Where the northern leg of the Lafayette and Little Haystack loop get to Franconia Ridge in four miles, the Falling Waters Trail takes a more direct route, reaching it in three. I remind myself this each time it breaks me down, forcing me to sit on some cool rock, my legs spread wide, hands resting on my knees while I sweat and pant.
In my childhood I gave some thought to becoming a priest, as many young Irish Catholic boys do. But I knew soon enough I was a failed Catholic for I rejected the sacrament of confession. I didn’t see the need for a “middle man” to share my sordid sins with the Almighty. But climbing up the Falling Waters Trail I am reacquainted with the act of spilling my guts to God. I have no choice through my various aches. I know to stop when my heart is racing or I stumble over a root or rock. Confession is an involuntary action for me on steep climbs and invariably happens while I negotiate with heaven above to take the pain away. (If only mass was said on the way to the top of a mountain I may have stuck around for some of the rest of the sacraments that I will never see.)
If the act of climbing Falling Waters Trail is confession, reaching the ridge is the sacrament of communion. I've been up on the ridge numerous times these past three years and this was my fourth time since November, but still, it is a startling sight when I first poke my head up above treeline. It's like unexpectedly running into the lover I never got over. My heart leaps and then settles in my throat and I am wrecked. I search for words that will best express my feelings but there are none.
Up there the world falls off at my feet, especially when I gaze into the Pemigewasset Wilderness to the east. First my eyes see the long, slumbering body of Owl's Head that lies far below. In my imagination if it ever reared up and stood on its feet, it would be the greatest of all the peaks. The next fold in the green quilt of forest is made up of Bondcliff, Bond, West Bond and the double grassy knobs of Guyot. That line of mountains then wrinkle and twist their way to the northwest a bit when reaching South and North Twin. Below the Twins sits Galehead, which looks like an afterthought from this angle. My eyes climb the bony crest that reaches the pyramid of Garfield. When I see Garfield and her rough front it looks to me like something stolen from the painted backdrop of a movie about dinosaurs.
Beneath the tail end and beyond Bond Cliff, the squat Hancocks sit like a circus fat lady all spread out, her bodily folds falling around her feet. Behind her rises the whale – Carrigain, with its impressive hump.
Behind the Bonds I can see the shoulder of Mt. Willey rising up, only to be dwarfed by Washington and other Presidential peaks in the distance, looking formidable but so far away they defy clear definition and because of this they seem like some faraway land.
To the south, and in the far distance, is the spire of Chocurua, which while not a 4,000-footer, has more prominence from the varied peaks than most that are in that elite club. Coming back towards me in the south is Passaconaway and the Tripyramids and the scalloped ridge of the Osceolas. Beyond them Tecumseh and nameless other peaks look like blue waves in a sea of never ending mountains.
Behind me Moosilauke is black under the bright sun and the midday glare also steals away the beauty of the Kinsmans. Cannon’s cliffs, however, can never be diminished. Not from the ridge. The cliffs are severe but beautiful in any light. Still I prefer keeping these mountains to my back as I can see the ribbon of man-made highway at their feet and to the north the sign of civilization, not to mention Cannon’s carved slopes and summit structures that stand in stark contrast to the cliffs. I come to the ridge to cast my thoughts into the Pemigewasset Sea and put my back to the society. And that’s what I did yesterday.
Atticus and I took our time. When we reached Little Haystack, Lincoln, Truman and Lafayette we took lengthy breaks, loitering longer than we ever have. At one point while sitting on Lafayette without another soul in sight, I leaned back against a rock and tilted my hat over my eyes as would a fisherman in a boat in a quiet bay, not looking to catch anything but pieces of myself.
At one point during our hike I was reminded of Ruth Freeman, Atti’s breeder. She’s a Texan and speaks like one, save for her vague mysticism. In the woods Atticus sits and waits for me on each climb. He’s a most patient hiking partner. But above treeline he doesn’t watch me while waiting as he does in the trees. Instead he climbs to a high point or to an edge and looks out as if he were Moses. Last year, even when Atticus was nearly completely blind and tests showed the strong likelihood of cancer it was Ruth who told me, “Being in Big Sandy, Texas, I never thought I was raising a mountain dog but that little boy sure is one. I can tell by all the photos you send. Go figure. What he needs now is to stop sitting there feeling sorry for himself and get back into the mountains. He needs the mountains!”
