by Tom Ryan
I simply refused to play Russian roulette with the weather; Atticus was too important to me.
My conservative approach was why we were behind schedule, with only twenty mountains climbed a month into winter. The weather had been unkind so far, but I was hoping for a reverse of the previous winter, which had had very little snow in the beginning and then quick bursts of big storms hitting every two weeks.
It seemed to snow a bit each night. But that was down in the valleys. Up high it snowed far more than that.
One morning Atticus and I set out to climb Garfield, knowing that several people had done it the day before and left a well-trodden path that Atticus could take advantage of. There was the slightest dusting of snow outside our back door, like powdered sugar just barely gracing a fresh-baked cookie. When we reached the Garfield trailhead, it was the same fine powder, and yet up higher we pushed through a foot of new snow.
It was like that throughout the winter. Whether it had snowed in the valleys or not, the mountaintops always seemed to have a new supply. It was great for the ski industry, but bad for Atticus and me. When we did get to hike, it was mostly on smaller, individual peaks. What we needed was a break in the weather that would get us above tree line and allow traverses covering multiple summits. That would catch us up in a hurry.
We finally caught that break and headed to the four peaks on Franconia Ridge. The ridge was one of those hikes we saved for the best and safest days. It was a spectacular walk above tree line, but if the weather changed, it could also be a deathtrap. The ridge was one of those places folks talked about when they said, “People die up there.”
It used to be that Mount Washington and the other high peaks of the Presidential Range were the mountains feared the most, and for good reason. The Mount Washington Observatory Web site keeps an ever-growing list of people—142 as of this writing—who have died on or near Washington since 1849. And yet it seemed that Franconia Ridge, particularly Lafayette and Lincoln, the sixth- and seventh-highest peaks, had been claiming lives as well in recent years.
We had a small window of opportunity before more snow came later that night, so Atticus and I took advantage of the calm before the storm. We made our way up over the aptly named Three Agonies, where I struggled to keep up with Atticus, and he showed his trademark patience. Once past the Agonies and through the forest, we came out to Greenleaf Hut, one of the Appalachian Mountain Club’s huts, which is closed in winter. We were met by an icy wind but sought shelter on the north side of the building. That’s where I drank and ate, put on more clothing, and put Atticus’s bodysuit on him.
It’s a mile from the hut to the summit, and it’s always difficult for me. I took it easy, moving slowly, stopping often to practice my climbing ritual of breathing heavily, swearing liberally, and praying for forgiveness—since I must have done something wrong to be in so much pain every time I climbed a mountain.
Above the hut I didn’t need my snowshoes any longer and switched to MICROspikes, a new piece of equipment I’d acquired. They were a clever invention: strong elastic webbing that you could pull over the soles of your boots like rubbers. On the bottom was a crisscross pattern of chains and small, sharp teeth that cut into the ice. I had crampons for deep, hard ice, but my MICROspikes were just right for those days when I was dealing with ice but not necessarily an entire ice field. They were perfect, since the trail was no longer laden in snow. The winds had scoured the mountaintop and left a bony bed of rock and ice with only occasional patches of snow.
Along that remarkable section of desolation, where the rock is ages old, I was battered by the wind. It kicked flecks of snow and ice up like breaking waves, and they flew into my face every time a wave curled and broke again. Atticus was small enough to walk below the wind, taking shelter on occasion behind the large cairns marking the trail. He’d reach one and take cover. When he saw me approaching, he made a dash for the next one. He’d always been quite smart that way.
The wind was stronger than it was supposed to be, and there was a point when I thought about turning back, but I buoyed myself with, of all things, Tennyson. Each time the wind bared its teeth, I thought of the opening stanza of his poem “Break, Break, Break”:
Break, break, break,
On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me.
The waves of wind, ice, and snow thrashed the rocky top of the mountain, and me along with it. Toward the summit of Lafayette, it’s a pretty barren place. On a summer day, it can be crowded and seem more like a subway station, with people coming and going or simply loitering for the views. But there was not another person in sight as we approached. There was no sign of life at all other than Atticus, and the sky was a muted gray with a dull sun that had turned its back on us.
While the wind shook me on my last approach to the top, I experienced a marriage of fear and excitement. The first thought was, My God, what are we doing up here? The second was, I feel so amazingly alive!
My words would never do it justice, but Tennyson’s did: “And I would that my tongue could utter / The thoughts that arise in me.” To be rendered speechless in that mysterious place, in those powerful conditions—just how often do any of us feel so overwhelmed, so out of breath with exhilaration? We work so hard to limit the variables in our lives. And yet on a mountaintop we have no control. We have only ourselves, and those were the times when Doug Cray’s advice came into play once again: “Hold on to yourself, man.” It was not unlike the storms I had endured in politics.
When faced with such wild experiences, as we were that day, I tried to take a minute to look around and say, “This is my life!” And I said it just like that, with an exclamation point. The sound of my own voice seemed to remind me that the adventure was worth having, and that I had chosen it, and it helped me tuck my fear away.
