I just got back from the mountains.
Took a four day weekend, gassed up the Batmobile and pointed her north–towards New Hampshire and White Mountains National Forest.
I had a buddy with me, a first-timer we’ll call “Jed”, because that’s his real name. Jed’s an outdoorsy type; he likes fishing and Jeeps and science. He’d done some stuff before, just not this stuff, know what I mean? Plenty of nights spent in tents, but he’d never been elbow deep in the wilderness, never done 10 miles in a day over major terrain with 40 pounds of what-the-fuck strapped to his back. But he wanted to start doing that stuff, and I like pain as much as the next masochist, so I scoped out a nice thirty mile loop for us up in the Whites, about five hours north of Long Island.
“Don’t go crazy with him”, people said. “It’s his first time”, they said. [Note: My reputation for hellacious route selection and impossible bushwhacks precedes me.]
Despite these well-intentioned words of caution, I decided (as Jed would come to hear approximately 387 times over the next few days), “If you’re gonna be a bear, be a grizzly*.” Hiking is best when it’s a little precarious, and nothing says leisurely fun like 5,000 feet of elevation gain/loss over a couple of miles.
We talked about it extensively ahead of time. He knew it was going to be tough. But he knew this the way I know that running a marathon is tough–knowledge without context. The first four miles of the trail were breezy, as far as hiking is concerned. They lulled him into believing that this trip was going to be pretty much what he expected, that the exertion was significant, but still on the high side of normal. Wrong. Jed gained context about three hours and five miles into the trip. It snuck up on him, and from experience I know that moment of clarity carries with it the same hopeless despair that a lobster must feel when he finds himself being slowly boiled to death in water that was perfectly tolerable mere minutes before.
* * *
Walking up a mountain is hard. Walking up a mountain with a pack on is brutal. The first time you do it, the effort required–the sheer physical labor–is shocking. Overwhelming. It almost feels good at first, satisfying in the way that hard work can be. Your calves start to burn, then your quads. You feel the sweat start to soak through your shirt on your lower back, right where the pack hugs you tightest. After a few hundred feet at a 15º incline though, it hits your lungs. You start panting, losing the privilege of rhythmic breathing afforded by a measured pace over a level grade. At 25º you start to sound like a woman birthing a child. The pack straps creak and rub as you put two hands on your thigh and push up with one leg, bracing yourself to help climb over the knee-high boulder in your path. The rubbing of your boots heats up contact points on your feet, creating tiny pre-blisters that threaten to erupt into bright stars of pain. The grade increases. Breathing gets harder still. The weight of that backpack is relentless. You think (hope) that the ground will level out soon, but it doesn’t; each turn reveals more of the rocky, uneven path uphill. Uphill. Uphill. Feet throb. Shoulders ache. Your back becomes cold-soaked with sweat and your body screams “STOP!” after every step, making the simple act of putting one foot in front of the other a challenge to be met and overcome.
At that point, Jed’s body was burning through calories at an alarming rate, churning out lactic acid and jettisoning precious electrolytes with each drop of sweat. He was hurtling towards The Wall, and I was starting to feel like Dante’s guide into the underworld.
I asked him to lead the way and kept up the chatter, hoping that my annoyingly cheerful tone would give his brain something other than the pain to focus on. “You like hiking?”, I’d ask, the barest hint of a smirk in my voice. No response. “No?”, chuckling, “Well, you’re fucked then bud, ’cause we are hiking. OH YEAH.”
How obnoxious am I? Poor Jed.
Eventually, he hit The Wall. I think it was 5:30 PM on the first day. We’d been climbing continuously for more than two hours, and there were miles aplenty yet to go. We shucked our packs alongside the trail and he bent at the waist for a moment, taking stock of internal and external system processes. I was worried that we weren’t going to hit the payoff, that there would be no moment of Zen at the end of an arduous day. While he munched on some gorp (and attended to personal matters) I scrambled up the incline alongside the trail, scouting out potential sites for us to bivy down for the night in case he just could not continue. Somewhere to lay down our pads, stash our packs, and grab a few hours’ rest before dawn. It wouldn’t be the most comfortable or the most enjoyable night in the backcountry, but comfort was running a distant second to safety at that point.
