…. We take fewer breaks now. And when we stop for lunch, Katmai still nurses, but he can also share my bread and cheese.

“He’s so patient!” I exclaimed to Hig near the end of a 7 hour hike, looking over my shoulder at Katmai’s smiling face.

“Actually, he’s not patient at all,” Hig corrected me. “He’s just happy.”

distant mists

Baby steps to the future

Before Katmai was born, we didn’t know how portable a baby would turn out to be – or how easily this little person would slot into our lives. And as we plan more ambitious outdoor exploits for Katmai’s second year, I wonder what all of this means to him. I wonder what impact it has on a baby to spend so much time looking at trees and snow, rocks and berry bushes, tundra and rabbit tracks… A young mind is constantly learning, soaking up the foundations of understanding wherever it might be. But all he can tell us is a happy babble, a contented snooze, and the occasional wail of hunger or cold.

Maybe he’ll grow to love the outdoors. Or maybe not. He’s too young to tell us, and too young to decide. And maybe wondering about the impact on Katmai is the wrong question altogether. Katmai has joined a family of adventurers, therefore he comes on adventures, adapting to the circumstances of his birth like every baby everywhere. The three of us are happy, and Katmai has never known another way.

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