My ‘Final Ascent’
My NH48 4K Submission Essay
I woke early in the crisp cold morning in Dry River campground ready to ascend my final peak of my New Hampshire 48 and began to prepare for the day I would reach my big goal for the year. In 2020, I finished the year by climbing Maine’s 14 4K peaks and had found a new love of mountain climbing that had devoured weekends climbing and many evenings planning to accomplish my goal of completing all 48 in a single calendar year.
This one would be a bit different. I was moving into “Shoulder Season,” that period between fall and winter when its cozy warm in the valley and frozen and blustery on top. The forecast was not bad – 15 mph winds and temperatures hovering between 25 and 30 at the peak, but those forecasts were often good joke material for hikers on those peaks experiencing the real conditions. Prepare for everything, I had learned. I changed out of my sleeping layers into my hiking layers in my tent after I had my breakfast and prepared for my hike up Carrigain. Dang! I had forgotten my White Mountain Guide that I usually had with me, so I was going to fly a little blind since I had not read the official trail description (more about that impact later!). Without service in Crawford Notch, I would have to make do until I climbed high enough to get a signal.
I did some stretching to get the kinks out, trying to determine if I was about to overdo it. Yesterday I had climbed Canon and the Kinsmans and had decided to try to finish the next day. Despite the miles, I felt refreshed and ready, no, eager to take on the final peak in this journey. But don’t get me wrong. This is the final peak in my first run-through of the famed New Hampshire 48, but it will not be the last. Though I may visit some of them a bit more frequently than others. Some (like all of Franconia Ridge) I need to visit on a day where I can see them and see from them! I was ready for Carrigain, which I had saved for last based upon the purported views. Isolation I had done earlier, thinking that winter would make late ascent up Glen Boulder more difficult than I cared to try for my first ascent.
I arrived at the trailhead for Signal Ridge Trail without having read the Guide, and believing I had not downloaded my Guthook map. I pulled out my Garmin app. It showed that the trail started on the other side of the bridge… but the sign was here. Dang! The Garmin map was old, and the trail must have been rerouted. Press on, there is a clear trail to follow, and I have 10 miles to finish (or was it really 10.6?).
The great part about hiking solo (I did 45 of the peaks solo) is that you get tons of thinking time. The actual act of putting one foot in front of the other, especially on level ground, is not a brain taxing job, and Signal Trail has 2.6 miles before the going gets steep. As my mind wandered, I breathed deep the late fall feeling of the forest and drank in the playful sunlight sprinkling through the leaf remnants.
My daughter had asked my wife the other day, “Why is he doing it? Is it a fitness goal to achieve, something he likes to do, or is he trying to get something out of it?” She is studying ecofeminism and while I do not fully understand ecofeminism, I can understand some of her concerns. As I was climbing up Carrigain, I asked myself that question, because it is not a simple answer. I could give Thoreau’s answer and say I went to the mountains to “live deep and suck out all the marrow out of life” but that seemed a bit much. While I do bring the desire to learn what the mountains teach (and I learned a few lessons this year!), the routing and sucking and shaving that Thoreau was after seemed a bit more violent that I was after.
I have found that bringing a meditative approach to knowing the mountain has served me better than a consumptive approach. Runner Tommy Rivs speaks to the great balance between plants and animals, how the exhalation of plants (Oxygen) becomes the inhalation of animals, and the exhalation of animals (Carbon Dioxide) becomes the inhalation of plants. This balance is a mutual dependency and a collaboration, a cohabitation of the earth that we have upset without fully understanding. I go to the woods, to the mountains to do my own sort of forest bathing, to restore some of the balance within myself.
But that day, I started a little askew. I started looking for the trail junction too early. The trailhead sign says it is at 1.7 miles, and after crossing the brook and almost getting lost, I was looking for a trail junction to validate my path. I decided I had missed it and turned around. I even almost convinced a couple of women hikers that we had missed it until one of them mentioned a “recent trail reroute.” Then I remembered how the other reroute was not on my Garmin map and I admitted to them that my maps might be out of date. Fortunately, one of them had copied the Guide pages and pulled them out to assure us there was indeed a trail reroute and the junction was now at 2 miles! We turned back around and found the junction a short distance down past where I had turned around. Later I realized that I had indeed downloaded my Guthook Maps, I just needed to refer to the Pemigewasset Wilderness ones not the Presidential ones! Things were looking up! And that’s when the trail turned into a stair master.
I talk to the mountains as I climb them. Maybe some people would think that weird, but I introduce myself and say hello to the mountain as I begin my climb. I am not an animist, nor do I believe in the personhood of the mountains, but there is a presence and a glory to get to know. As I seek it out, I invite the mountain to teach me about itself, that I may come to learn what type of personality it has. By the 48th peak, I feel like I could begin to feel personalities of some of the mountains, distinguished personalities. While many of them might be similar, none are pure clones.
