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 Scraping
Heaven: An Interview with Cindy Ross
Ali Travis
Cindy Ross is the author of the autobiographical work Scraping
Heaven, about her long-distance hiking trek along the continental
divide with her husband, her young children and a team of llamas.
I had a chance to speak with Cindy in December 2002.
Ali: Tell me a little bit your book Scraping
Heaven.
Cindy: Well, it's about our family's 3100-mile adventure
from Canada to Mexico through the Rockies along the continental divide.
The first 2500 miles we llama packed with our kids. Then, when we
got to the New Mexico/Colorado border, we traded our llamas for mountain
bikes and trailers, and rode the last 650 miles through the state
of New Mexico.
Ali: What made you decide that you wanted to
trek the Continental Divide in particular, rather than somewhere else?
Cindy: We started off on the Colorado Trail, which
is a separate trail from the Continental Divide. It was built by a
woman who wanted hikers to experience the heights of being above tree
line, but could come down out of the alpine every day into the timber
and get to a road. So she built this trail — part of it is the
Continental Divide Trail — but it is a trail unto it's own.
You can get out everyday if you wanted to in case something happened
to the kids or we got in trouble or someone got hurt or sick. So in
that sense it was a safe trail. We were still in the wilderness, but
we could still get out. The Continental Divide we could be up there
for two weeks without being able to get out and we would have to do
some major cross-country. So we found out about llamas and our kids
could ride them at a really young age and they could carry all our
gear including my son's cloth diapers.
My husband and I are serious long-distance backpackers. I have written five other books about the outdoors and hiking. We didn't want to quit after we had children. This was a great alternative for us because we could take the kids out there and introduce them to this life style that we love and not have to carry 300 pounds on our back.
Ali: The people you met, how did they react to
the llamas?
Cindy: Well, there is a lot of llama packing out
in the West. Even Pennsylvania itself has 200 llama breeders. There
are even more out West. They use them to hike and to build trails.
The one man who leant us our llamas the first year had 450 of them
and they use them for search and rescue. So people weren't surprised
to see llamas on the trail. However they were surprised to see such
young children on the trail. That was kind of strange for them.
 Ali: Your
son was a year-and-a-half and your daughter was three. This was your
first time going out on llamas. Were you concerned about your children's
safety, particularly on an adventure like this when you were entrusting
them to the llamas that you did not know too much about yourself?
Cindy: In a situation like that, it does not take
long to get comfortable and learn. Todd and I had tons of experience
on wilderness travel ourselves, and we knew how to take care of the
kids — the right kind of gear, the right kind of rain gear. We knew
all about hypothermia, so we weren't concerned about that.
As far as the llamas go, the one that my daughter rode, it was obvious in the first five minutes that he was a wonderful llama and I could trust him. No, we were concerned before we left, but we did a lot of research. We talked to wildlife managers and found out about the mountain lions and what do if we encountered them. And what to do with the kids. We just educated ourselves on how to keep every body safe, and once we were out there in the first five minutes it felt like home. I think they get in more trouble as far as getting hurt around the house. No one ever got hurt on the trail. No one ever got sick.
Ali: How old are your children now?
Cindy: They will be eleven and thirteen this month.
Ali: What do you think they got out of this trip
when they were only one-and-a-half and three years old then?
Cindy: Well, they finished when they were six and
eight.
Ali: That was in the end.
Cindy: Right. Even in the end, I don't know how much
they remember first hand. I have a multimedia show I put together
and they see a lot of slides and hear stories, so you don't know how
much they are simply remembering from hearing the stories.
I can see a difference the older they get and what they love, their spirit and what they appreciate. You can't travel through the desert for 650 miles and not have this totally new concept of water and shade and be grateful for it. My kids do. They learned to really get along and be creative and enjoy each other's company, because they were not a lot of external things out there.
They are incredible, creative kids and win all kinds of awards — national even — in drawing, writing and photography, so that's a big asset. They realize that there are certain things in life that you can't do much about and you just have to take care of each other and get through. They never whined out there. They could whine about supper, but when it came to a big storm they were troopers.
I know a lot of adults that don't have their priorities straight about what they think is important. It's countless about what my kids learned and how it effected them and is continuing to affect them the older they get. We didn't just take them out there to give them this experience for big memory, we did it so they could be changed internally in their formative years which is from age one to seven. I think it is then that has the most impact. So we will be seeing this forever.
