Are We Crazy to Cross Such a Treacherous River?

My wife, Kasia, and I stood at the edge of the frozen river, contemplating our own mortality. The map had promised a footbridge, but all we saw were jagged slabs of ice, thrusting up at strange angles, as if the river had fractured, shifted and then refrozen. Beneath the ice, ever so faintly, we could hear the muffled rush of water.

We had been skiing for two and a half hours this past January to get to this spot, deep in the backcountry of the Adirondacks, and now we had a dilemma. Our route was a loop and we had almost completed it. The temperature was bitterly cold. If we crossed the river it would be a short, easy ski home. If we turned around, it would be another two and a half hours, much of it uphill. Did I mention we were both almost 50? It’s a dangerous age, when muscle memory mixes easily with hubris and self-deception. Bad decisions can result.

In a way, this moment was the whole point of the expedition — to escape the endless, quotidian routines of middle age. I mean, seriously: When did excitement become finding a four-pack of extra-fine wool blend socks at Costco for $16.99? (Though that is kind of thrilling.) Kasia and I had been together since college, for 28 years, and we’d been content. No affairs. No impulsive changes in career. No midlife crisis. But perhaps the challenge of crossing this precariously frozen river was, if not a crisis, then a summons. Perhaps we had been seeking this moment without even realizing it.

Initially, I was very much against crossing, for all of the obvious reasons. Kasia was slightly more inclined to consider the possibility. Kasia is funny this way. She is a medical school professor, whose outlook on life is generally governed by logic. Imagine if Dr. Spock had an iron-willed Vulcan daughter who loved scientific journals, the Arctic and Ironman competitions. That’d be my wife. But every so often, she gets this gleam in her eyes. It’s kind of a crazy look. A touch of summit fever. It’s spooky and kind of sexy, and deeply annoying all at once.

Together we tested the ice with our ski poles. Seemed pretty solid.

Our 100-pound golden retriever, Milo, outfitted in his sporty orange hunter’s vest, also poked around the edge of the ice and then looked up at us, the way dogs do, as if to say: You can’t be serious.

The whole scene evoked a powerful sense of déjà vu to half a lifetime earlier, when we stood at the edge of another dangerous waterway. We were in our late 20s and recently married. We were hiking the Kalalau Trail in Kauai, Hawaii. It was an arduous, 11-mile trek to a remote beach, where we’d camped for a few days. Then we turned around and hiked back along the same trail. Two miles before completing our journey, we encountered a stream called Hanakapiai. We crossed it on our way in, but since then there’d been heavy rains, and now the stream was flooded and had become a raging river. On the far bank, we saw a large crowd of backpackers. They were, apparently, too frightened (and too sensible) to attempt a crossing.