Following Atticus

by Tom Ryan

  We walked the first six miles, which have only the slightest elevation gain, in relative silence through the darkness. As we started our first and most difficult climb of the day, toward Zeacliff, we thought little of the small snowflakes drifting harmlessly down from the dark gray sky.

  The higher we climbed, the more the snow fell. Still, it wasn’t anything we hadn’t been through before. It was easy going. When we reached the top of Zeacliff, the snow was falling more steadily and was a bit deeper. By this point Atticus instinctively got behind me to let me break the trail out for him. When we reached the summit of Zealand Mountain, the temperature had plummeted, and we shivered when we stopped to eat and drink, so I put Atticus’s Muttluks and bodysuit on him.

  One summit down, three to go.

  The climb from Zealand toward Guyot, a neighbor of West Bond, is protected by trees until you get to the top. Our only problem was the footing, as it was on new snow that hadn’t attached to the rocks yet—that and the temperature, which continued to drop. Just before gaining the top of the hill, we stopped again and geared up for the wind we were sure to find coming out of the northwest. We knew it would be right in our faces as we crested the first of Guyot’s two bald knobs, but when we reached the highest point and stood naked to the elements, we weren’t ready for what met us.

  Like a giant wild beast come to life, the wind roared and flung snow at us. Tom and I yelled to each other, but our words were drowned out. We moved closer and yelled into each other’s ears. I looked around to check on Atticus, but the little dog—who never had a problem turning back—pushed by me and marched into the storm. I wasn’t sure whether we should go on or not, but he made the decision for us. Soon he was swimming forward, up to his neck, but he kept going. I told him to wait, and we walked in front of him, using our snowshoes to beat down the trail, but as soon as we’d take a step, the wind would fill it in again. Snow drifted knee- and hip-deep, and the powerful wind brought it to life. We struggled with each step and were rocked by gust after gust. There were moments when we couldn’t move forward.

  There was no time to think; we could only act. I looked to the woods off in the distance that lay between Guyot and West Bond and decided that our best bet was to make it there and then regroup.

  Once we turned toward the south, the gales rushed at us from the side, and we had to twist our heads to keep our eyes from being stung by sideways-flying ice and snow. We were pushed off the trail and used our trekking poles to keep ourselves upright.

  Atticus struggled but kept moving forward. Ice clung to his face, and at one point I dropped to my knees, held him close, and brushed the ice away from his eyes.

  With deafening winds swirling about us and snow and ice pelting us, another dog would have wanted me to keep holding him, sheltering him from the elements. But when I turned away from Atticus for just a second, he pushed onward.

  When we reached the trees, it was like escaping a battlefield by sitting in a bunker. We could hear the war raging above the trees, but we couldn’t stay there. We had to keep moving to keep Atticus warm. We all shivered as we huddled together and saw that the deep snow had sucked off three of Atticus’s Muttluks. There was no sense looking for them, they were gone. I took out an extra set and put them on him, and I fed him some ground beef. Tom and I put on new gloves, since ours were freezing into place, and changed hats for the same reason. We chugged down smoothies. (It’s something I picked up from Cath Goodwin. On cold days it was the best way for me to “eat” so we didn’t have to stop and risk Atticus’s getting cold.)

  Then it was time to see what West Bond had in store for us. Mercifully, we were given a reprieve. The half-mile-long spur path to the summit was protected by trees, so the wind couldn’t reach us. To give our backs a break, we hung our packs from branches at the start of the path. It turned out to be an easy climb, and there was little wind on the summit. It was cold, but nothing at all compared to what we’d just survived. But by the time we returned to our packs, the shoulder straps were nearly frozen solid. We had to bend them back and forth to loosen them up before we could slide our arms through them.

  The climb to Bond was a slow slog through ever-deepening snow. I had Atticus get into third position behind us, and we broke out the trail for him, but this time the wind was not filling it in. I figured that the summit of West Bond, behind our backs, was protecting us by breaking the wind. It was an uneventful grind, and we made pretty good time. On top we stopped and took photos of each other.