“But Ruth, he can’t see to walk. He can’t make it down the stairs,” I told her, my heart breaking in my voice.
“Don’t matter. You find a way to get him up there. He needs those mountains!”
And so I did. I brought him to Welch-Dickey, where he stumbled and tripped on the underbrush but when he got to the ledges he sat with a sigh, tilting his head back and looking with eyes that couldn’t see. Ruth was right, he needed those mountains.
Watching him yesterday, I was reminded he gets as much out of being up high as I do. Maybe more. He is content to let the wind take his ears while he climbs to the edge of the mountain and looks off at the same beautiful landscape I see. My little bionic dog, he with the synthetic lenses and miniscule springs in his eyes, finds his peace up here. He took in the various views on his own while I caught up and then when I did he’d take the lead again. When I’d stop to sit and take in the views, he did too, first on his own, then coming back to join me.
How wonderful to have a hiking partner so in tune with me and in touch with what the mountains offer.
Mt. Truman is growing on me. It offers a fine, flat place to sit and I feel the dramatic scale of Franconia Ridge by Lincoln rising on one side and Lafayette on the other. It’s not a place where many people linger. Usually they are working there way from one of the 4,000-footers to the next. Yesterday we saw two hikers coming in opposite directions. Each stopped to pet Atticus and to exchange light-hearted greetings and we were soon left alone and felt quite special to have it to ourselves.
Throughout the last years of his life my father would curl his failing body into a fetal position on a loveseat in the living room for an afternoon nap. He’d pull a worn little blanket over himself. I thought of him as Atticus lay snoozing in the shadow of a rock and I stretched out, using my backpack as a pillow. There was no need for a blanket as the sun kept us warm. We dozed for quite some time.
To fall asleep and wake up in such a place is like waking to a dream. In such a place all things seem possible. Atticus and I come to these mountains for what we leave behind and then what we find of ourselves. Here it is as it should be. The pain of the climb and the penguin walk of the morning after are small prices to pay for what we find on high and how we get to carry it with us.
I remind myself that some people never see such mountains and spend their lives dreaming of them, or there are some who have only been there once but can never forget them as long as they live. I think of the collection of memories we have gathered in the mountains and I take comfort in knowing they will last as long as my clear mind does. If I live to be old and gray I will have much to keep me company in those failing day for I love these days he and I now share.
To be here is gift.
In my childhood I gave some thought to becoming a priest, as many young Irish Catholic boys do. But I knew soon enough I was a failed Catholic for I rejected the sacrament of confession. I didn’t see the need for a “middle man” to share my sordid sins with the Almighty. But climbing up the Falling Waters Trail I am reacquainted with the act of spilling my guts to God. I have no choice through my various aches. I know to stop when my heart is racing or I stumble over a root or rock. Confession is an involuntary action for me on steep climbs and invariably happens while I negotiate with heaven above to take the pain away. (If only mass was said on the way to the top of a mountain I may have stuck around for some of the rest of the sacraments that I will never see.)
If the act of climbing Falling Waters Trail is confession, reaching the ridge is the sacrament of communion. I've been up on the ridge numerous times these past three years and this was my fourth time since November, but still, it is a startling sight when I first poke my head up above treeline. It's like unexpectedly running into the lover I never got over. My heart leaps and then settles in my throat and I am wrecked. I search for words that will best express my feelings but there are none.
Up there the world falls off at my feet, especially when I gaze into the Pemigewasset Wilderness to the east. First my eyes see the long, slumbering body of Owl's Head that lies far below. In my imagination if it ever reared up and stood on its feet, it would be the greatest of all the peaks. The next fold in the green quilt of forest is made up of Bondcliff, Bond, West Bond and the double grassy knobs of Guyot. That line of mountains then wrinkle and twist their way to the northwest a bit when reaching South and North Twin. Below the Twins sits Galehead, which looks like an afterthought from this angle. My eyes climb the bony crest that reaches the pyramid of Garfield. When I see Garfield and her rough front it looks to me like something stolen from the painted backdrop of a movie about dinosaurs.
Beneath the tail end and beyond Bond Cliff, the squat Hancocks sit like a circus fat lady all spread out, her bodily folds falling around her feet. Behind her rises the whale – Carrigain, with its impressive hump.
Behind the Bonds I can see the shoulder of Mt. Willey rising up, only to be dwarfed by Washington and other Presidential peaks in the distance, looking formidable but so far away they defy clear definition and because of this they seem like some faraway land.
