This is a
small story about a small moment that I had recently. I don’t often write or
blog about my time spent stateside, much less when I am traveling in another
country, but I will take exception here. My reasons will appear obvious, I
hope, though perhaps not.
Several
weeks ago I had the pleasure of once again wandering around in Adirondacks State Park in northeastern New York state. Some friends and I found ourselves,
for the second year in a row, cozied up in the gorgeous Harris family home on
the southeastern shore on the Vermont side of Lake Champlain, compliments of
the indomitable Lucas Harris (also my roommate). The house looks out across the
lake into New York and up the dramatic slopes of the Adirondacks. The past year
we had visited, I was able to hike a few of its more impressive peaks, all of
which are challenging in typical Adirondacks fashion, but none of which put me
at or even close to the edge of my comfort zone. This year would prove somewhat
different.
With a
slightly different group of us in tow this time around, the first 3 days at the
lake house saw limited hiking (though we did spend one day futsing around on
the Three Brothers peaks), but plenty of fine times spent around the fire,
eating amazing food, and drinking delicious Vermont beers. The unusually warm
temperatures this year meant that, at the time of our stay, there was no
snowpack to be heard of in the Adirondacks, even among the high peaks. Of
course, this does not at all mean that hiking is impossible, just that the
going would be messy and wet and cold, just not cold enough for snow. In the
mornings, I couldn’t help but think how different the mountains on western
skyline were than I had remembered. There were no snowy crowns to adorn their
alpine slopes, no white-kissed trim lining the furs and evergreens along their
spines. But the day after the majority of our group departed, with just Lucas
and myself left, the mountains saw their first significant snowfall of the
season. We headed south, crossing into New York state along
the bridge at point at Chimney Point and drove into the high peaks. We were
after Mont Gothics, one of Lucas’s personal favorites but a new peak for me.
The day
started out fine with a light bed of powder under foot in a forest obviously
unaware of its own unassuming beauty. Only the patter of snow melting off of
trees, our own voices, and the occasional bird song populated the late morning
air. It was a cold, even at the low altitude, but as we started moving up the
mountains, the weather gradually began to shift. The calm of the valley--a
snowy cocoon in which one could rest quite happily for hours, days even--was
replaced by buffeting winds along the slopes. The approach was significantly less inviting and implored one to
keep moving so to maintain a decent core body temperature. There wasn’t time for much
stopping anyway--we were, after all, racing to the summit to beat the sunset.
With a 14 mile round trip up and down around 3000 ft. of icy altitude, it was in the interest of safety to have the most technical parts of the
climb behind us by the time we lost the sunlight for the evening.
Things started getting hairy as we arrived at the first major slide on the
southern side of Mont Gothics. Slides are slopes that are steep enough for avalanche danger in the winter time--occasional avalanches flatten any
trees that might grow leaving these sections instead as bare, treeless channels along the mountain side. During ideal snow conditions, these
can provide beautiful runs for alpine skiers. At the moment, however, instead
of a deep snow pack, the slide was encapsulated in a massive sheet of ice that
extended perhaps a kilometer up the mountain from its base in the forest below.
 |
| The first and largest of the slides on the southern slope of Mont Gothics. Starring Lucas Harris. |
Between the
two of us, our equipment was limited and would later prove rather inadequate
for the mixed terrain we would encounter. I was sporting a pair of crampons,
however, these were not free-standing but attached to a pair of snowshoes,
which made the going tough as the snowpack, even at higher altitudes, was
insufficient. Lucas had rigged himself up a pair of screw-shoes--literally, a pair
of trail running shoes with screws driven through the soles to increase
traction. These choices of footwear would have been ideal for both of us in different
conditions, but in the mixed snowy-rocky-icy terrain in the alpine zone, they
would prove almost more of a burden than a benefit.
Once past
the largest slide, we began finding ourselves facing a series of smaller
ones, also covered in thick sheets of ice. Unlike the largest, whose most
challenging segment was flanked by a convenient staircase that had been built
for hikers such as ourselves, these smaller slides covered stair-less segments
of sheer rock. There were several of these that provided absolutely no
traction--faulty equipment or otherwise--and had to be managed with some more creative methods. With the combination of poor footwear, a singular ice axe,
and stubborn determination, we soon found ourselves at the top of a few of these sheer drops. Mind you, this was not without a few nearly disastrous close calls, one in which I found myself sliding
at full pace down about fifty yards of ice towards the trees below, stopped only by grabbing to some unlucky roots protruding from the ice.
Soon, the
weather began to darken--our clear morning gave way to a cloudy, cold mess--as we found ourselves, no longer on ice, but facing huge runs of bare rock. For
some parts of the final approach to the summit, there were cables that had been
sunk into the rocks, but we were still left at various points to hand-jam along large cracks in the granite slabs. It was steep, incredibly
exposed, and seemed to get more technical and difficult every few yards.
 |
| Slabs of granite towards the peak. |
At a
certain point, I passed a section of ice and rock that would prove
significantly more difficult for Lucas and his specific array of equipment. Instead of stopping
the climb and turning back, however, he suggested that I continue to the summit on
my own and bag the peak, seeing as he had previously climbed it in years past.