  Three mountains down, one to go.

  It was calmer than I expected, and I hoped the storm had finally abated and we’d be safe for our last mile across the exposed ridge to Bondcliff. After Bondcliff we would drop down into the trees and have a long but protected walk to the car.

  But it was as if the storm had a mind of its own and was stalking us. We’d been lulled by the last mile and a half, and when we stepped onto the long, sloping trail and out of the protection of the trees, all hell broke loose. I signaled for Atticus to stay behind me, and in turning I was nearly blown over. Tom and I yelled back and forth to each other, but no matter what we said, it didn’t matter. There was only the constant roar of the beast.

  The snow was deeper, up to my waist at times, sometimes just to my knees. It was also slippery, and the teeth of our snowshoes had nothing to bite into, so Tom and I slipped and fell more than once as we descended into the col. I led, and on one steep downhill I caught my leg between two rocks, fell forward, and heard a loud snap. I slid downhill and lay facedown. Excruciating pain shot through my thigh.

  I feared the worst and didn’t dare move. We were eleven miles from the nearest road. The blizzard raged, and when I raised my head, I could barely see ten yards in front of me. I tried to stay calm, even though my leg was throbbing, and take inventory of my body, wondering if my femur had snapped.

  Time stood still. Ice formed on my eyebrows and lashes. My cheeks burned red. I knew I couldn’t stay there, but I didn’t dare move at first. The wilderness had come to life. It howled, it roared!

  Funny what you think about on the day you might die, for this was one of those times I’d read about and feared, when the weather turns and you’re too far away and they don’t find you until it’s too late. That’s when I thought about what Thoreau had said: “A howling wilderness does not howl; it is the imagination of the traveler that does the howling.”

  All I could think at that time was, Fuck you, Henry. What do you know?

  I then thought about Atticus and Tom. I had to do something. When I tried to use the trekking pole to roll over, I realized it was broken. It dawned on me that that was the snap I’d heard, and not my leg. This was great news in one way, bad in another: I needed both poles for balance to fight through the storm, especially not knowing how seriously my leg was hurt.

  I looked for Atticus. He was struggling through snowdrifts deeper than he was tall. Under his frozen mask, he was nearly unrecognizable when he finally reached me. He checked to see if I was okay by pushing his nose against my cheek. I sat up, and he climbed onto my lap and licked my face, believing that he could fix whatever I’d hurt. His body trembled, and I held him tight. It was then I realized that both my jacket and the fleece layers beneath it were freezing into place.

  We had to keep moving.

  I looked at Tom, who was on his knees frantically digging through the snow trying to find the bottom of my trekking pole, and I yelled, “Forget it, Tom! It’s gone!” I could see the look of shock on his face. Poor bastard. He’d wanted to join us in the worst way, but neither of us had expected this.

  As I looked at Atticus and Tom, something happened to me. Something took over. I swallowed my fear and stood with my one trekking pole and tested my leg. I was in pain but okay. Tom tells me my face changed then, became something he’d never seen before. It was like I was going to war and nothing was going to beat us.

  We started wal
king toward Bondcliff again, and the storm was at its worst, as if sensing a kill. It tossed us about like three vessels in a roiling sea, but the only way out was through, and so we pressed on. The climb up Bondcliff was slow and agonizing. I led the way, followed by Tom and then Atticus. We took longer strides to try to make it out of the storm sooner but realized it wasn’t working for Atticus, so we changed to baby steps to beat down the path for him.

  The trail was invisible, and we pushed from cairn to cairn. At times I couldn’t see the next one, and I did my best to remember where the trail went from our two previous hikes over the Bonds. We walked sideways, with our backs turned toward the beast, and cheered on the smallest member of our group.

