Following Atticus

by Tom Ryan

  Our little detour had exhausted me, and I could feel the cold creeping into my bones. I started daydreaming about the comforts of being at home: sitting in my big leather chair, book in my hands, Atticus on my lap, and a steaming cup of cocoa by my side. But that was interrupted when my scalp suddenly felt like it was on fire. I reached up and ran my fingers over my head, and I was stunned to feel icicles dangling from my hair. I checked the thermometer hanging from my backpack—the temperature had plummeted to eight degrees.

  Where had the sun gone with its warmth?

  It was as if someone had flipped a switch and our comfortable but tiring hike had suddenly changed its temperament. Day was giving way to night. After a brief rest stop, we returned the way we came, this time with my headlamp on. I’d never hiked at night before, and I could feel the darkness engulf us, bringing more cold with it. The setting had gone from cartoon cheery to haunting. My headlamp chased the darkness as best it could, but it made me feel like we were walking into a tunnel. The thin beam highlighted whatever was in front of us but left everything just outside it hidden in blackness. It was eerie and sad, and I found myself falling into a deep malaise where all the warmth in the world had been drained away, and I thought, This must be what death is like—brittle, unyielding, frozen.

  Once back on the main trail again, I followed Atticus for the final short climb over rock and root on the western edge of the mountain. The higher we climbed, the more ghostlike it felt and the heavier I sank into the night, spiraling deeper into memories that wouldn’t let go of me—the kind that haunt your subconscious, that surface ever so rarely in your dreams and wake you up in a sweat with a breathless gasp.

  Each step emptied more hope and cheer from me. The thought of turning back was strong, but we were so close to the summit and something was drawing us inexorably up that mountain. The headlamp began to play tricks on my mind. It cast shadows and turned the sharp tree branches into hundreds of bony hands reaching out at me. Occasionally one would snag my jacket or my backpack and I’d whirl around to see who was there. Whenever I turned to look, the light brought the branches to life. Again I thought of the comforts of home as we walked farther away from it into that mournful, melancholy dream.

  When we reached the summit, I didn’t recognize it. It looked different from how it had in the summer. It was crowded, not with people but with evergreens. Coated in snow and ice, they looked huge and harsh, even ominous, not lush and green like the warm and endearing trees that had brought a smile to my face just an hour earlier. They were ghastly and sent a shiver running through my core. Despair grew. How strange to feel so empty and hopeless. I’m typically an upbeat person, usually smiling and laughing, and on a mountaintop I feel more peaceful than anywhere else. But then and there I felt an unbearable sadness.

  I had the sensation that we were not alone, but no one else was there. The summit seemed haunted, the trees wraithlike, as if they were capable of harm. They stood above me like giant angels—not the sweet cherubs of greeting cards but fierce angels wearing armor, the ones that went to war for God, that wreak havoc, destruction, and hopelessness.

  Without warning, my headlamp went out. Panic-stricken, I fiddled with it nervously, but it wouldn’t turn on. I dropped to my knees and opened my backpack, searching frantically for my second headlamp. It was while my hands were plunging into the pack that I looked up at those trees once more. In the darkness, with me kneeling under a starless sky, they loomed even larger. I could barely breathe. The emptiness within was unbearable, and the sadness poured out of me. I gave in to it and stopped searching for my other lamp and just knelt there paralyzed by my horror. I have no idea how long I stayed like that, but Atticus eventually pushed his way into my arms. He was not looking at me, he was looking up at the trees, and there we stayed, man and dog, those trees glowering over us.

  They sent me tumbling deeper into thoughts attached to soulful memories. I had felt that same way before. It was several decades ago on that very same week before Christmas. I was seven years old, and just after supper my father had summoned us. This usually meant we were about to be punished and were to line up and “assume the position” to receive “the belt,” so we went with trepidation. Being the youngest, I took up the rear, but my father pulled me to the front of the group. He had something to tell us.