Such moments and challenges in life are all too fleeting and rare. The alternative is to be safe, but it’s also numbing. Once Atticus and I discovered the mountains, I chose adventure instead, and life was richer because of it. It was as Kierkegaard had said: “To venture causes anxiety, but not to venture is to lose oneself. . . . And to venture in the highest sense is precisely to become conscious of oneself.”
By venturing I had learned to relish my fear when things became a bit unpredictable.
I carefully placed my feet between rocks, testing the bite of the small spikes on occasional plates of ice. Before too long we had gained the summit, and while tired from the climb, we were exhilarated, too. On top of Lafayette, the mountain my father used to look at longingly from the observation platform on Cannon Mountain, the universe stretched out in every direction. There are higher places in the world, even higher in the White Mountains, but from the summit of Lafayette it doesn’t seem that way, not with the Pemigewasset Wilderness dropping off to the east, Franconia Notch to the west, and the fading ridge that runs to the south. It is immense, widening and narrowing as it snakes along, and at times it reminds me of the Great Wall of China.
On that day, beside my little friend under a frowning sky, with no other sign of life around, it felt as if we were the last creatures alive on the world. That was part of the thrill of being up there. It was leaving the safety but predictability of home and experiencing life on the edge.
As always, I was inspired by the gumption and spirit of Atticus. He doesn’t harbor my fears or concerns. Life is simpler for him. He just goes out and does things he knows he can do. When he reached the summit, he looked around and then sat down next to the sign to have his picture taken even as the wind whipped by him. We’d been there so many times through the past few years that he knew the routine. I always took his picture there.
Seeing Atticus like that, in circumstances both natural and wild, where some people would panic—I swear he gave me strength. He always had. I was never alone as long as he was nearby.
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On that lonely and desolate morning, he gave me courage. By watching his calmness, his sense of belonging, even in the wildest of conditions, I gathered myself up, steeled myself, took some photos, and then moved on. We would be exposed above tree line, and the strong winds and freezing temperatures had me contemplating turning back, but by watching Atticus, my barometer, I decided against that. He was comfortable and willing to go forward—so we did.
We moved south along the ridge headed for Lincoln, but beyond Lincoln the sky was changing as the next storm front was coming in. High above, flat clouds were forming, but below, a wonderful undercast made it appear as though we were about to take a walk on the clouds. In the distance a fine line of blue between both layers of clouds mocked the dismal gray above and below.
My MICROspikes performed admirably, and I felt safe with them on. I carried my crampons and my snowshoes on my pack but needed neither, even as we climbed to the icy top of Lincoln.
Once we were there, the sky grew even more dramatic; the undercast was creeping beneath us like a long, bloated beast. It looked so thick and real that I felt as if we could step right off the ridge and walk across to the Kinsmans on its back. To watch it snake through Franconia Notch like that was magnificent and surreal. It had stolen some of our views of the valleys but offered up others even more astounding.
When we reached Little Haystack, the winds had died down and the storm was just taking shape. By this time the next day, it wouldn’t be safe up there, but for the next several hours there was nothing to worry about. I decided to stick to our original plan, and we moved toward Liberty, descending into the woods for the nearly two-mile stretch of down, down, down, before a short but steep climb up. On Liberty it was just as icy and the sky even more forlorn. The wind had awakened and jeered us for our impertinence.
Our final peak of the day was Flume. Once there, we were stuck in a cloud, and neither Atticus nor I took much joy being there. Perhaps we were just exhausted, but we were feeling flat and uninspired.
That night Atticus and I heard the storm come in and knew it would be raging on Franconia Ridge, less than five miles away. Oh, how horrible it would be to be stuck up there in such a storm! We’d timed it perfectly.
Unfortunately that winter, two other hikers didn’t. Three weeks after Atticus and I were up there, we heard the helicopters’ haunting cry above our apartment.
Lawrence Fredrickson and James Osborne didn’t pay close attention to the weather and made an attempt to climb Lincoln and Lafayette. A storm blew in, as was predicted, and they were stuck on the mountain overnight. The next morning the helicopters were out searching for them. It would take most of the day to find them.
Osborne would lose a leg. Fredrickson was not so lucky. He lost his life.
Several months after the tragedy, the Nashua Telegraph interviewed Osborne. He gave a horrific account. After spending the night in a tiny cave above tree line, the two men had tried to return the way they came. They were between Lincoln and Little Haystack when Fredrickson’s eyes were stuck closed by frostbite. He had to continue with his hand on Osborne’s shoulder.
Osborne talked about how they’d stumbled into the blinding snow while combating exhaustion. Both men were fighting for their lives, and Fredrickson couldn’t keep up. Eventually he collapsed on the trail. Osborne urged him to get up, but hypothermia had taken hold already and he lay helplessly in the snow while winds raged above them.
