Many a Walk in the Woods

“Take it from me, if you are in an open space with no weapons and a grizzly comes for you, run. You might as well run. If nothing else, it will give you something to do with the last seven seconds of your life.” - Bill Bryson, A Walk in the Woods

The nice thing about working with a lot of people your own age is your common spontaneousness. What's nice about working with a lot of people your own age and own gender is the combining of many egos and the abundance of so much testosterone that we set an ambitious summer schedule for ourselves. Short of taking on all 93 summits in New Hampshire, we set and planned out one and 2 day trips through out the summer ranging from 6 miles to 25 miles in length covering a variety of mountains from Monadnock (second most climbed mountain in the world) to Katahdin at the end of the Appalachian Trail.

Because of our egotistical ambition, I got to reread a favorite book of mine, A Walk in the Woods. Bill Bryson, possibly the last man on earth you would think to be attempting the Appalachian Trail, does just that. Completing, in total, in one trip, the entire length of 2,169 miles of trail is one of my grandest goals in life, and though Bryson didn’t finish, he constantly re-inspires me to do it every time I pick up this book.

The AT is the first of its kind. A super trail that connects 11 states in a single footpath, the AT is the connection of hundreds of shorter trails kept in tact by a completely voluntary work force, a pretty impressive feat. The Appalachian Mountains for their part are one of the oldest ranges in the world. It is believed their peaks not only rivaled the Alps, but was at one point far grander than the Alps. But millennia of glacial wear and tear took their toll on the Appalachians, and with the last ice ages final withdrawal left us with much smaller mountains, but much more diverse ecological systems, and the ability to explore, unfettered an entire range on a single trail.

Saturday, 3 of us decided to climb Monadnock. Weather was bleak. Forecast was for rain, 45 degrees. That morning, the weatherman did not disappoint. The forecast was spot on. We trudged on to the mountain anyway. When we got there the ranger gave us the low down on the summit, 28, windchill gets it down to the negatives with ice along the rock faces (and if you have never been to Monadnock, the entire summit is a bare bald flat rock face) Monadnock at most times of the year is an easy climb. With 2100' of elevation change from the trail head to the summit, its not New Hampshire's most formidable ascent, but the mud, the cold weather, and the fact that this was my first climb of the year, made it seem like Mt. Liberty or Greenleaf Trail heading up Mt. Lafayette.

The daunting thing about climbing mountains is how deceitful they are. You ALWAYS think you have gone farther than you really have, and it seems that around every bend or every break in the tree top comes the possibility you are near the summit, only to be disappointed by finding more trail and more tree tops. The only true indicator that you are near the top is the sudden decrease in temperature, and the sharp rise in wind. Slowly the trees get smaller, and eventually anything taller than moss disappears. It wasn't quite as cold as the ranger said, but there was plenty of black ice. Winds between 20-40 miles an hour and nothing visible past 20'. We finally reached the summit after a brisk 2 hours, which is pretty good for a first climb. We spent as much time as we could on the top but the cold eventually got to us and we made for a hasty decent. All told, it felt pretty good to be back hiking.