RickB.
Active member
I pulled my Bug into Pinkham in the dark, glad to have the long solo drive from Allston behind me. It seemed a shorter ride than most. The fickle, tinny AM radio had stumbled onto some decent stuff. And I was distracted by the prospect of trying one of the Forty-six, having completed them in the warmer seasons the year before. Winter was different, with few participants and higher stakes. I’d be with hikers I had yet to meet.
“Are you Rick?” I shook hands with Joe Creager, the AMC trip leader who’d been so enthusiastic on the phone, unobtrusively assessing my experience. A few other early arrivals introduced themselves. Our group ended up six strong.
After we had tucked our cars tight to the snow along the edge of Route 16 a few miles down, Joe skirted the high bank, disappeared and returned with a wry grin. The Stony Brook Trail hadn’t seen a footstep in weeks. Geared up, single file, we plodded up the driveway past the ramshackle houses into the deep, loose snow, each painfully aware of the need to do his share of the strenuous breaking. I was comfortable in my 60/40 parka and wool shirt, despite the cold. A good start!
Higher up, on the steeps, I took a long lead, ego temporarily trumping thighs. My wooden bearpaws were cutting a staircase into the slope and no one seemed in a rush to take over. In the scrub above, though, lead changes were decided by a higher authority. Spruce traps. The woman who’d been up front struggled in an armpit-deep crater and cursed mightily at it. I smiled, recalling the moral vetting I’d endured from an oh-so-proper sponsor to earn my AMC membership. We lost the route many times but Joe had a keen sense for its general location and he lifted our spirits with his relaxed confidence. We planted our long ice axes in front of us with each step as we waded up the angled gully, the final pitch to the summit, more than six hours after our departure.
After lunch, we boot-skied down the steep pitch near the top, mostly keeping our balance. “How did we ever do this without poles?” I asked Giff, my accomplice of so many years to so many adventures. He grunted and churned off, not wishing to engage in this worn-out dialog. Gary, another challenge to be met, closely tailed him. Sarah rolled her eyes at me knowingly; here we go again. With plastic snowshoes strapped to our packs, we marched down in the sidewalk-like conditions. I took a break and then lagged them by a bit, their distant, sing-song chatter rising to me from the trees on the ridge below as I reached the top of the south cliffs.
I had always lingered on Moriah’s south ledges. Now, something in their stark beauty released that ever-sought state of mind, in love with the mountains, with life, a sense of being a part of it all, not just an observer, visitor. Tears streamed under my sunglasses but I’d have hidden them from no one. My emotions ran free: Mum and Dad, Rachael, Joe Creager, so many others, gone; climbing with Steve in the Rockies, divorces, pets, dear friends, Sue, her chemo, life, flowing over and through me, neither words nor images.
I had dropped even further back and my friends were leaning on their poles at the Stony Brook intersection. “You OK?” “Yeah.” “Wish we were doing all the Forty-eight again this winter?” “Not at all. Too much like going to work.” The conversation spurred Giff anew and we charged after him down the packed trail, in time joining the relocated section around the McMansions and arriving at the plowed hiker parking lot and the Prius. We had completed our descent in less than two hours.
The trip had taken far longer.
“Are you Rick?” I shook hands with Joe Creager, the AMC trip leader who’d been so enthusiastic on the phone, unobtrusively assessing my experience. A few other early arrivals introduced themselves. Our group ended up six strong.
After we had tucked our cars tight to the snow along the edge of Route 16 a few miles down, Joe skirted the high bank, disappeared and returned with a wry grin. The Stony Brook Trail hadn’t seen a footstep in weeks. Geared up, single file, we plodded up the driveway past the ramshackle houses into the deep, loose snow, each painfully aware of the need to do his share of the strenuous breaking. I was comfortable in my 60/40 parka and wool shirt, despite the cold. A good start!
Higher up, on the steeps, I took a long lead, ego temporarily trumping thighs. My wooden bearpaws were cutting a staircase into the slope and no one seemed in a rush to take over. In the scrub above, though, lead changes were decided by a higher authority. Spruce traps. The woman who’d been up front struggled in an armpit-deep crater and cursed mightily at it. I smiled, recalling the moral vetting I’d endured from an oh-so-proper sponsor to earn my AMC membership. We lost the route many times but Joe had a keen sense for its general location and he lifted our spirits with his relaxed confidence. We planted our long ice axes in front of us with each step as we waded up the angled gully, the final pitch to the summit, more than six hours after our departure.
After lunch, we boot-skied down the steep pitch near the top, mostly keeping our balance. “How did we ever do this without poles?” I asked Giff, my accomplice of so many years to so many adventures. He grunted and churned off, not wishing to engage in this worn-out dialog. Gary, another challenge to be met, closely tailed him. Sarah rolled her eyes at me knowingly; here we go again. With plastic snowshoes strapped to our packs, we marched down in the sidewalk-like conditions. I took a break and then lagged them by a bit, their distant, sing-song chatter rising to me from the trees on the ridge below as I reached the top of the south cliffs.
I had always lingered on Moriah’s south ledges. Now, something in their stark beauty released that ever-sought state of mind, in love with the mountains, with life, a sense of being a part of it all, not just an observer, visitor. Tears streamed under my sunglasses but I’d have hidden them from no one. My emotions ran free: Mum and Dad, Rachael, Joe Creager, so many others, gone; climbing with Steve in the Rockies, divorces, pets, dear friends, Sue, her chemo, life, flowing over and through me, neither words nor images.
I had dropped even further back and my friends were leaning on their poles at the Stony Brook intersection. “You OK?” “Yeah.” “Wish we were doing all the Forty-eight again this winter?” “Not at all. Too much like going to work.” The conversation spurred Giff anew and we charged after him down the packed trail, in time joining the relocated section around the McMansions and arriving at the plowed hiker parking lot and the Prius. We had completed our descent in less than two hours.
The trip had taken far longer.
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