After a week spent in the Denali National Park backcountry photographing grizzly bears, moose and caribou, I was looking forward to couple of days relaxing at the Alyeska Resort, just an hour outside Anchorage. The renowned ski resort hosts hikers and mountain bikers in the summer, as well as a special kind of thrill seeker. A friend of mine booked me an experience that, unbeknownst to her, would fill me with absolute terror — walking the Veilbreaker bridges.
I don’t broadcast my various phobias to the world, this article notwithstanding, and I’ve been known to hike the occasional 14’er in Colorado. So my friend Meghan had no idea I dislike heights when she booked this experience for me. I don’t necessarily loathe heights, but my relationship to high places is a lot like my approach to meeting MMA fighter Jon Jones, should that ever happen: Avoid direct eye contact, and try not to provoke him. It’s funny that being 30 yards from a wild grizzly bear bothers me less than climbing a really tall ladder.
The two Veilbreaker bridges overlook the stunning Chugach mountain range, spanning a total of 410 feet, rising more than 2,500 feet above the valley floor. When I learned I’d be walking across the bridges, I thought the views would be enough to keep my nerves at bay. But after three other guests and I took the gondola near the top and one of the two guides handed me a harness to climb into, my anxiety really began kicking into gear.
The six of us climbed into an ATV and motored a few hundred yards more to the top, where the first bridge, nicknamed Christmas, awaited. Watching the first guide nonchalantly cross to the other side gave me hope; it couldn’t be that bad, right?
My three new friends — I’ll call them Alice, Flo and Vera — were a little older than me and definitely more boisterous. As each of them made their way toward the center of the bridge, they mercilessly teased and laughed at one another. It turns out women of a certain age have more in common with middle school boys than I may have thought. (“Did you hear that cable snap?” “Look down there! Is that a body?” “You put your harness on wrong! Don’t slip!”)
After a few selfies on the bridge, it was my turn to cross. Stepping onto the first bridge, I could feel it subtly swing. With each step, the swing got more and more pronounced. The strong wind gusts didn’t help matters either. One wrong move, one inadvertent slip and off you go into the abyss. (Luckily walkers remain attached to the bridge with the aforementioned safety harness.)
I’d taken my iPhone out to snap a few selfies of my own on the bridge, but after a few steps, I shoved it back into my pocket. I wasn’t taking any chances that I might drop it during a sudden gust. There was no way I would ever see it again if it fell to the canyon floor.
Even though the bridge is built with steel cables, I could only think of the rickety suspension bridge from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. (Spoiler alert: If you haven’t seen this 40-year-old movie, it doesn’t make it to the end.) I quickly learned the tread of the bridge wasn’t wide enough to walk across in a normal gait — I had to place one foot in front of the other, as if I were sneaking through a very cramped hallway. It was like the bridge was purposely designed for each person to step with intention. As I shuffled further across, I was gripping the cables so tight, I thought I might accidentally snap them myself.
The bridge was obviously secure, so why were my nerves so frayed? Our brains are hardwired to fear heights. Some mental health professionals and anthropologists believe that fear of heights, also called acrophobia, is a throwback from our caveperson days, when a fall meant certain death. Others say most of us have a long-forgotten memory of a painful fall from youth stuck in our brain’s CPU, causing a fault. Many of us admit that when we walk up to the edge of a mountain, there’s an underlying urge to jump, also known as high-place phenomenon.
I didn’t used to be afraid of heights. I spent summers climbing ladders and hanging out on roofs as a house painter during college, with nary a thought of falling. But after way too many trips to the emergency room for various fractures, sprains, disturbing hematomas and more (my right hand is held together by titanium screws and bailing wire), I’m not as cavalier about safety as I once was. I know all too well that gravity from the seat of a mountain bike can be a bitch. Gravity from a 2,500-foot suspension bridge? No thanks.
But courage isn’t the absence of fear; rather, it’s the will to carry on despite it. Even though I was uncomfortable, I forced myself to stop every few yards to take in the spectacular views of Turnagain Arm, multiple glaciers and the surrounding forest. A light fog moving in and out of the valley muted the colors but added to the atmosphere and drama of the landscape. I could smell the moisture in the electric air and tasted copper pennies in my mouth (although that could have been me having a stroke). With every footstep, more and more of the scene etched itself into my memory permanently.
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Getting to the end of the first bridge and unbuckling my carabiners from the cables, I felt an embarrassing sense of accomplishment. I literally just walked a couple hundred feet across a bridge that hundreds, if not thousands, of other visitors had previously. Thanks to the harness, there was little-to-no actual danger, even if my mind couldn’t fully comprehend that. After confirming our enthusiasm level hadn’t waned, the guides took us to the second bridge, New Year, where the previous scene would essentially repeat itself. This time around, my nervousness was about half of what it’d been 10 to 15 minutes before. As I clipped in for my second walk across the dizzyingly high bridge, I wasn’t exactly stoked, but more curious, as if my brain was trying to process how we weren’t dead yet and wanted to try it again for research.
Once again, Alice, Flo and Vera went first, continuing with their good-natured ribbing. When it was my turn to walk across New Year for the first time, there was a slight hesitation, then I began putting one foot in front of the other, faster than I had the first go round. While the first time felt like the pit in my stomach was dropping to the canyon floor, this time the fear manifested into a low-grade ulcer. I still wasn’t brave enough to take out my cell phone, but both guides and my new lady friends were taking photos for me. Reaching the end of the bridge, I realized that with the fear lessened, so had the sense of elation that I survived.
When it was finally time to cross over New Year again to return to a trail that would lead us to the ATV, my nerves were almost completely under control, and I was actually starting to relax, if just a little bit. Once again, both the terror and triumph had gone down several notches. When I made it over to the other side, I was relieved the experience was over, but also sad? Disappointed? Hungry? My brain wasn’t ready for it to end.
To recover from my ordeal on the bridges, I visited Alyeska’s Nordic spa that evening. I love Nordic spas, and Alyeska has a great one. As I went from the sauna to the cold plunge to the relaxing pools, I felt the stress of the afternoon melt away. Toward the end of the night, I chatted with two couples about the day’s activities, mentioning I’d walked the Veilbreaker bridges earlier.
“Wow, that seems scary,” one of them said. “I don’t think I could do that.”
I thought about my own experience and smiled. “It wasn’t too bad,” I replied with a shrug. “In fact, it was kinda fun.”
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