  Until the day I die, I will remember the sight of Atticus pushing through those drifts, sometimes pushing ahead of us before we could break trail for him. He surely wasn’t the biggest dog, but on that day I have no doubt his heart was as big as any creature’s on earth.

  A couple of days later, I would receive an e-mail from Tom. He wrote, “I know you hear this all the time, but I am just so impressed with Atticus’s conduct on the mountain. He had to be dragging, but you wouldn’t know it, he just kept on coming, like a game prizefighter. I love thinking about how tough he is.”

  While we trudged forward, the clouds parted for a brief moment to give us a glimpse of yet another tough climb ahead, and I turned back to encourage Atticus, but the wind reached out and grabbed my voice in midair. And while the gust stole my words, it could not stop me from moving, nor could the whipping snow, but the sight of that little dog did just that. Watching him marching along, sometimes swimming forward, sometimes lunging against neck-deep drifts, I was amazed. The fury of the wind was silenced. The snow stood still in midflight. I could not move; I could only look on in admiration, awe, and above all else . . . love.

  We regrouped one last time and then pushed toward the summit of Bondcliff. We had just as hard a time finding the cairns as we had during the previous couple of hours, and the wind reached new heights as if realizing it had to “get us” right then or lose us forever. Each step was labored, but eventually I touched the largest cairn at the summit. I turned toward the storm, and it nearly knocked me over. I let out my own howl, as fierce as any we had heard that day. I howled again and again until Tom and Atticus stood there with me.

  We had only to walk another couple of hundred yards and drop down into the trees and we’d be safe. As soon as we did, the wind fell silent . . . as though someone had flipped a switch. An eerie calm presided over the mountains, as if the storm had existed only to test us. Night soon fell, and the clouds parted, and the moon and stars came out, and the forest was bright enough that we didn’t need our headlamps. The three and a half miles that remained of the Bondcliff Trail were tedious, with a lot of ankle and knee twisting from navigating the soft powder over uneven rocks. Through that and the remaining six miles of the night, we walked on in single file: two men and a little dog. We moved through the night in silence, our minds and bodies numb. No words were needed. None could match what we had experienced that day—the day of our longest journey.

  I’d told Steve Smith, whose store was just a few miles down the road from where we parked Tom’s car, that we expected our trip to take no longer than eleven, maybe twelve hours. I told him to worry about us only if he didn’t hear from me by nine o’clock that night. Finally, nearly sixteen hours after we started, we arrived at the car with our clothes literally frozen in place. It was just before nine.

  I was right about Tom Jones. He was chosen for reasons that made sense only to us, and he proved to be invaluable. He was there that day to encourage Atticus through the tougher parts, give him a boost where it was needed, and take turns holding him during our breaks to keep him warm.

  In the following days, I wrote about our trek across the Pemigewasset Wilderness on the hiking Web sites, and word of our epic trek spread throughout the hiking community. Other hikers we knew tried to get to the same mountains over the next couple of days but didn’t make it, and they wondered how we had.

  While Atticus and I spent a few days resting, the legend of the little dog in the mountains continued to grow. I received several e-mails from other hikers, and even more donations came in. One woman wrote, “I can hardly wait to meet you and the Little Giant someday!”

  The Little Giant. I liked it.

  The Little Giant acted as if nothing had changed. But I knew it had. We were both different, both entering a different place in our lives. Adventure will do that to you. We were growing, and we were growing together.

  9

  Stars to Light the Way

  Something died in the blizzard on the Bonds that day—something within us.

  In surviving, we’d passed an initiation and in the process had crossed over the threshold to our great adventure. There was no turning back. I felt different: stronger, calmer, and more confident. I no longer wondered whether or not we belonged in the mountains during the most dangerous season. It was clear we did.

  But change, even change for the better, isn’t always easy to take. As excited as I was about the adventures to come, I felt a touch of sadness, too. Newburyport had been a constant in my life. It was my life. It was the first place I knew to call home after years of gypsying around. My identity was tied to my journal, which was tied to the city. I not only wrote the Undertoad, I was the ’Toad. But all that was slipping away from me. Newburyport and I were like lovers drifting apart.