They had almost made it back to the safety of the trees. Once there, they’d be out of the storm and might have had a fighting chance, but Fredrickson couldn’t get up and Osborne didn’t have the strength left to do anything about it. I can’t imagine how difficult it must have been for Osborne to leave his friend behind, but he had no choice. He had to keep going in order to live.
Eventually Osborne passed out, and when he woke up, he was in the hospital. That’s when he learned that Fredrickson had died.
The longer the helicopters searched over us, the more apparent it was that someone was in the gravest danger. I huddled under the blankets on the couch, praying for whoever it was up there and thinking, There but for the grace of God go I.
Because I watched the weather as closely as I did, Atticus and I did hike that same day, but we started at 4:00 A.M. and hiked Carrigain, which had far less exposure. The snow didn’t start falling until we were off the mountain and nearly back at our car.
We returned to Franconia Ridge again a couple of weeks later to hike the four peaks. When we got to Little Haystack, I dropped a rose on the trail in memory of Fredrickson.
I recited Tennyson’s “Break, Break, Break” on that second hike as well; the rest of it had significant meaning concerning what had happened between our visits.
O well for the fisherman’s boy,
That he shouts with his sister at play!
O well for the sailor lad,
That he sings in his boat on the bay!
And the stately ships go on
To their haven under the hill;
But O for the touch of a vanish’d hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still!
Break, break, break,
At the foot of thy crags, O Sea!
But the tender grace of a day that is dead
Will never come back to me.
We would hear the helicopters again that winter, but thankfully there would be a different outcome. However, when spring came, a woman was killed while making her way up the Falling Waters Trail toward Little Haystack when a large rock broke free and came tumbling down the mountain, colliding with her head.
The deaths were stark reminders of why I took the precautions I did and how wild nature can be. It also gave me renewed respect for the times when Atticus had chosen not to hike. As I said before, simply by paying attention to my little friend’s comfort level, I kept myself safe.
There had been many days that winter when he didn’t feel comfortable hiking, and there would be many more. We were falling further behind, and while there was a chance we’d reach our goal, it was only a very slight chance.
27
My Last Letter Home
How does one describe the Bonds to those who have never been there? How do you capture the precipitous and awesome Bondcliff? The long, strong neck of trail that leads from the dramatic edifice up to neighboring Bond, which looms above you? The unmatched grandeur from a comfortable summit seat atop West Bond, which our friend Steve Smith so accurately dubbed a “scatter your ashes” kind of place?
Those are the challenges that faced me when writing about the Bonds so that my father could “see” a place he’d never been to. We still weren’t talking, but I had continued to write to him on occasion.
I thought about genius loci, originally a Latin term for the pervading spirit of a place. It was not unlike the Abenaki Indian belief that there was something different about the mountains. They believed that protective spirits watched over the place. Out of reverence for the Great Spirits on the mountaintops, the Abenaki reportedly avoided the summits.
Genius loci can be found throughout the White Mountains, and yet to me no place feels richer with it than the middle of the Pemigewasset Wilderness, where the three Bonds hold court. It is the heart of the White Mountains.
Mount Washington and her neighboring peaks along the Presidential Range stand taller and more magnificent. Mount Lafayette and Mount Lincoln also stand taller, and the entire length of Franconia Ridge is spectacular. However, no mountains make you feel more primitive and wild than Bondcliff, Bond, and West Bond. And unlike the Presidential Range or Franconia Ridge, these are peaks that tourists don’t get a chance to see from the road. In order to appreciate them, you have to get to them, which isn’t easy. They are landlocked, so tucked away that most people don’t even know they exist.
To get to Bondcliff, the southernmost peak, you can walk the nine miles fr
om the Kancamagus Highway in the south or thirteen miles from Route 302 to the north.
In climbing the four-thousand-footers as often as Atticus and I had, I often tried to remember my initial visit on each mountain to assure that our hikes remained fresh. I attempted to peel back the experience of seeing them over and over again and recall the undiluted moment of awe that came with being on them the very first time. On the Bonds there is no need to do that. You walk among giants as you stand in the middle of the White Mountains and see towering peaks in every direction. Even if I saw the world from there a hundred times, it would not be enough.
With a calm day before yet another coming storm, my friend Mary dropped Atticus and me off at Lincoln Woods in the south, and we planned to reverse our past trips through the Bonds and finish at our waiting car up north at the end of Zealand Road.
We walked in darkness until the pale dawn arrived and were at the bridge to the wilderness area in an hour. Whenever I arrived at that point, I thought of how in mythology bridges represent a new world or a new life. And certainly, once you cross the bridge into the Pemi, it all changes. Maybe not the topography, but on the far side of the river it always felt as though Atticus and I had entered an otherworldly realm.
When we reached it that morning, the air was crisp and cold and I could see my breath. The morning was otherwise nondescript, but that soon changed when the sun rose high enough over the mountains to light up the bare January treetops, splashing them with a golden paint and making them appear to be as full of color as they are each autumn. It was a glorious display of color in a forest that seems black and white in the winter months.
