Words and Photos by Peter Gierlach - YouTube: Pete Gierlach
In the darkness of a frigid winter night, my alarm goes off.
My old alarm used to fade in gently, singing natural sounds that started the day with serenity. Now, it’s my infant son crying for a bottle.
I stumble out of bed and pick him up from the crib. With his nourishment ready by my bedside, I feed him and start to wake up. There’s a big day ahead of me, and I need to be alert. As soon as he finishes his nighttime snack, I’m on my way.
Before becoming a father earlier this year, I used to spend a good chunk of my time rambling through forests, scrambling up mountains, climbing boulders, and swimming in wild lakes and streams.
But the past eight months have been a gauntlet. Late nights, early mornings, never enough sleep, diapers so grotesque I have nightmares about them—except now I’m so exhausted I have a hard time remembering which ones were real versus imagined.
Needless to say, adventure has fallen by the wayside.
I’ve felt conflicted about this. Being a father is, and has been, the greatest thing that’s ever happened to me. I’m at my happiest. Seeing him smile, laugh, rip around the house on all fours—nothing beats it.
Yet I’m still a nuanced person. I didn’t vanish upon his birth. My personality didn’t teleport to another dimension. While fatherhood is my top priority, it isn’t my only one. I have interests, dreams, needs.
Which is why, after putting him back to sleep in his crib, I kiss him on the cheek softly enough to keep him from stirring awake. I do the same with my wife, then slip out into the living room to pull on the wool jumpers I laid out last night.
I need to be home. I need to be with my family. I hate being torn away from them during the day by work. I’d rather just hang out with them.
But I also need the mountains. I need the fresh air, the silence, the perspective that being on top of the world brings.
Work is a necessity, but adventure is a choice. The former annoys me by taking me away from my family for hours on end. The latter? Well…I’m not sure how I feel about that yet. Will I feel guilty for leaving them behind? Will my appetite for the next horizon remain the same? Or will that appetite be suppressed like when I ate that old ahi tuna a few years back?
To find out, I start the engine of my frozen car and head towards the mountains in the distance.
The destination is a historic fire tower in the Adirondacks. My hope is that, by climbing up the snowy steps and looking into the distance, I’ll gain some perspective—on who I am as a dad, as a man, and how I can fulfill my adventurous spirit without disturbing our domestic bliss. After surviving moment-to-moment for so long, this perspective is desperately needed.
The thermometer on my car tells me that it’s five degrees. I sip some coffee, hoping that it will heat my bones like the gas heats our home. Unfortunately, it chills in the small space between the lid and my lips, doing nothing to heat my body but plenty to move my bowels.
It’s a dark, crisp morning. Stars dot the sky like jewels. Orion is setting to the west, while Venus hangs above the horizon. I blast Porcupine Tree as my car rips north, then west, and finally onto a dusty, snow-covered, forgotten road inhabited by folks who probably wouldn’t want it any other way.
Further north, the thermometer now reads “zero”. There’s a stiff breeze that pushes the birch and spruce trees side to side. Stepping out of my car, the cold is biting. My fingers are already slowing down. The life of my camera battery in these conditions is suspect.
I feel like I’m exactly where I need to be right now.
As I begin up the trail, the gap in my mountain time becomes apparent. This mountain is steep, like many in the Adirondacks, and there are no switchbacks. What would already be a heart-thumper in the summer is even more so with a heavy snowpack and clunky snowshoes. Freezing, I charge upwards in hopes of warming up. Sunrise is approaching, and once it shines on my frigid skin, I’m sure the hike will become more comfortable.
The early days of fatherhood can feel like the first charge up a mountain. Taking it one slow, grueling step at a time. Eyes pointed six inches forward, too focused to recognize the forest beyond the trees. Exhausted beyond belief—physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually even. You knew it’d be tough—everyone told you so—but nothing could prepare you for the reality. And there is no way but forward, no direction but up. You have to. There is no alternative. The mountain must be climbed. It’ll get easier, eventually. There will be views and space to relax and look back on all you’ve accomplished. For now, though, the struggle must continue.
And it will be the most incredible adventure you’ll ever experience.
Just get to the top, I think. The fire tower will provide perspective.
With each step, I’m looking forward more and more to sitting in the little steel box above the trees and soaking in the landscape. With my head having been pointed down for so long, getting it above the clouds will be cathartic. Maybe I’ll catch a clear view of who I was, who I am, and the throughlines that bind the two.
I’m the only one here. I haven’t been this alone in as long as I can remember. Even before our son, for the latter months of my wife’s pregnancy I was always by her side. I needed to be reachable in case of an emergency. Now, I’m isolated. The only sound is the breeze rustling the treetops and my own labored breathing. The sky is a deep blue, and the golden hues of sunrise paint the thousands of trunks that surround me.
I’ve missed this solitude.
