Ptarmigan Tracks

This summer I learned a new parenting game: High-Low. Get your kids reflecting on the arc of their day, or a particular experience, by sharing their “highlights” and their “lowlights.” The game turns out to be a beneficial exercise, and not only for kids and parents: practice gratitude, celebrate success, and open the door to talk through anxieties and troubles.  When applied to our summer at Camp Denali and North Face Lodge, the practice has been useful, as we might have otherwise been tempted to focus only on our hardship.

Among the summer’s “highlights” were June’s unseasonably hot days.  Eight-year-olds Spencer and Danika lost count after their 45th dip in Nugget Pond.  Heat and drought meant remarkably few mosquitoes, but also the state’s second largest recorded wildfire season at five million acres burned. Wild berry crops were, in the favorite refrain of our Camp kids, “epic!” Staff member, Theo, single-handedly picked over 40 gallons of blueberries, his efforts reflected in our two-year jam supply.

Just like life, however, the summer did not only dole out sweetness and warm, sunny days. Tragedy rocked our community on August 27th when staff member, KC Boehly, died in a backcountry drowning accident. The catastrophe occurred during the lowest low-pressure system of the summer with heavy rain, sleet, then a foot of snow and sub-freezing temperatures in the high country. Our grief and the unrelenting weather were one and the same.  It was as if the storm itself had claimed our coworker and friend.

But just as the land is relentless and unfeeling, it is beautiful and restorative. Like Camp Denali founder, Woody, once said about wilderness, “[It has] marvelous power to bring healing to the human spirit.” So, too, did our spirits begin to lift with the first clear mountain day.

Essential to our collective healing was emotional support from each other, bolstered by an extraordinary outpouring of sympathy from Camp Denali friends and family near and far. When we questioned whether or not to carry on with our end-of-season festivities, everyone agreed that KC, an unfailing supporter of Camp’s traditions, would have expected nothing less. In the end, we will remember the summer of 2015 for profound tragedy but also for an unexpected window into the strength of our community.

Jenna Hamm

photo © Murray Cohen