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There is an elegant rock rib on the west side of Mount Owen in the Tetons that climbers know as Serendipity Arete. It rises 1,500 feet from Valhalla Canyon, or the “hall of the gods.” Together with three friends Tobey Carman, Tobey’s dad Peter, and Renan Ozturk, I climbed it back in 2002, sleeping near the summit on our way to the North Ridge of the Grand Teton, as part of a three-night traverse in the range.
But this story isn’t about my journey up that sweep of rock, rather, that of two others who were there a few years before me, and how that massive hunk of stone converged with time and a red, home-sewn backpack to bring us together. Or, perhaps it’s that we came together around those things, circling until the red backpack went home.
Three years before me, before I knew him, the man who is now my husband, Pat, climbed Serendipity Arete. Instead of taking the longer route up Valhalla Canyon and sleeping at the base as we did, he cut through a thick forest of scrubby spruce trees, aiming to get to the start of the climb more directly. On that bushwhack, Pat found a red backpack snagged in a tree, and carried it with him, taking it up many big routes over the ensuing decade, including the Yosemite testpiece Astroman.
I eyed that backpack in the gear closet for years, thinking it looked suspiciously like a pack of Tobey’s that his Uncle Dave, a long-time guide in the Tetons, had sewn. It took a while to get the full story out of him, and by then, my suspicions had sharpened, but at that point, I didn’t know Uncle Dave well enough to ask.
Eventually, I took it over as my gym bag, and then as a diaper bag when our first child was born. Several years later, my family met up with Tobey’s, including Uncle Dave, to climb in the Big Horns in Wyoming. At one point, as we rested on the trail with the kids, the red pack popped into my head.
I looked from Pat to Uncle Dave and back again.
“Dave,” I said. “I have a sneaking feeling we have a backpack of yours — not with us here, but back at home.”
He perked up.
I began the story and then passed it off to Pat to explain where he’d found the pack.
“That was the best one I ever made!” Dave said. He’d taken that bushwhacking cutoff too, while guiding a client. The red pack, strapped to his larger overnight bag, had caught on that bush and fallen off, where Pat found it.
Back at home, we sent photos of the pack to an overjoyed Uncle Dave, and promptly shipped it to him, reuniting them after 20 years apart. As far as he was concerned, it was still as good as ever.
As I think about this story, so many things had to happen for this to come together.
Do you ever think about the role of serendipity in your life? Of chance versus choice? Of who do meet — and who you don’t?
One friend, photographer Tori Pintar, has said that when she pays attention to serendipity, it feels more abundant, which on one hand I agree with.
And yet, I can't help but think about the conditions too: Like what a privilege it is to enjoy and take advantage of serendipity. How even the idea of free will is contradicted by the systemic injustices woven into modern culture, which affects whether something is serendipity, choice, or not.
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photos: A mix of prints from my trip up Serendipity, Pat with the red pack just before we sent it back to Dave, and Tobey and Pat at that spot on the trail where we put all together, and Uncle Dave playing guitar for his great-niece in Joshua Tree.