  My mother had been in the hospital. Since my birth she had suffered from multiple sclerosis and was confined to a wheelchair. A month earlier, while some of my brothers and sisters were driving her to the grocery store to get the Thanksgiving turkey, there’d been an accident and she’d suffered an injury. Just before she was released from the hospital, she dropped a burning cigarette in her bed, and the flames had engulfed her. By the time they got to her, she was covered in third-degree burns. She died of complications from those burns six days before Christmas.

  I was there again, seven again, there with my family again, while I was on my knees looking up at those trees. My despair was not so much for me or my siblings or the mother I never knew, but for my father. When my mother died, much of whatever was left of him had died, too.

  My father never recovered. He would never be whole again, not for his children, not for himself. He was too busy trying to save his own life to save us.

  It took me years to understand that my father, while ill equipped to handle what fate had delivered to him, nevertheless did the best he could. And as I crouched on my knees that night at the foot of those trees, my heart was filled with compassion for the man who had suffered for so long.

  While kneeling, I thought about his recent decision not to hold the family Christmas in our childhood home. It was his latest act of surrender. He said he was too tired and didn’t want to be bothered by having the family over. Since he’d made the announcement, I’d not given it much thought, but in the end that didn’t matter a lot. The trees and the night and the mountain had conspired to make me feel more than I was willing to feel.

  After I’d spent a long while on my knees, wrapped in my sad memories, those evergreens were no longer glowering. They were still there, of course, just as large and stately, but suddenly they were beautiful. It was as if they’d delivered their message and finished what they’d set out to do. In those tranquil moments, I continued to hold Atticus, and I contemplated what had just transpired. Both of us were still looking up at those angels.

  Since I was already on my knees, I decided to say a few prayers. I prayed for my brothers and sisters, and I prayed for my mother, but more than anything I prayed for Jack Ryan.

  Eventually my headlamp flickered to life again. I pulled some sausages out of my backpack to share with Atticus and kept looking until I found my other headlamps. To be safe I put them in the pocket of my coat before we made our way down. But I had a feeling I wouldn’t be needing them.

  The night wasn’t as dark anymore. A few stars appeared and elbowed the clouds out of the way. My thermometer now read eighteen degrees. The trip down the mountain in the dark felt different. It was comfortable and lighter, and we finished without further incident.

  Later, while driving home, I understood a bit more of what experienced hikers had warned me about—that winter hiking is entirely different from summer, and strange things can happen—especially at night. You have to be prepared for anything.

  I also thought about the Abenaki Indians who didn’t climb to the top of the great peaks because they believed that’s where the great spirits lived.

  It wasn’t until we arrived back in Newburyport that night and Atticus and I slipped into bed that it hit me that we’d climbed our first winter peak. I couldn’t really account for what had transpired up there, but it was so extraordinary I wanted more of it. As I fell asleep, I wondered what else our winter in the Whites would teach us.

  Atticus’s Muttluks and bodysuit proved to be essential for us at various times during the winter. We encountered colder temperatures and deeper snow than eith
er of us had ever known. I learned to keep the suit in my pack until he started to get uncomfortable, and then I’d put it on him and he’d welcome its snug fit and warm fleece lining.

  However, our most valuable piece of equipment was not something I’d bought. It was something we already had: common sense. We wouldn’t push it, and we’d take only what the mountains gave us. On the best of days, when the temperature was moderate, the skies clear, and the forecast favorable, we’d climb one of the higher, more exposed peaks. Unfortunately, those days were few and far between. On days when things weren’t as nice but still safe enough to hike, we’d climb where we would be protected by the trees and there wasn’t as much exposure. On the worst of days, we simply wouldn’t hike at all. There would be many such days.

  As much as people worried about me, the way I saw it, I had an advantage over most. There were many days where I might have hiked if I were on my own, but I wouldn’t expose Atticus to storms, high winds, frigid temperatures, or trails that were icy or too deep with new snow to make our way through. By refusing to subject Atticus to less-than-favorable conditions, I kept myself safe.