To the south, and in the far distance, is the spire of Chocurua, which while not a 4,000-footer, has more prominence from the varied peaks than most that are in that elite club. Coming back towards me in the south is Passaconaway and the Tripyramids and the scalloped ridge of the Osceolas. Beyond them Tecumseh and nameless other peaks look like blue waves in a sea of never ending mountains.
Behind me Moosilauke is black under the bright sun and the midday glare also steals away the beauty of the Kinsmans. Cannon’s cliffs, however, can never be diminished. Not from the ridge. The cliffs are severe but beautiful in any light. Still I prefer keeping these mountains to my back as I can see the ribbon of man-made highway at their feet and to the north the sign of civilization, not to mention Cannon’s carved slopes and summit structures that stand in stark contrast to the cliffs. I come to the ridge to cast my thoughts into the Pemigewasset Sea and put my back to the society. And that’s what I did yesterday.
Atticus and I took our time. When we reached Little Haystack, Lincoln, Truman and Lafayette we took lengthy breaks, loitering longer than we ever have. At one point while sitting on Lafayette without another soul in sight, I leaned back against a rock and tilted my hat over my eyes as would a fisherman in a boat in a quiet bay, not looking to catch anything but pieces of myself.
At one point during our hike I was reminded of Ruth Freeman, Atti’s breeder. She’s a Texan and speaks like one, save for her vague mysticism. In the woods Atticus sits and waits for me on each climb. He’s a most patient hiking partner. But above treeline he doesn’t watch me while waiting as he does in the trees. Instead he climbs to a high point or to an edge and looks out as if he were Moses. Last year, even when Atticus was nearly completely blind and tests showed the strong likelihood of cancer it was Ruth who told me, “Being in Big Sandy, Texas, I never thought I was raising a mountain dog but that little boy sure is one. I can tell by all the photos you send. Go figure. What he needs now is to stop sitting there feeling sorry for himself and get back into the mountains. He needs the mountains!”
“But Ruth, he can’t see to walk. He can’t make it down the stairs,” I told her, my heart breaking in my voice.
“Don’t matter. You find a way to get him up there. He needs those mountains!”
And so I did. I brought him to Welch-Dickey, where he stumbled and tripped on the underbrush but when he got to the ledges he sat with a sigh, tilting his head back and looking with eyes that couldn’t see. Ruth was right, he needed those mountains.
Watching him yesterday, I was reminded he gets as much out of being up high as I do. Maybe more. He is content to let the wind take his ears while he climbs to the edge of the mountain and looks off at the same beautiful landscape I see. My little bionic dog, he with the synthetic lenses and miniscule springs in his eyes, finds his peace up here. He took in the various views on his own while I caught up and then when I did he’d take the lead again. When I’d stop to sit and take in the views, he did too, first on his own, then coming back to join me.
How wonderful to have a hiking partner so in tune with me and in touch with what the mountains offer.
Mt. Truman is growing on me. It offers a fine, flat place to sit and I feel the dramatic scale of Franconia Ridge by Lincoln rising on one side and Lafayette on the other. It’s not a place where many people linger. Usually they are working there way from one of the 4,000-footers to the next. Yesterday we saw two hikers coming in opposite directions. Each stopped to pet Atticus and to exchange light-hearted greetings and we were soon left alone and felt quite special to have it to ourselves.
Throughout the last years of his life my father would curl his failing body into a fetal position on a loveseat in the living room for an afternoon nap. He’d pull a worn little blanket over himself. I thought of him as Atticus lay snoozing in the shadow of a rock and I stretched out, using my backpack as a pillow. There was no need for a blanket as the sun kept us warm. We dozed for quite some time.
To fall asleep and wake up in such a place is like waking to a dream. In such a place all things seem possible. Atticus and I come to these mountains for what we leave behind and then what we find of ourselves. Here it is as it should be. The pain of the climb and the penguin walk of the morning after are small prices to pay for what we find on high and how we get to carry it with us.
I remind myself that some people never see such mountains and spend their lives dreaming of them, or there are some who have only been there once but can never forget them as long as they live. I think of the collection of memories we have gathered in the mountains and I take comfort in knowing they will last as long as my clear mind does. If I live to be old and gray I will have much to keep me company in those failing day for I love these days he and I now share.
To be here is gift.
(Photos in the post below.)
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