46ERS New Book: Heaven Up-h’isted-ness!

Heaven Up-h’isted-ness!The History of the Adirondack Forty-Sixers and the High Peaks of the Adirondacks.


The new 46ERS book is now available on the Club’s revamped website (Thanks to volunteer webmaster Derek Ohanesian) http://www.adk46r.org/ with everything you want to know about this one of a kind volume here: http://www.adk46r.org/merchandise/heaven-up-h’isted-ness/

PS: Book is also and already available in Keene Valley at The Mountaineer and on Main Street Lake Placid at the BookStorePlus.

Thank you Kevin!

My copy arrived in the mail a few minutes ago and couldn't resist jumping right into it.
Even a brief look at the photos, layout, drawings, chapters....just a fabulous effort.
This 700+ page book is likely to be a masterpiece that belongs on the same bookshelf with 'Forest and Crag'.

At first I was intimidated by the book's shear volume, thinking I might finish it by the next 46er book issuance (~ every 20 years!) But it looks like easy, enjoyable reading. Thank you to the writers and editors for all of their efforts.

46ers #5246 and #5883

What is h'isted???

rup said:

What is h'isted???

Click to expand...

The term “heaven up-h’isted-ness” in the book’s title was coined by legendary nineteenth century Adirondack guide Orson “Old Mountain” Phelps to describe his feelings when standing atop Mt. Marcy, the highest peak in the Adirondacks. Phelps found standard English words inadequate to articulate the sense of joy and inspiration he experienced looking down from Marcy’s lofty summit. So he was moved to invent a phrase of his own.
You can read this on the book cover.

Yvon just beat me to it, so I will just a few of my own thoughts.

For me the expression refers to a light-headed sense of euphoria I have when I reach the summit of a mountain and gaze out over the view from the top. It is a bit of a hiker's or runner's high combined with the sheer joy of climbing. I believe it is a feeling familiar to most if not all hikers.

Specifically, h'isted is a contraction of hoisted, as in "heaven-up-hoistedness." Phelps was trying to say that he had the feeling of being hoisted to the heavens when on the summit of Marcy.

I hope the book is better than the title...