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Pillar Mountain looked as smooth as a meadow, but the climber soon found himself knee deep in ferns, grasses, and a score of flowering plants, and now and then pushing through a patch of alders as high as his head, <\/em>wrote John Burroughs on the 1899 Harriman Expedition. I think of this as I swim through brush on the trail up Barometer. I remember covertly crying the first and only time I ever hiked this mountain, two decades ago, swearing I would never do it again, cursing one false summit after another. But here I am, climbing Barometer because our son, about to start 7th<\/sup> grade, is attempting to hike seven mountains in seven days for the local challenge that\u2019s been wildly popular in Kodiak this summer. His little brother is climbing today too, although he\u2019s afraid of heights. A rational fear, I think, since he only panics when it\u2019s so steep that he determines he might die from a fall. Today he called it quits about two-thirds of the way up, and I wasn\u2019t that sad to settle down with him and look for cranberries while the rest of the group hiked on. This morning\u2019s orange sunrise was the ghost of forests burning on the mainland. The burning in my legs reminding me why I rarely climb mountains\u2014because it\u2019s hard. And why I should\u2014because it fills you with gratitude. I signed on for today\u2019s climb mainly because the whole endeavor is such a cool start to middle school. I get choked up when I pick four boys up for a hike and they\u2019re waiting in a tree like a Kodiak version of Sandlot.<\/em> Probably it\u2019s my own nostalgia making it meaningful. But later, on the trail, there\u2019s the secret pleasure of eavesdropping on your teenager\u2019s conversations.<\/p>\n I wish this was Star Trek and I could just beam myself down.<\/em><\/p>\n My brother shouted I hate peanut butter and he threw it at the TV and the hole is still there.<\/em><\/p>\n Wouldn\u2019t that be cool if it was half caterpillar and half butterfly?<\/em> They\u2019ve found a chrysalis on the trail, solid as a brown cigar, and debate opening it versus leaving it be.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s a sharp object.<\/em><\/p>\n I\u2019m throwing this sharp object.<\/em><\/p>\n No! It\u2019s our only sharp object and we can use it to dissect it.<\/em><\/p>\n We\u2019re definitely going to dissect it.<\/em><\/p>\n Over and over this summer, the kids hiked the ridge above our cabin and slid down the landslide, thundering dust. I grew up climbing the mountain behind Old Harbor and remember leaning backwards during a fall storm into gusts of wind strong enough to hold us, feeling we were part of the mountain and it was a part of us. We descended in almost intoxicated recklessness. We slid down on the seat of our pants choosing portions of the mountain where our braking powers were only just enough to keep from catapulting straight into the moonstreaked bay<\/em>, Carolyn Erskine wrote of a childhood trip up Pillar in the early 1900s, a memory she carried all her life. Which is to say, if you can give your kids a mountain, one that fills them with pride in the rising and joy in rushing down again, well, that is something.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Pillar Mountain looked as smooth as a meadow, but the climber soon found himself knee deep in ferns, grasses, and a score of flowering plants, and now and then pushing through a patch of alders as high as his head, wrote John Burroughs on the 1899 Harriman Expedition. I think of this as I swim […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":588,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/saraloewen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2139"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/saraloewen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/saraloewen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saraloewen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saraloewen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2139"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/saraloewen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2139\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2326,"href":"https:\/\/saraloewen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2139\/revisions\/2326"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saraloewen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/saraloewen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saraloewen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saraloewen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}