  I was told by those who argued that dogs don’t belong on the trails in winter that dogs don’t know the difference between a bad day and a good one and that they’ll go wherever their owners go. But I never had that problem with Atticus. Atticus always had a say, just as he always had in our life together, and if he felt he didn’t want to go on a hike, he was never forced to.

  There were two occasions that winter when he decided we weren’t going. On the first we’d driven the two hours up from Newburyport, and when we arrived at the trailhead, the wind was wicked and the wind chill far below zero. Snow swirled in mini tornadoes, and when Atticus hopped out of the car, he turned right back around and hopped back in. He had spoken.

  On the second such occasion, the weather was much better. It was a perfect day for hiking. But it was our third day in a row, and he was tired. When we parked at the trailhead and I was getting geared up, he stayed curled in a ball in the front seat of the car. I called to him, but all he did was twitch his white eyebrows as if to say, Wake me when you get back. I took off my gear, put it back in the car, and we drove home. It was a partnership, and if one of us didn’t feel up to it, we weren’t going to hike.

  Another advantage was that Atticus had the innate ability to know things that other dogs might not. He knew when a frozen stream wasn’t safe to cross even if it looked like it was, and he knew when it was safe, even if it didn’t look like it. The same was true for some of the icy slides we encountered. On some he would walk confidently, leading me across. On others he’d stay back and let me go first, or he would wait for me to pick him up and carry him a short distance. His ability to read the conditions of the trails and to know his own limits was a great advantage for us, for we were challenged by an entirely different set of mountains and there was less margin for error. They were the same mountains we’d climbed in spring and summer; they just didn’t look it, and they definitely didn’t feel like it.

  At its best, winter in the Whites was a wonderland. It was a walk through a crystalline forest under azure skies, and as we thrust our way through the last of the snow-covered conifers toward each summit, it was like stumbling into C. S. Lewis’s magical wardrobe and pushing through the rows of clothes, knowing that there was something thrilling beyond it all. Stepping out of the trees and onto an open ridge or peak was like exiting the back of the wardrobe and entering our own special Narnia. It was a world apart, a world that belonged only to the two of us.

  Winter at its worst meant that the woods were barren down low, the colors of the forest gone, replaced by a flat, desaturated monochrome. There was no sweet and sultry summer scent, no birdsong, and hardly any wildlife. It was as lonely and forlorn a place as I’d ever known. The wind cried out like a banshee or a dragon beating its thunderous wings as it circled above the treetops, and the cold would reach deep into my bones.

  We mostly had the trails to ourselves, and I came to understand an entirely new level of isolation and how that brutal and silent world could play tricks on my mind and make me long to be back in Newburyport, surrounded by friendly faces.

  Throughout that winter we experienced all there was to experience. There were frightening moments and glorious moments, moments of success and of failure. There were even comical moments. My favorite was when we climbed Mount Washington, one of the deadliest mountains in the world. It has taken more than one hundred lives and, until recently, claimed the highest wind ever measured on earth—231 miles per hour. The average winter wind speed is 45 miles per hour; the average temperature is five degrees. As the AMC White Mountain Guide states, these are conditions you expect to find in Antarctica, not New Hampshire.

  When planning for the winter, I wondered if we’d have an opportunity to get Atticus safely to the summit of Washington. However, after two months of waiting, we got a shockingly rare five-hour weather window where there was to be no wind. Four hours after starting our climb, Atticus and I sat on top of the windless summit by ourselves. The temperature was a “balmy” thirty degrees, but it felt so mild that I wore only a fleece top instead of a jacket and I didn’t bother putting on a hat or gloves.

  After a while a group of eight men appeared on the horizon, led by a professional guide they had paid big money to get them there. All the men were fit young professionals. Their gear was top-notch and brand-new. Each carried an ice ax, climbing ropes, each wore a winter parka made for Mount Everest, snow goggles, and they all had other assorted expensive pieces of equipment strapped to or dangling from their backpacks. They’d come to challenge the great Washington, with its high winds and frigid temperatures. They’d come to spit in the eye of death and to return to their offices the following Monday to brag about it.

