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| You can see them if you look carefully and in the right places. They are people of an age almost totally ignored by adventure magazines and the advertisements for hiking boots. Yet there they are, semi-elderly folk drifting through mountain sports equipment stores. They regard dangerous ice axes, glamourous ropes and mysterious carabiniers with longing. They watch with wonder as bold children and hairy young men scramble up to the ceiling on artificial indoor mountains. The shy spectators in brand-new cargo pants have never swung out over a rocky gorge as they scrabbled for tiny toeholds, and probably will never do so. I know this because I am one of them.
We have been reading Jon Krakauer's best-selling Into Thin Air, leafing through Outside magazine and flocking to the IMAX movie, Everest. We are obsessed by the Himalayas and other Alps. Now and then we are the topic of sarcasm, as much younger and stronger writers claim that we are somehow polluting Nevertheless, we heartily admire those hardy sherpas and their ferocious pack animals. Sometimes we wonder if we might need a sleeping bag with a sub-zero rating and an adorably tiny gas stove just in case the electricity fails in a snowstorm.We buy a lot more Polartec clothing than we actually need. I treasure my jacket. It has "Black Diamond" embroidered on it and, putting aside the lamentable fact that I look like a black velvet basketball in it, it is my favorite garment of all time. Except, of course, for my Teflon-lined snow pants, in which I shovel snow from my sidewalk. I am tempted by snowshoes which appeal not only to my sense of adventure but to my need to slog out to the mailbox on winter days. As you can see, my very clothes proclaim my fascination with things above the tree line. I am not alone in my regard for alpine objects. There can't be enough mountaineers in the world to drag Outside magazine into the mass-market People Magazine league, or make Jon Krakauer a blockbuster best selling author. The number of people crawling over hazardous glaciers, short of oxygen and prudence, must be very small indeed. The sales figures must instead be generated by a lot of high-altitude fantasists out there, just like me, equipping themselves for expeditions that will never leave Kathmandu. I, for one, am about to forsake the fantasy and climb something. Not something Himalayan. I well know that even the yaks would chuckle as they steamed past me on the way to base camp. I do not care. I have decided to climb to the summit of Mount Everett, at 2,602 feet the ninth tallest mountain in Massachusetts. It has a little piece of the august Appalachian Trail running across it, and it is my peak of choice.The United States Geological Survey has been incredibly helpful in all of my fantasies. Its web site (http://mapping.usgs.gov) provides a huge helpful data base from which you can extract such items as a list of the tallest mountains in Massachusetts, should anyone be interested in climbing the top ten. Mount Greylock is the highest, at 3,491, and people hike up it on a regular basis. Saddle Ball Mountain is number two, and none of the hiking books I have consulted so much as mention it. There is probably something wrong with it. Perhaps it has an inadequate view. I have noticed that in all the descriptions of summitting activities in the Commonwealth, the main objective seems to be peeking into other states. From Mount Wachusett, you can see New Hampshire and Vermont! From Mount Everett, you can see Connecticut and New York! From just about everywhere, you can see Mount Monadnock! Or some monadnock! In my efforts to prepare myself for the ascent of Mount Everett, I have come to regard the monadnock as a peculiarly pesky kind of hill. The monadnock is a stub of a mountain, all that's left after millions of years of weather and water and wind have worn away a range of peaks. The monadnock is made of sterner stuff, and generally it sits all by itself, round and smug, slippery and sometimes offering a view of New Hampshire from its top. Going up a monadnock is bad enough, but getting back down frequently involves slithering down on one's backside and backpack. Descents are, by all accounts, always harder than ascents. Well do I know it. At such moments, one does not totally appreciate the natural beauty of the monadnock, which generally involves ferns and blueberries. Mount Everett, though, is a different kind of peak. It will be the first non-monadnock mountain I've attempted. I picture it as being somehow less slippery and having fewer ferns. There is a small lake halfway up its side and somewhere nearby the intriguing Bash Bish Falls. Better still, it has a parking lot just a jaunt away from the summit. I never hike alone. My daughter and my son-in-law have introduced me to the joys of walking in the woods and they are the proud possessors of topnotch navigational skills, including not only the use of a compass but the mysteries of the GPS locator, a hand-held device that reads messages of angelic satellites to tell you within fifteen feet or so exactly where you are. I am extremely fond of the satellites, since I am directionally challenged to a marked degree. Left and right mean nothing to me, let alone east and west, so the information from aloft is extremely comforting. Unfortunately, my younger companions, though thoughtful, kind, and unlikely to get lost, are also bravely, even alarmingly enthusiastic. Easy trails, the sort of wide, soft, ambling paths I love, are not so appealing to them as the rocky, scrambling, scary trails rated "strenuous" by my hiking books. I have been getting used to "strenuous." I draw the line on anything requiring ropes and I won't go up any big hills in the winter, but we have been trampling up some muddy, rocky, steep and narrow trails without mishap. We follow the blazes and aim for the top, often knee-deep in blueberry bushes and golden ferns. The ferns are beautiful but I still don't like the waist-high bushes that grab for your pant legs and obscure the path. I bought an expensive first aid kit, and secretly carry it in my pack just in case, along with the Swiss army knife, space blanket, candles, waterproof matches, blue Powerade, water and raisins. I use a walking stick to make up for a dodgy ankle and sometimes I wear one of those charming khaki vests with dozens of pockets. Once, when I was fully geared up for an Audubon walk, I noticed that most of my fellow hikers were carrying babies and not much else. On one Sunday morning my fellow hikers were church-going ladies still in their Sunday clothes. I suspect that I was not on very difficult terrain since they were doing fine in their pumps and linen suits. On another weekend we climbed Mount Wachusett (2006 feet) in the rain, which made even its pleasant bits slippery and muddy. Our trail was rated strenuous and it required some fancy footwork just to stay upright. Under the clouds pouring across its summit we could just make out Vermont. I find to my astonishment that I am beginning to enjoy the tougher paths. I am considering embroidering a personal banner for my backpack: this old lady climbed Mount E. This may seem premature but it is not, because someday soon I will reach its lofty summit. I will gaze out in wonder and pride toward Connecticut, at one with my heros of the Himalayas. |
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Jean Blake White is a regular contributor to The Meadow.
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the purity of the sport by our fascination with mountains, as if our armchair attention were making the Himalayas less beautiful and hazardous because we look to them in our dreams.
