Evening Flattop climb with 13-year-old proves rewarding

I pointed out Flattop Mountain to my 13-year-old stepdaughter as we drove the Seward Highway last week.

"See the one that looks like the top of the mountain got sawed off?"

"Yea," she said. Anyone who hangs out with teenagers knows that "yea" has many different implications depending on the tenor. This "yea", surprisingly, was not the disinterested, flat "yea" I'm used to hearing in response to my outdoor interests. It had a curious lilt to it, a subtle but definite question mark at the end, suggesting some interest. It sounded more like "yeah."

So I ran with it.

"It would be fun to do a ladies' hike up Flattop. A late-night hike."

She shrugged and pursed her lips, nodding. "Yea."

This "yea", while not conveying any more enthusiasm than necessary, was an open door. I ran through it. As soon as we parked, I checked the forecast for the week, texted a friend and asked if she wanted to go. We set a date.

It made running errands that day a lot more palatable, knowing there was an only-in-Alaska weeknight adventure set to start at 9 p.m. Tuesday.

When I was younger, night hikes in Alaska were no big deal. I considered staying out until 3 a.m., while driving back from a trailhead, and then getting up at 8 a.m. to slide into work. Midnight sun, after all, shouldn't be wasted on sleeping.

These days, I have the same Costco blackout curtains as every other Alaskan who finds herself in the curious position of needing sleep, even in summer. When I wake up in the morning, I'll often see pictures posted online of friends getting out there in the wee hours of weekday mornings. The alpenglow is stunning. The poses are victorious, and the mountains are jagged and seemingly endless.

I feel a twinge of jealousy, then I make myself coffee and clean something and maybe go for a run. I get all the hours of sleep I need, but I feel like I've lost something. So this hike was significant. To me, it was reclaiming a small sense of that freedom I once felt — or maybe the Alaska mid-summer recklessness.

[Check out our interactive map of hiking trail conditions in Southcentral Alaska]

By 9 p.m. on the evening of our big hike up 3,510-foot Flattop, Alaska's most-climbed peak, we were running late. My stepdaughter was tugging the laces as tight as they would go on an ill-fitting pair of borrowed sneakers. I loaned her a non-cotton T-shirt, and she wrinkled her nose, saying, "I can smell the sweat." My friend, meanwhile, was negotiating bedtimes for a baby and a toddler. As she got in the car at 9:30, she announced, "This was very close to not happening for me."

The incredible June sun and warm weather made it difficult for any of us to back out. We pointed the car toward the Glen Alps trailhead.

Here's the thing they don't tell you about Flattop: It may be Alaska's most frequently hiked mountain, but it's not a beginner-level hill. There are rescues from the top nearly every year.

That said, the sight of parents carrying a toddler under one arm on the way down isn't unusual. We passed hikers who appeared to be on a date, parents with toddlers appear to have mastered an incredible feat of balance. There were tourists, runners, tiny people, big people, white, black, and brown people, people wearing creased L.L. Bean khakis and others sporting flip flops. It's inspiring to see Anchorage in all its diversity enjoying the trail.

Are all of the people hiking up and down Flattop exercising the best judgment? Modeling good "Leave No Trace" ethics? Ensuring that they are responsible for themselves so no one has to be called into help? No.

But it always makes me so happy to see so many people, beyond the typical Patagonia-outfitted crowd, on the mountain.

We took few stops — pausing a couple times for a quick water break or to take photos, but we didn't exactly examine the flowers (and there are many right now, by the way). We had momentum, coupled with a mix of excitement and anxiety. My stepdaughter, who was climbing her first mountain, and my friend, who had never been all the way up to the top and was worried about the hand-over-foot part. We basically charged up the mountain, my friend leading the way and my stepdaughter very gamely following along, joking that she was good at finding all of the loose rocks underfoot (two terms learned on this hike: scree and false summit).

I was as surprised, as I think my stepdaughter was, when we reached the top and looked around at the now 360-degree view, with the sun beginning to set over the mountains and Cook Inlet. "I liked this," she exclaimed.

I've always been cautious about sharing the extent of my love of the outdoors with my stepdaughter. I didn't want to throw her in the deep end of the pool and have her hate it, so the hikes we took together were measured and reasonable. As we rolled up to the house at 1:30 a.m. Wednesday, I realized that, for her, the effort to get to the top and that payoff once she was there was similar to what I love about hiking up mountains.

Next time, she'll have her own pair of sneakers.

Alli Harvey lives, works and plays in Anchorage.