Having visited Katahdin as a child and having climbed it at least 8 times, I have come to understand its peculiar personality. It is fickle and not to be trifled with, but it also has quite a sense of humor. This morning I felt that Carrigain was going to make me earn my ascent, but I felt a sense of wonder waiting to be revealed as well. I was not wrong.
As I climbed, the temperature dropped and at some point, the puddles of water were less puddly and much more sparkly. Now I had to watch for icy spots that could trip me up. The wind picked up also as I achieve more elevation—cold dry wind against my sweat-soaked t-shirt. Hike faster I thought, but eventually I had to put on my fleece to stay warm in the wind, despite my exertion.
As I hiked, I thought about the impact we have on the mountains. The Pemigewasset wilderness was full of old logging evidence as much of that valley had been logged before becoming protected. You could almost feel the forest’s exertion to heal and grow wild again. When I hiked out to the Owl, it was during leaf-peeping season, and every one of the porta-potties set out were full and trashed by the number of people that had come through Lincoln Woods Trailhead. I have seen more toilet paper and human feces this year than I care to mention – why can’t people control themselves? Every hike I brought out someone else’s trash. Every hike I found evidence of people not treating the mountains as they should. Our impact on these mountain trails and the animals is not a small one. Almost to Lincoln Wood trailhead, I witnessed one family of leaf peepers allowing their son to use a stick as a sword on a living bush. No one said anything. Neither did I, but I finished my hike angry that day.
Do we do a good thing my climbing these mountains? By having these lists? I do not like to call myself a “peak bagger.” I ran into a hiker on Canon that talked about doing the Tripyramids the next day, then Moosilauke on Monday because it was raining. He said he had seen the views, he just needed to bag the peak for his grid. Now, I am not against the grid, I may yet do it, but I loved the Moosilauke hike so much, that talking about “bagging” that peak seemed sacrilegious, like objectifying a woman, or stereotyping a particular individual. It just seemed wrong.
Then there is the question of the grey jays. I have always been a bird lover and feed them in my backyard, but these jays seem extra special. Do you feed them? Should you feed them? Let me say, the first time they came to my hand on Hancock was a thrill of delight and amazement. As I came to the first viewpoint on Signal Ridge that day there was a jay that watched me take in the view. He was looking to see if I had food. I pulled out the pistachios I brought for him and put one in my hand. He came and took it and flew off to stash it. I got a few more nuts in my had and got my phone at the ready to get his picture. He came before I was ready, and I had to tell him to wait. He looked put out as he cocked his head at me from the top of a spruce with that beautiful view behind him.
I said, “Come and get it” and opened my hand, taking pictures as he landed and filled his cheeks. I think he will be fine. He was a delight to meet and a wonder to see him against such a view. The wind had virtually died as I crested the ridge and the sun was out and powerful, beginning to melt the ice on the rocks. Walking across Signal Ridge was one of those times you have in the whites where you know you need to keep moving, but the view is so good you are worried you will trip and fall because you cannot stop gawking at it! It only seems to get worse the nearer you are to a cliff edge or dangerous fall.
But the wonders of Carrigain were not over and neither was the ascent. The trail descends into the woods, but it is a delightful ascent to the south summit. As I approached the tower, a feeling of relief, accomplishment and delight at the mountain overwhelmed me and I had to pause for a moment before I climbed the icy tower steps to take in what was an amazing view. The sun had not yet melted the frost from the tower boards, but I held onto the railing and walked a full circuit. I had done it! The list was completed!
The wind had picked up a bit, so I dropped down to the campsite (the old warden cabin site?) for my lunch and greeted other hikers on their way up. I sat there as light snowflakes danced in the sunbeams and just soaked in the moment, the forest, the smell of the partially frozen moss and the smell of the spruce and balsams. I sat there breathing in the phytoncides, killing any stress that I had not sweat out on my way up. While forest bathing may be new to some, I grew up in the North Woods and spent whole days reveling in discovery of little glens in the forest, breathing in pine, covering my hands in sap as I climbed and drinking like Gideon’s men from brooks when I was thirsty. Coming to the mountains to me is coming home to where I fully exist. It is a place to remind me of who I am.
The past year was not just a year of COVID19. Since I began this mountain quest, I lost my stepfather to cancer and my father to Parkinson’s. I have had times where I was not OK and times where I was ok and times where I felt like I knew where the universe was true. The last of those feelings is best felt on a mountain. I climb mountains to come to know them, to know myself and to know the truth of the universe and my place within it. I climb just to be, and to be one with all.
