Touching Death and the Divine

Nearly meeting my end while hiking the presidential traverse with dad

Art by Gitchimber "Jojo" Gay

My dad hiked the presidential traverse with old-man-strength, slow and unceasing. I gather that’s what it takes to get through a life. I was nineteen and took to the range in youthful fits and starts, a joyful sprint ahead and then suddenly doubtful that we would ever make it across the next peak, suggesting that we just camp right here. The presidential traverse is a 23 mile hike crossing ten New Hampshire peaks, nine named after presidents and one, Mount Clay, strangely named instead for a 19th century Senator. Dad and I were only 100 meters up Clay’s flank when it started to rain. I could still see the last lodge behind us, pine and weathered with spiced cider inside. I suggested turning back, though I knew he wouldn’t agree.

We slid into our raincoats and rain pants, bowed our heads against the rising wind, and scrambled across exposed rocks, ascending Clay. We were already above tree line, and with no trunks for trail markers we instead followed cairns, stacks of rocks with the top rock painted white. As the rain grew heavier, the white rocks in the distance glistened then faded into gray, and our only guides were gone. Thunder rumbled. I froze. There is one, most basic, most foundational rule in backpacking: don’t get caught above treeline in a lightning storm. My damp hood filled with the amplified taps of raindrops and the pounding of my heart. Dad yelled to me through the rising wind: 

“Let’s just get over the peak and down the other side, and we’ll be set up for our Mount Washington ascent this afternoon.”

Every survival instinct that had ushered me safely through my nineteen years of life revolted. Ten feet away, my dad stood in his rain gear, his backpack towering over his head, getting pounded with sideways rain. As he turned to huff up the next rocky incline, I yelled back at him, 

“This. Is. So. Dangerous.” As soon as they left my mouth, the words were swept away by the wind and lost to the mountains.

Anyways, I did not have a choice. The treeline was just as far down the mountain in either direction, turning back did us no good. And also, this was my dad. He would go forward. I would follow.

We peaked Mount Clay in the pounding rain, and Washington came into view, the queen mountain of the Northeast. Her majesty was shrouded in deep purple clouds, today a dark witch, tomorrow perhaps vanquished by the sun. We could hike this mountain a million times and witness a million tales unfold. This day, just as we crested the peak of Mount Clay, a bolt of lightening, with a full-bodied zig-zag, hit the near side of dark Mount Washington, the sword of light centered in our view as if placed there specifically for us. Immediately following the light, a crash broke around us that could have toppled the mountain. Could have been the end of times. 

Paralyzed, unable to step forward, I turned around and yelled thirty feet down the rocks to where my dad was coming up behind, 

“We. Can’t. Continue. Forward.”

Never get caught above tree line in a lightning storm, I brooded silently. Never get caught. Never. Idiot. You should have insisted. What was he thinking. Classic Dad. 

Nonetheless, here we were. I pointed to a patch of scraggly alpine bushes twenty feet down, and we silently agreed on a plan. Terrified and efficient, I scrambled down the rocks. My dad dug out our tarp, trying to avoid soaking the rest of our belongings, and we crawled together into a small gap in the hedge, pulling the blue tarp over us. Then we waited, protected only by the gnarled arms of the bush.

We hugged our knees, still as two rocks. The daggers of rain pelted our thin tarp and I tried to call up reassuring facts: isn’t it true that tarps aren’t conductive? Then a clap of thunder, going off like a bomb, louder than anything I had ever heard, sent my thoughts scurrying back to their caves. I hugged my knees tighter, hands gone numb. I had never seen a full bolt of lightning like the one on Mount Washington minutes ago: earth to sky. Here we were, in the eye of it. So stupid. This is how people die in the mountains. By making rash decisions in bad weather. 

The blue tarp rested on our heads, enclosing our tiny bubble of humid air, barely a protection. I could feel my dad’s shoulder pressed against mine. Then the thunder came again, concurrent with the lightning, somehow louder still, ripping my eardrums, surely the collapsing of everything I had ever known. Our tiny, crumpled shelter reeked of plastic, and when I dared unclench my eyes for a quarter second I caught an eyeful of cobalt blue. Thoughts came only in flashes now, losing coherence. I will die in the mountains wrapped in blue plastic. Fireworks of white light on the backs of my eyelids. Such a stupid death. Still breathing. Caught above tree line in a lightning storm. Swirling black on my eyelids. The most basic rule. Goddammit, Dad.

Time condensed and stretched, it had been minutes, seconds, hours. I sensed, though maybe imagined, that the crashes of thunder softened ever so slightly. After eternity had come and gone, my dad said, his voice amplified by the tarp, close as if it was within my own brain, 

“Seems like we’re past the worst of it.” As if on cue, the rain morphed into a friendly tapping sound, and the storm stampeded further and further from our hiding place.

We unsheathed ourselves from the tarp and emerged onto the sopping ground, the rain slowing to a drizzle and then just a gray sky. Behind us in the bush was a dry brown circle of dirt that the tarp had held sacred. We flicked our hands and boots, releasing a spray of droplets, unzipped our many zippers, and laid our rain gear over the branches of the bush that had protected us through the storm. I suppose, based on its grayed and stunted arms, that the plant had seen much worse. But me, I never had.

Then, all at once, a ray of sun cut through the southeasterly sky and shot down to earth. In the valleys to our left and right, two great oceans of mist materialized from nothing, and we were set afloat on our mountaintop. I drifted, unmoored; I dissolved. The mist swirled and expanded on either side, like the earth’s lungs breathing in a huge, wet breath. Cottony fingers rose out of the white pools and began to float upwards, flowing into the mountain pass from which we had just emerged, rising and converging, enormous before our eyes, like giant hands joining in prayer. I had no body, I was singular, I was witness. The fans of mist met and swept across the face of Mount Jefferson in opposite directions, full of complex motion, eddies and streams of tiny droplets moved by invisible strokes of heat and wind, set aglow by a new sun, creating before me an artwork seen only once, ever, by me and my father. 

Fifteen years later, this is still the nearest I have been to the divine. I would have stayed in the lodge. 

As suddenly as it had come, the mist dissolved and was gone. We emerged from our stupor to realize that it was a sunny day and our rain gear was nearly dry.

I’d love to know if you’ve ever had this kind of terrifying-turned-magical experience. Tell me about it in the comments!