By Rachel Davis
The forest floor painted with colorful mushrooms, proof that beauty grows even in the dark.
Our daughter passed away in May of this year. A stillborn at 37 weeks. We were roughly two weeks away from meeting her. To say the loss was all consuming is an understatement.
Prior to starting a family my husband and I met while rock climbing in Texas and built an adventurous marriage based off every outdoor sport you can imagine- deep sea fishing in Florida, hiking Angels Landing in Zion, skiing Breckenridge every winter, etc. Outdoor adventures have always given us purpose, passion, and some really wild stories shared over fireside whiskey drinks. Naturally, when you get pregnant you have to scale the adventure down a bit. The 14-mile hikes soon turned into 3 miles, and then 1 mile. Rock climbing took a backseat to going to the movies, and we fished from shore instead of from turbulent offshore boats. But it didn’t matter, we would soon be teaching another human the joys of these activities.
When our plan didn’t turn out as we had prayed for, we became completely lost. This higher purpose you’re supposed to have gets completely taken away and you find yourself back to drinking in a brewery on a Saturday, hating every minute of it. Youd think we would have turned to our love of outdoor activities as a way to heal but sometimes the mental chatter is just too loud and makes planning even a simple weekend camping trip feel exhausting.
My 40th birthday was approaching and purely from FOMO I felt the need to do something to bring in the new decade. With a month to go we kicked around the idea of relaxing at a local hot spring or maybe taking a trip up to Banff to sit lakeside but in the back of our minds was Alaska, a dream trip that had yet to come to fruition. We booked the flights and only one night’s hotel stay and decided to wing the rest of the trip.
Standing in solitude by the ocean, finally feeling the world turn to color again,
On our second day we had about two hours to kill before we were to make our way to the Alaska Sealife Center in Seward. I opened Google maps and what quickly popped up nearby was Caines Head Trailhead 10 miles from where we were grabbing coffee.
My husband looked at the map and said, “It has 77 five-star reviews…seems legit”.
We were dressed to grab coffee, needing to kill time, and had two half-filled water bottles. When we arrived at the trailhead we quickly learned from two fellow hikers that the trail actually went 14 miles roundtrip.
In the past, my husband and I (lovingly) joked about other hikers we’d see starting a trail with half of a water bottle between them, wearing Keds sneakers, no coats no supplies. How could they not know what they were in for? We hysterically laughed that we had fallen so far from where we were and had become those hikers. We cobbled together what we could from our car- lightweight jackets, noisy items to ward off bears (just in case), and some extra water from discarded bottles from our gas station pit stops. Knowing a general trail and some basic photos from Google we took off.
The mossy green canopy that seemed to breathe life into us once again.
From the first few steps we were in awe of the dense mossy green trees, colorful mushrooms of all sizes, with offshoots from the trail that let you view the Kenai Mountains and the seals playing in the ocean below. Winding down the switchbacks of the Tonsina Creek Trail we crossed the familiar sounding bridge that the fellow hikers told us about and found ourselves starting in complete awe of a black rock beach.
A day prior, we had been inundated with people on the nearby Kenai Fjords boat tour and now we stood as if we were the only two people in Alaska.
The weather was moody, quiet and calm. The mountains stood powerfully before us. We walked silently on that black rock beach finally feeling alive for the first time since May. We were back, our sense of adventure was back, our spontaneity was back. After a period of being so low, it’s hard to describe how wonderful it feels for the world to be technicolor once again. We ran over the rocks, took photos of a bald eagle that proudly sat above us, and wound back through the 50 shades of green forest, stopping every now and again to feel gratitude for having that short period of time for us to be reminded of who we are, what we love and how to make a new memories.
We capped off the vacation with Denali, a park people dream of visiting, but nothing will ever compare to that short and unexpected trail, the vibrant green forest, the cliffside views, and our private black rock beach that brought fire back into our hearts and adventure back into our lives. We owe Alaska so much and can’t wait to return.
This story won the 2025 Alaska.org Story Contest prize for the category of "Moments of Awe & Wonder"
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