Further up the mountain the trees are getting shorter—a sure sign of the summit to come. Everything up here is encased in ice, creating spectacular reflections in the morning sun. People pay hundreds of dollars to step into ice castles, and here I am in a free cathedral carved by the wind, kept all to myself.
Finally, I see the fire tower peaking over the horizon. Stoked, my pace quickens. I’m hungry now, a bit warm, and ready to rest my weary bones and enjoy a meal, sheltered from the wind and taking in the three-hundred sixty degree view of endless mountains.
The mountain flattens out into a clearing. Surrounded by spruces, the enclosed summit doesn’t offer any perspective. The fire tower will be a necessity if I want to see how far I’ve come.
Hustling up to the base, I see a sign. My heart sinks: “Tower Closed to Public.”
Upon further research, I find that the tower was deemed to be structurally unsound back in October. The state DEC locked it up to prevent anyone from climbing up, God forbid someone was in there if a gust of wind took the thing down.
There would be no perspective for me, today.
Accepting my fate, I plop down at the base and pull out my (now frozen) homemade trail mix. Staring upwards, the tower is a maze of steel and boards climbing high into the blue abyss.
Man, how nice it must be all the way up there!
Early fatherhood is allergic to plans. They always go awry.
One moment I think he’ll go down for a nap, and I’ll have some time to write. Next thing I know, he’s flopping around with more energy than a nuclear fission facility. When my wife and I plan to have a quiet dinner, he tends to interrupt with some opera singing. And if I’m ever stupid enough to fall into the trap of hoping for a restful sleep…well…that would be my own fault.
This tower closure is no different. In all of the other busted plans, I’ve come to realize that I’m generally okay and don’t always need what I think I do. I crave a few moments of silence to write, and yet I still write just fine in the chaos. I wish for a full night’s sleep, but I’m doing pretty well with the deprivation. Just one bite of food without a baby in my arm would be convenient, however I’m still eating plenty (and the heavier he gets, the more toned my left bicep becomes). Maybe my desires are unfounded, unnecessary, unimportant. Perhaps I can get along just fine regardless of circumstance.
I start to laugh. I’m up here not having the experience I’d hoped for. Part of me feels guilty. Should I really be playing in the wilderness while my wife changes blowout diapers and tries to get him to nap? Then again, can I be a complete, genuine, calm person without this?
There’s a part of me that wants to leave, run down the mountain, and get home as soon as possible. There’s another part that’s at peace, quite content, enjoying the solitude, and is comfortable here with my butt in the snow. The two are in opposition. They probably will be for years to come.
And that’s okay.
Eventually I start to feel warm and realize it’s time to get the blood flowing again. I say goodbye to the tower, thank it for providing shelter in an unexpected way, and begin heading southwest on my descent.
Going downhill in snowshoes is fun. As I slip and slide my way down the trail, I come to a section with a thinner treeline. Through it, I can see more mountains in the distance. Realizing this is as close as I’m going to get to a view, I stop for a moment to take it in.
Silence reigns without my footsteps or heavy breathing. The wind dies down. My mind has space to move.
At first, it projects to this summer, when my boy will be old enough for me to plop him into one of those dad hiking packs. He’ll get to experience a taste of adventure with me for the first time.
Years from now, he’ll be able to hold his own. I think of the first mountain I’ll take him up, then the second, and the third. Someday, he’ll be outpacing me, waiting for his old man to catch up. Which I will, with a huge grin the whole time.
If I’m lucky, when he’s old enough, we can go on bigger adventures together. There are plenty of dreams left unchecked on my list. Perhaps we can check them off together, as father and son. And I hope he has his own list that I can help him experience. Riding across the state, climbing the highest peaks in our region, backpacking on long trails—together, bonded, one.
I love being a present and dedicated father. It’s the best. And I’m also still my own person. If I lose myself to the day-to-day duties of parenthood, then I’ll be worse off for it—and so will my boy. I want him to know that he should live out his values, pursue his dreams, do the things that make him happy. I want him to see me doing the same—actions speak louder than words—and to experience the calmer, happier, better version of myself that comes home from the wilderness. If I lose that, then I lose a piece of myself, and he loses that, too. Neglecting this is unfair to all of us.
My sense of self starts to slip away. I feel one with the mountain and the sky. There is no separation between us. Just like how I feel one with my family. It’s this connection between loved ones, and nature, that makes life worth living. And any chance to experience it is worthwhile. Whether it’s around the dinner table with the people you love or alone on a frozen mountain under a canopy of trees. Even if it means living in the contradiction of needing both family and solitude. Connection like this should be pursued, nurtured, and cherished.
It turns out I never needed the tower, after all.
Pete Gierlach is a writer from upstate New York. He has spent much of his life exploring the forests of the Northeast, where he loves to backpack, paddle, and wander around any path his feet can find. He also runs the "Slow and Strenuous Dispatch", which focuses on living well in our fast-paced world. You can read his work at petegierlach.substack.com.