  I was no longer enamored of small-town politics. I wasn’t looking forward to covering meetings in city hall, sitting down with the mayor, or revealing the questionable ethics of a greedy businessman. The petty squabbles, clashing egos, and tempests in all those teapots I made my living writing about were nothing compared to the tempest we’d survived. My priorities were shifting. It was as Walt Whitman wrote: “After you have exhausted what there is in business, politics, conviviality, love, and so on—have found that none of them finally satisfy, or permanently wear—what remains? Nature remains.”

  Nature remains.

  As is usually the case, my heart knew it before my head figured it out. Perhaps I wasn’t ready to let go, or maybe I was just afraid to. I held on to the security we knew back in our little city by the Merrimack River where everyone knew our names.

  I reminded myself that our friends were in Newburyport, and we returned for a couple of days to touch base with them. It was good to see many of them and to get together for a meal or a cup of tea. One morning we met up with Tom Jones. He was nowhere near as invested in our quest as Atticus and I were, but there was something different in his eyes. I could see it, for the same glint was in my eyes. We sat together in a back booth at Fowles, as part of the three-member fraternity who’d survived the Bonds. Following breakfast, Tom was going off to his job and we were returning to the mountains. I sensed the yearning in his face and how badly he wanted to join us. Part of me wanted him to come with us. However, a bigger part knew that this journey belonged just to Atticus and me. Tom had been a welcome addition, but he was only a supporting actor in our story.

  After breakfast we hugged good-bye, and Atticus and I drove the two hours to New Hampshire and hiked North and South Hancock. The sun was shining, the sky was delightfully blue, and there was no wind. We moved along the trails as easily as if there were wings on our feet. It was mild and comfortable, and it couldn’t have been more different from the last time we’d hiked.

  After the two Hancocks, we hiked Osceola and East Osceola the next day and Cabot the third. We were on pace to reach our goal, having climbed nineteen peaks in fifteen days.

  It was only after those three days of hiking that I realized something else had died on the Bonds—my Lyme disease. Oh, I didn’t think it was completely gone, but I no longer felt the constant nagging symptoms or the fatigue. It was just as well; we had much to accomplish, and the weather would not always be as favorable as i
t had been, so we needed to climb as many peaks as we could before the heavy snows of winter arrived.

  My confidence was growing, and I decided to undertake one of the more daunting hikes on our list. After a day to rest, Atticus and I would drive east to Pinkham Notch and set out to traverse the three mountains of the Carter Range, drop down into and climb up out of Carter Notch, and then walk across the two four-thousand-footers on the Wildcat Range. Although not quite as long as the trip across the Bonds, it would be a more challenging hike, with far more elevation gain. And there would be a new test waiting for me. One I hadn’t expected.

  That’s the thing about a great quest: You don’t just pass a test and then go skipping happily off into the sunset. There are always more challenges to face. You get beyond Lyme disease and survive a blizzard in the wilderness, but something else lurks around the next corner.

  Luckily for Atticus, I was the only one who was going to be challenged on the Carters and the ’Cats. It would be my test, not his, and it would come with the night.

  We started our day with the help of a fellow who knew us from the hiking Web sites. I recognized Woody from his photo on Views from the Top. He was in a parking lot waiting to hike with friends, and I asked if he’d give us a car spot. He graciously followed us down to the base of Wildcat Mountain, where I dropped our car, and then gave us a lift back to the starting point. Atticus and I made our way up to Carter Ridge, and once there we climbed over Middle Carter, South Carter, and Carter Dome. That in itself is a full day, and during the previous winter it had exhausted us. But with daylight waning, we still had miles to go. We descended into the notch and climbed up the Wildcat Ridge Trail. Soon after we’d reached our fourth summit of the day, night descended on us.