I found something. It was not much, but it was something. Night was falling fast, as tends to happen out there. The forest had taken on an ominous, steely-grey appearance, and it was like viewing the world through dark sunglasses. Decision time. Call it a day and cash out, or roll the dice and hope for a seven? Making our planned campsite was off the table, so we were either going to sleep exposed on the side of a hill, or keep walking and hope that an “undesignated” campsite presented itself. What to do? How severe was Jed feeling? Did he need a little motivation, or did he need rest and/or medical attention? Calories, or water? Acclimation? There was no guarantee we’d find what we were looking for if we kept trekking. We were almost above treeline, and backcountry sites become sparse thereafter. Continuing was risky, at best, and downright stupid at worst. But we needed a payoff. I needed it. To me, in that moment, the outcome of the entire trip depended on a successful end to this day. I had to provide the reward I’d promised in exchange for his herculean effort that day.
I shouldered my pack and looked at my partner. The food was hitting his system and he was responding–slowly–like a wilting plant moved to a sunny windowsill. I grinned. “You like hiking, buddy?”
He shook his head, weary and still a little dazed. But he was smiling as he grunted, “Hah. Ask me again tomorrow.”
“I will. Let’s get moving.”
* * *
It was the right choice. Jed turned the metaphysical corner within minutes and led the way up the trail. Our conversation went from a monologue to a dialogue, and after another hour of walking he pulled up short and nodded towards a game trail I would’ve blown right by. He glanced over at me, “Looks like it could be something, yeah? Wanna check it out?”
His instincts were correct. After weaving our way through the trees for 20 yards we arrived abruptly at a gem of a site, hidden from view and almost unbelievable in its perfection. A nice level area for the tent, a little fire ring with plenty of downfall around, trees for a bear bag–it was as if the site I’d created in my mind had come to life, and we found ourselves somehow standing in the middle of my imagination. Payoff. Redemption. We had it.
Night fell as we finished some cold chow and staked out the tent. It got cold fast, so we wrapped our bodies in capilene baselayers and our heads in fleece beanies. A lighter and some birch bark got the fire going and within five we were stretched out on our pads, basking in the restorative, magical glow of a well-tended campfire. We talked, sporadically, as boys do. Rehashing the day’s events with subtle embellishments, rehearsing our delivery for future tellings of these infant stories. Each of us repeatedly expressed our relief at finding the campsite when we did; I was just about out of gas m’self. The fire hissed and popped and spat embers like tiny artillery rounds. It was success, as I defined it. I’m sure Jed felt the same.
Did the trip’s success truly hinge on finding that place? Uh huh. Yeah.
The human mind is the single biggest limiting factor when it comes to endurance and facing adversity. “The mind navigates the body”, as Pat McNamara would say. Our response to the first hurdle we faced was confrontation. By pressing on and finding that little slice o’ heaven, we proved to ourselves that every challenge could be met successfully. You cannot overstate the psychological impact of that kind of conditioning, especially on the uninitiated. Jed’s base of experience in the wilderness was built upon that first victory. The following day, we hit the trail at 6:30 AM and summitted four mountains. Our elevation profile that Saturday was rugged. We each had our moments; it wasn’t easy terrain, and water was sparse. But, when one of us would start to flag, the other would be there to take the reins. As backcountry partners go, the kid was one of the best.
I got the challenge I look for every time I go into the mountains. It was good. Hard work. Clean livin’. I also got a good deal more relaxation and recreation than I typically get, with plenty of time left over to get my Motherfucking Zen on by doing some naked yoga under a frigid-ass mountain waterfall**.
After the ass-kicking of the first two days, we breezed into an isolated riverside camp around lunchtime on Sunday, just above a series of cascading falls, turquoise pools and natural rock waterslides grooved out by Franconia Brook over the past trillion years or so. We ate lunch and splashed around. Launched ourselves off high cliffs into pools of clear mountain water, the icy water engulfing our bodies and crowding out all other thoughts.
The hike out was uneventful, quiet. I was completely at peace with the events of the preceding few days, and I’ve been replaying them with a smile since. I drove home eager for a shower and the comforts of civilized life. The wilderness is my escape, temporary respite from the daily insanity of suburban life, but it is not my home. My home is the place to which I get to return, the little grey house on Greene Avenue that calls out to me like a signal beacon. I go out into the woods knowing that the three inhabitants of that house will miss me, I will miss them, and that each trip comes at the expense of precious time with my wife and kids. I go, they worry about me, I come back. The pull of the mountains is strong, but those three–and our little home–are the center of my universe.
-KHN 08/29
* Catch phrase/life motto courtesy of brother-in-law Dave, and I could probably write an entire essay on how I live my life based on those nine words. Maybe I will.
** Pictures to follow.
As promised (I know you’ve been waiting on the edge of your seats), here are the pictures from my White Mountains trip last month. A whole bunch of ’em, after the jump. Words can be found here: clean livin’. Thanks ppl.
kirk holland 
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