 Ali:
What do you think this trip has taught your kids and family about
the environment?
Cindy: Well, my daughter wants to be a wildlife biologist,
so I think it's because of that they write all the time. Ali, it's
unbelievable the depth about how they feel about nature and the environment.
Any time they have a chance to write an essay, it's always about how
they need to care about the earth. They see not only how gorgeous
it is, but the peace and value it gives you — that it's really
important to protect.
Living back here in the East, they see clear cuts and everything. They know a whole lot more about how we can destroy the environment and why it is so special. A lot of people have said to me, "Your kids are going to be these incredible assets to world because of what they have seen and how they feel," and I hope that it goes into the environment. So much of that was there in their lives and in their face for so many years.
My whole mission is, "If we can take our babies across the roof tops
of America, surely you might think about pulling your children away
from the screen and have them rediscover some of the things that kids
used to do." You don't see kids playing outdoors anymore. Their lives
are so fast and full with practices and so much homework. They don't
go out in fields and watch clouds and build damns and creeks. I think
if kids don't feel comfortable in that environment, they are not going
to understand how valuable it is. They are not going to fight to protect
it. If we don't take them there and show them all the gifts, then
the whole environment and the natural world is going to be in trouble
down the road.
Ali: Cindy, you saw the joys and the dangers
of hiking with your young children. What advice can you give to parents
who want to get their children into the great outdoors, but aren't
that experienced at hiking and camping? What age would you suggest
it should be? Age one-and-a-half? Diapers? Or should they wait until
they are older?
Cindy: As soon as they are born, as long as it is
not the middle of the winter — even in the middle of the winter
as long as they are bundled up right.
We took our kids out immediately. Sierra went out on her first 75-mile
back packing trip when she was 3-months old, and she loved everything
about it — the wind and the leaves fluttering. She was calling
back to the crows at 3-months old. It was incredible.
As long as you take care of their needs, they can go out there at anytime. If you start too late, they won't even want to be in a backpack, if all of a sudden you throw them in there when they're like two. But, no, I think you should start immediately, because the outdoors is really supposed to be their home, not indoors — the house. Why wait until they are older?
I think the important thing is the adults get themselves an education — they learn how to take care of everybody out there, which could be simple as "bring a raincoat for everyone." You don't even go on a mile hike and all of a sudden your baby's getting hypothermia because he has on all cotton and you don't even have an umbrella or a raincoat. You have to be smart as a parent and you have to know that whole activity so you can keep everybody safe. So get a good book and go out by yourself before and learn something. Know where you're going on the trail. Go to a State Park where the trails are marked. Go to car camp before you go out. Do some camping where you leave the car for a half a mile. Take small steps where you build up your confidence.
Ali: For the five years you were doing this trail,
you would go out each summer for about three months each time. At
one point in the book you spoke about how one summer every thing was
going wrong and you cut your trip short. At that point did you think
you would not finish the trail, or that you may put it off for more
than a year?
Cindy: Well, we only cut it short about a week. We
thought about taking a year off, but that would have been the most
we could do. The last two years Sierra was too big for our llamas.
We only had mid-weight llamas. We had to borrow a huge llama for her
to ride, that's how much bigger she was getting. Normally you can
only ride until you are 60 pounds. After that you can't get up, not
unless you have a monster llama. So we knew that every year we waited
it was going to get harder and harder for her to ride.
We thought we could take a year off if we had to, but that summer
that was so hard on us and we came home early. A lot of it has to
do with the conditions that you are under when you are out there,
because every summer was different. That particular summer that was
so hard on us that we came home early had to do with a really bad
mountain. The trail was supposed to be finished, but there was a cliff
with big callus rocks and they said it was impassable. We did not
know if we could do it and Todd was worried about it. The entire summer
he was worried about it. So that kind of stress can undermine your
whole trip.
Every summer there were different challenges and that particular one was scary to him as the trail boss, because he was reading about it and knew it was his ultimate responsibility to take us across and keep us safe. But by the time we got home and regrouped and recharged we were ready to go back the next year.
At any time in your life you go through cycles where you have high energy and low energy. It is just that particular year it was a little rough.
Ali: Do you think that your friends and family
are closer now? How would you describe the bonding that went on out
there in the wilderness because it had to have been far greater than
being in the city?
