Facing Fears & Growing Up at Amicalola Falls

Over the past year, I've been working on my fitness levels, with the goal of reigniting my once-hobby of hiking and backpacking.  As part of this adventure, this Summer, I gathered the family and we went on a hike to the top of one of our local waterfalls, Amicalola Falls. Amicalola being only a 2-hour drive from our home, we made a spontaneous day trip of it, expecting to have a pleasant dive, a brief but enjoyable hike, and some chill-out time in the woods.  We got most of these things. We also got a bit more.

On our way up the mountain, the path split. To the left was an almost ethereal-looking tunnel through low-hanging branches. To the right was a path that turned suddenly enough that, in my already-exhaustion from the heat, I missed seeing. We turned to the left.

As we bent over and made our way onto this path that looked like a scene from a fantasy novel, I felt an excitement I should have recognized as the excitement of going off-trail. I should have known. But I was lost in the moment and it did look like we were on a path, if not the path, so we kept moving forward.  It wasn't long before we realized we had encountered a Jack Frost moment and taken the path not traveled. Truly, we had taken a path that was hardly a path at all.

We found ourselves on narrow footholds, grabbing onto young trees on an increasingly steep slope. A couple of times, we had to backtrack to find where we had diverged from the thin, worn line that we were interpreting as the trail. Eventually, though, we lost the path altogether.

This whole time, we had been encouraging and supporting the J-Rex as she became increasingly nervous.  In a way, her lack of perfect vision had allowed her to see what we weren't: She couldn't see the path at all. We saw something small and assumed it was still a valid trail. She knew quite a bit earlier than me that we were well on our way to getting lost on the side of a mountain.

When the adults of the group finally realized the same thing the J-Rex had known all along, we were all getting tired. We had been "lost" now for over 30 minutes. The exhilaration of exploring off-trail was replaced with frustration and the reflection of the fear we were seeing take over our daughter.  The J-Rex was truly afraid. She was nervous because she couldn't see her footholds well, she has little sense of direction in the woods due to lack of experience in her short life, and she was terrified we were going to be spending the night on this steep slope on the side of the mountain because we wouldn't be able to find our way back.

I don't know how another parent would handle their child's fears when the fear is, honestly, not

unreasonable but our response was to split the responsibilities. The hubs reassured the J-Rex that he was going to find us the best path back to where we needed to be and wandered off to see if there was a trail that picked up anywhere near us.  I stayed with the J-Rex, pulled out some water and a snack, and talked.  As someone who tries to practice honest parenting, I let her know that I was a bit nervous, too. I explained that I trusted both mine and her dad's instincts in the woods and that we would make our way back to the main trail but her feelings were legitimate. It was OK to be scared.

We talked about what we could do to reduce the fear: We could focus on the positive…the woods were beautiful and there were so many interesting things to look at.  We could distract ourselves with practical concerns such as making sure we were hydrated and fed, sending her dad to seek out a trail, and listening for sounds that might help us such as the laughter and shouts of other hikers or the rushing of water. Still, the J-Rex was shaky with fear.

So we started singing. Like Dory in Finding Nemo, we discovered together that our best bet for staying focused on getting out of those woods without letting ourselves be paralyzed by our fears was to simply make up a song and sing it as we moved along. By the time we found our way back to the tunnel of low-hanging branches we had initially come through, the J-Rex was looking upon the whole experience as exciting and fun instead of scary and dangerous.  She conquered her fear with love, trust, and song. We found our way back. We were all proud of ourselves and each other.

On the main trail now, we still had a long hike to the top of the waterfall.  On our way, and for all the working on my fitness I'd been doing, I watched as my husband and child ran and hiked in equal measure while I kept falling farther and farther behind.  I had to stop and catch my breath several times. Each time I did, I would have to shout for them to please wait for me and I would simply stop moving for a moment, beating myself up about how this should be easier for me. I should be more fit than this. The hubs could tell what I was doing as he watched my shoulders slump, my confidence slip away, and my enjoyment of our mountain adventure dissipate. He stopped me. Told the J-Rex to run up ahead if she liked but to stop and wait before she reached a turn in the path where she would be out of our sight.  He turned to me and reminded me that I was doing better than I would have been a year ago. I needed to let go of the "shoulds" and start enjoying the journey. Just like life.

As with so many things, this was easier said than done, but, as we approached the top and began stopping at every breathtaking (and, for my winded self, breath-giving) vista to gaze into the valley below, I stopped worrying, regained my stride, and finally did allow myself to simply enjoy the journey as I had set out to do.

Finally at the top of the mountain and the source of the waterfall, we stopped to have lunch. The J-Rex bit into an apple and, immediately, as if it was symbolic of the journey we had just taken up the mountain and the lessons we were learning along the way, a tooth that had been hanging loose in her mouth for a year finally fell out! We got lost in the woods, the J-Rex faced her fears, we climbed to the top of a mountain, and her last front baby tooth was lost. My little girl smiled, tooth gapped and bloody, and she was as big as I had ever seen her before.

We looked at the waterfall from our vantage point at the top - or, rather, the J-Rex and her dad did while I stayed as far back as possible. You see, I have an extreme fear of heights - a fear that manifests in the physical symptom of vertigo. I found out, as I watched my husband and child lean over a railing at the top of an enormous waterfall, that my fear extends outside of myself as well. I was terrified for them, shaking with fear that they would simply pitch forward and fall to their deaths. Knowing this was irrational and doing my best not to impose my own fear on my family, especially after having helped the J-Rex conquer her fear of getting lost in the woods just an hour earlier, I just had to turn my head
and look away.

Then, my two beloved companions announced that they would like to walk the 600 step staircase straight down the side of the waterfall on our way back. This made sense - of course it did - this was by far the best way to view the waterfall in all its glory. But when I stepped foot on the first step of that steep and winding staircase, my legs began to turn to jelly, my heart started pounding, I gripped the railing with both hands, and I wondered if I could make myself do it. For my family. For my child, who I had just taught an important lesson about pushing through fear. I had to.

I let the two of them go on ahead. I did the only thing I could do. I held the rail with two hands, looked only at my feet and the stair in front of me, and slowly, ever so slowly, began to put one foot ahead of the other. I couldn't move when others were passing me on the stairs - I just flattened myself against the side and let them go on. As I went from one step to the next, I counted them. I counted every single one of those 600 steps. One at a time. To keep myself calm.

By the end, I had involuntary tears streaming down my face, I had not seen one bit of the beautiful scenery the J-Rex and the hubs were delighting in, several strangers had noticed my struggle and spoken kind words of encouragement as they passed, and I had walked down a staircase on a cliff-face. I had faced my fear, too, that day. It was…exhilarating.

At the base of the waterfall, we all needed a rest.  We each needed to bask in our accomplishments for a moment and to relax and enjoy what had been a much harder hike than we had anticipated in so many ways. Taking turns, we mediated on the rocks. We splashed and played in the cool water. We strolled through the final stretch of woods back to our car, stopping to take pictures of flowers and bugs along the way. Everything felt transformed and our world looked quite a bit brighter than when we had begun.

The J-Rex fell asleep on the car ride home. The hubs and I rode silently together, lost in the memory of our beautiful day. The J-Rex and I faced our fears, the hubs felt reassured in his role as protector by having found the trail back out of the woods when we were lost and enjoying the sights with the J-Rex when I could do nothing but focus on my feet…we all grew up just a little bit extra that day. And we were grateful, tired, and happy for it.