  But instead of death, they came upon something that horrified them even more: a little dog and a fat guy sitting and eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich below the summit sign as if they were having a picnic on Boston Common in the middle of summer.

  When they were within speaking distance, they stopped in unison, their goggles fogging up with each heavy breath. It was so warm they were sweating profusely under their heavy coats with their hoods up and their balaclavas on. Neither Atticus nor I moved. I nodded hello. Atticus calmly appraised them, enjoying another bite of my sandwich.

  There was a priceless moment of stunned silence. Finally one of them broke it by speaking for all of them. Tripping over his disbelief, he asked, “How . . . how did you get up here?”

  I took another bite of sandwich and tore off a corner for Atticus. I made them wait while I finished chewing. “We walked.”

  “You walked?” They looked with disbelief at my simple backpack. They looked at the little dog. They looked at me. “You . . . you and that little dog . . . you just walked up?”

  I nodded and gave him a friendly smile.

  As we said good-bye and walked away, I wasn’t so sure they’d be sharing this story with their coworkers and friends, but I knew I would. It was the kind of response we would get quite often, a look of disbelief that this little dog was actually climbing in winter.

  It was an amazing season, and we did well, but we didn’t finish all forty-eight peaks. We fell two challenging hikes shy. But still, the two unlikeliest newcomers to the winter-hiking scene had caught people’s attention without even trying. And once again our shared experiences brought us even closer. In some ways Atticus and I were creating our own little universe, one where we knew no matter what the world had in store for us, we’d handle it just fine so long as we faced it together.

  I wrote my father a letter toward the end of the winter. I told him that one of my favorite childhood memories was of standing with him and my brothers Stephen, Jeff, and David on the cool pool of lawn in front of Lafayette Place campground in the creeping shade of a summer eve, looking up at the monstrous spine of Fran
conia Ridge. It was one of those childhood memories I looked back on often and remembered how safe and secure I felt. It was a moment when I first realized just how beautiful the world was.

  On the night I wrote him that letter, Atticus and I were sitting on the floor of our rented cabin, snuggled up together in front of the fireplace. He was snoring blissfully, having earned his sleep with a tough hike. Earlier that day we were on top of that same monstrous spine, more than five thousand feet above sea level. The temperature was in the teens, driven even lower by the wind. It was noon, but if I had not had a watch on my altimeter, I wouldn’t have known, for it was dark and dreary and Atticus and I were all alone. We’d come out of the trees and were fully exposed as we headed toward Mount Lincoln and beyond to Mount Lafayette. Gusts of wind toyed with us and pelted us with snow and ice, and I had to put my goggles and balaclava on to protect my face and keep from being blinded. The elements were such that there was not much to be seen as we walked along two miles of unprotected ridge. On a sunny day, there aren’t many more beautiful places to be. But on a day like we had, when the weather changed for the worse, it was desolate-looking, a wasteland along a narrow, rocky path.

  As discomfort grew, I kept thinking about the same simple pleasures that called to me throughout those cold months: a cup of cocoa, a hot bath, a good book, a thick sweater, some sunshine. It was a habit I’d fallen into. But reality came at us gust after gust, and I questioned my ability, as I’d done before throughout that winter. This was one of those moments I had come across where we were all alone up high, no sign of human life about, and I felt as weak as anyone ever has. I reached for strength I didn’t seem to possess and found myself thinking about Guy Waterman, a local writer and climber of great acclaim, who chose that very ridge to lie down on to end his life. While I was not saddled with the depression he fought, I thought about how such weather can strip a man of hope and his good sense and make him feel lonely and empty. I thought about how easy it would be to just sit down and stop moving through the wind and gloom, but to sit would have made it harder to get up again. And yet the mists made me tired and wreaked havoc with my motivation, and I had to force myself to move onward.