Cindy: One particular time we were with our friend
Bob. We had to ford this one river twenty-four times in one day. My
husband looked like he was getting trench foot, so you have to stop
and take off your boots and squeeze out your socks. You go through
all the hardships together, and at the end of the day when every body
is exhausted, everyone feels exactly the same way. It's not like when
you are on your job and they're at school and you don't know what
happened.
Sometimes I get in bed with my daughter and she will be really bitchy with me and act like everything I do is wrong. Then if I stay there long enough she'll tell me that some girl made fun of her in school. But unless she communicates that with me I don't know that; we are not at the same place. That can't happen when you are out there on the trail. You go through every joy and every hardship together. That brings you really close and it's closer than having a normal marriage in this life because you are together twenty-four hours a day.
So the friends that hiked with us out there have always treated my kids like people instead of like children. My children have best friends now. Our friends are their best friends. They are just as happy and our friends are just as happy to spend the whole day with them, and Todd and I not even being there — all from this experience with them out there. My friend Chuck is in his twenties and hiked with us a couple of times. The kids and him adore each other.
I think that it is really important for kids to have relationships
outside their peer group, because there a lot of different ages and
they all have values. That's one of the problems my kids have —
is to have twenty people the same age in school in their face disturbs
them. They like more variety, they like different kinds of personalities,
different interests, ages and stuff. That's one of the things about
this whole experience you could say is a negative thing, just because
of the way our society is structured. They would have to wait until
they got into college before they feel more comfortable in that school
environment. Because grade school is so cut and dry and regimented
and that's not how they live out the rest of their lives.
Ali: What would you consider one of the funniest
times of this trip?
 Cindy:
I think my son was one of the biggest crack-ups to me. To see him
go down the trail and walk from one end of the trail to the other
and make up stories and sing songs in his head. At one time he found
a horseshoe and he pulled his cuff down over his hand and held this
horseshoe in his hand and made believe he was Captain Hook. He walked
down the trail for like a couple of miles and he had so much energy
and enthusiasm and he made up stories about Captain Hook. I looked
at him and his socks were all the way down in the tips of his shoes
and he was totally oblivious to it, he was just having fun in his
own little world.
The kids really made me laugh a lot out there, to see them be able to have their personality and spirit allowed come through. To see them to have their personality and their spirit come through to just have hours and hours to think and dream and play, I think is wonderful for kids. So that was one of the funniest things, to just watch these kids and see how they behaved and just to be with your kids that long. You have different smattering pieces of it whether you're having dinner with them or you're putting them on the bus. It's just not the same when you have the whole day and night with them and then you really get to learn their little personalities.
Ali: What plans do you have for the future? What
mountaintop are you going to take over next?
Cindy: This summer we are going to Canada. From the
Glacier National Park border we are going to hike north through the
Canadian Rockies for 500 miles. They say they make our Rockies look
boring compared to the Canadian Rockies. I've seen them already and
they are gorgeous.
So Bob is going with us and all our normal regular hiking friends
will be meeting us in Canada. We have to find llamas in Canada because
we can't take our boys across the border because they would have to
be quarantined. So we are going to do that and we want to write another
book. We want the whole family to write. Everyone is going to keep
a journal, and I don't know if you read Barbara Kingsolver or not
but she has a bestseller called The Poisonwood Bible, where
she wrote from all four of the kids' and the father and mothers' points
of view what was happening at that time in their lives. Something
like that where the whole family contributes to the book with their
experiences.
Ali: Well that book I can't wait for.
Cindy: Well that way it would appeal to all different
ages too, at least that's what we are hoping for. I'm also going to
do a children's book on the American Continental Divide. What is was
like for my kids to ride a llama across the Rockies. My background
is in fine arts painting, so I'm going to paint all of the illustrations.
So that's on the agenda for next year, too.
Ali: One last question, and this question is
designed to keep everybody out there wondering what I'm talking about,
because I want them to pick up the book. How is Bryce, and I'm not
talking about your son here? It's been four years since this incident
at the very end of the book. I read the entire book. That was the
only trouble you guys got into and it had me on the edge of my seat.
Cindy: Bob, unfortunately, I believe had to get rid
of him. He was never able to pack again. I believe he was left emotionally
disturbed.
Ali: Oh that is so sad… Again, I strongly recommend
Scraping Heaven. It's great for the family, the environment.
If you want to reach into someone's world and learn how the wilderness
can bring different personalities together for life, pick this one
up. Thank you, Cindy, and I wish you the best of luck on your next
trail and upcoming book.
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