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Illustration by Alex Siklos
We all popped up like stunned gophers when our alarm sounded at 1 a.m. Through the hostel window, under a spackle of stars, was a glowing mountain peak that looked like a tooth on fire. A Mordor-esque mass, with a single twisting line of white lights pouring down like lava into the darkness.
“Daddy,” our nine-year-old daughter said, “are you sure we can climb that?”
“Absolutely,” I replied, stretching my arms to pull my wife and 10-year-old daughter into a family huddle. “We can do this.”
This was my fatherly, Clark Griswold moment, and I had to make it count.
The mountain is known to many as Adam’s Peak but to Sri Lankans it’s Sri Pada, translated from Sinhalese as the Buddha’s Footprint. For over a thousand years, the jagged, otherworldly massif has been an important pilgrimage destination for Buddhists, Hindus and Christians. The sunrise view from the top is pure magic: if timed right, a climber sees the shadowy outline of a perfect triangle on the Central Highlands to the west.
After two months of homeschooling and swimming on the southern beaches in the country, we were itching for a cool air adventure. We’d read that the seven kilometre hike to summit Adam’s Peak could be done in three or four hours, the trail consisting of 5,500 rough rock steps. A serious challenge, for sure, but one our fit family could surely handle.
Twenty minutes later we were on the dusty twilight road, thrilled at the novelty of exhaling clouds of misty air. We marched through the quiet riverside village, and when the trail entered a dark forest, we picked up our pace, passing shrouded Sri Lankan pilgrims with ease. Spirits high, we took the first series of stairs in stride.
“Daddy, look up there!”
The peak jumped out of the forest and stood almost vertical. That bright snaky line was the trail, and the trail was alive with human movement. A tingle of foreboding zipped through me.
“Who says we go for it?” I blurted out.
My wife, game for the challenge, chimed in. The girls followed suit, though with a more honest tone. I brought out the water bottles to change the subject. We were here, we’d set a family goal, we could do it!
From there, it was a blur of red handrails and flapping flags on strings. Whole families of bundled-up Sri Lankans trudged along, from hobbling, barefoot elders to young fathers cradling babies in their arms. We saw mothers and children fast asleep on the worn steps, young women in ski jackets and tuques huddled at rest stops, tea vendors stoic beneath the harsh lights. Two hours in, I could feel my leg muscles tensing, but the kids weren’t complaining. We kept climbing.
In our family stories, we often talk about the time when things “got real” at Adam’s Peak. Looking back, I can pinpoint it to a moment around 4 a.m., when we came up a particularly steep section and bumped into a mass of people standing still. Were they taking a break? A glance ahead showed us the path narrowed, the guardrails tightened and the pace slowed. A bottleneck.
The next hour was tense. As we merged with the crowd, my wife and I formed a shell around the girls, the silent mosh pit ascending at a step-a-minute pace in the cold darkness. An ember of optimism flickered in my mind, and I visualized us reaching the temple at the peak, maybe late for sunrise, but we’d be there. I could see it, so close, maybe two kilometres away, tops.
“Dad,” my younger daughter whispered, “I really have to pee.”
My wife and I made eye contact. We looked ahead at the sea of human forms wedged together, and I felt her hand grip mine a little tighter. I took a long, heavy breath. Then my dam of positive thoughts broke and reality flooded in. We nodded in unison, no words necessary.
“We’re turning back,” I said.
And that was that. We shuffled over to the guardrail and joined the single-file downward line, numb but also curiously relieved. By 5:30 we were perched on a cliffside just out of sniff range of a fragrant outhouse, facing east, waiting as the day’s first light seeped into the deep blue liquid of the night sky. We didn’t talk much, just watched. When the sun jumped out on the forested plains, our older daughter said “wow!” and pointed up.
Light struck the mountain and we could see the temple perched atop. Sri Pada, Adam’s Peak, in living colour. I noticed an old man in sandals plodding up the steps and I realized that this wasn’t our pilgrimage. At least not in a spiritual sense.
Our thwarted attempt to scale the mountain brought us together. We learned something about swallowing our pride. About knowing when to fold ‘em. About finding joy in simply giving it a go. What some call failure, we now call fun. It stung for a while, but today our foolish all night uphill marathon is the stuff of family lore.
And that, I wager, is always worth it. I’m sure Clark Griswold would agree.
RC Shaw lives in Cow Bay, N.S.