We had come this far and it seemed a shame not to finish the climb, so I carried
on alone. Above this point, at well over 4000 feet of elevation and deep into the alpine
zone that graces the tops of only the highest of the High Peaks in the
Adirondacks, the technicality of the climbing only increased. At a certain
point, only about 100 yards in distance and 50 feet in elevation from the
summit, I sat down at the base of a large boulder and took in my situation:
Above me
was another quite treacherous section of rock and ice (treacherous enough, at
least, to give me significant pause, which none of the previous sections had
seemed inclined to do). I was rather far past my climbing partner, who himself was
stuck on a section below. If something happened to me at this point, even a small injury, the
state I was in would very quickly deteriorate from a challenging climb to a
potentially life-threatening situation. At this point, I was about 7 miles and
3000 feet from safety near the summit of an exposed mountain with thick clouds
moving in, little food, a dwindling water supply, shitty equipment, and a shear drop in front of me.
This was,
as few other moments I can remember, one of those times when I was confronting
both my mental and physical limit. And as I usually do in such circumstances, I
had to talk myself through my decision making process out loud. In the end, I
guess my confidence in my own ability and my desire to finish the climb was
strong enough to get me on my feet again and move me past this massive slab of
granite in front of me. Beyond this point, I found the summit.
 |
| At the summit by my lonesome. |
It is quite
a strange feeling, but one that I will try to do some justice here without
falling too conveniently into any tropes of idealism or romance. I was alone on
top of a mountain surrounded by the terrifying and inspiring absolutism of
alpine silence. The clouds had rolled in and enveloped the summit muffling all sound. Despite
the fact that below me on all sides was a 3000 foot drop to the valley floor
below, I could barely see past 50 yards. I have never felt so exposed, so isolated and alone in my life.
 |
| Lost in the clouds: the view from the summit looking down 3000 feet to the valley below. Not much to see. |
Mont Gothics, despite the beauty it shares with the rest of the Adirondacks, is hardly a world-class mountaineering destination. I can only imagine the feeling that the primere mountaineers must experience on top of the world’s greatest mountains. But still, modesty aside, there was something about being there that was supremely affective. Here I was, on top of the world, as far as I was concerned, at least for a moment, all by myself, surrounded by a sea of clouds, lost in the icy, solitary embrace of the heavens. The air felt like a vacuum that emptied my lungs and reached to my core, grabbed my heart and began pumping it like it had never pumped before. There was, of course, the corporeal high from physical exertion, the intoxication of bodily strain giving way to the calm following the climax of great effort. But there was something else less tangible, but nonetheless manifest in that place and that moment.
I am not a believer.
I am not a man of god. I despise the church, or any institution for that
matter, that might see me submit my thinking and practice to a rubric. I have
not prayed since I was quite young. And yet, in the hollow tomb at the top of
Mont Gothics, all by my lonesome, I felt compelled to reach for something. What
I muttered was not a benediction or a prayer, per se, but as I figured in the
moment--fuck it, I will probably never be closer to anything like god than I am
right now.
I don’t
remember all of what was said. I don’t even remember entirely what I was
thinking. All I can recall is that I folded my hands together and raised them
to the sky, to the diffuse sun that was pressing hopefully through the ceiling
of clouds above me.
“Keep me safe. Help me be a better
person.” That’s all I remember saying.
 |
| On the decent with the sun reaching through the clouds. |
I realize that I have made a habit
of sharing many intimate personal anecdotes and experiences on my blogs over
the years. For a long while now, I have had the opportunity to travel many
places, see many things, and experience much that must seem strange to many
people, and all the while, I have felt compelled to share this. Maybe it is my
age now, maybe it is the fact that I am once again in a far, far away place and
that sometimes my mind and my body feels tired and just wants to rest. Perhaps
things have changed enough for me in my personal life that, when I read things
such as is written above, I can’t help but feel it to be contrived and silly.
The life we all live feels like a cartoon sometimes and I have found it increasingly
harder to maintain ruse that somehow my
experience and my perspective is meaningful,
significant, or important in any way. It all seems narcissistic and
navel-gazing. So I apologize for that.
Still, sometimes I don’t know what
else I can do with such feelings, such experiences. In the same measure, it
would seem a waste not to try and express them or share them somehow. So for
what it’s worth, I will continue writing--I just arrive in a new continent and
will likely have much to ponder in the coming months--but I don’t expect it to
mean much to anyone.
To continue my already-belabored
analogy, perhaps writing is like my moment on top of Mont Gothics. All of us,
in our own solitary worlds, living our own solitary lives, trying desperately
to reach through the clouds to someone else close at hand, or to see through
the fog and catch the sun. We should be modest and measured in what we might
expect from such efforts, but like Sisyphus, we must stay the course
regardless.
The descent was much quicker as
Lucas and I were able to irreverently and ungracefully butt-slide down the
larger segment of ice. We made it out of the forest long after the sun had
departed. Back at home in Vermont, we feasted upon a massive meal of
mac-and-cheese, sausages and delicious New England beers in front of a roaring
fire. It seemed a fitting end to an incredible day. I didn’t talk to Lucas much
about my time on the summit, but we did begin recounting our excursion in
classic, exaggerated mountain-lore fashion.
I now find myself sitting at a café in
Perth, Australia in temperatures flirting with the 100 degree mark. Quite the
contrast. And despite the fact that I am usually a much bigger fan of the heat
than the cold (and don’t really mind 100 degree days), I felt compelled to take
this time to write about that snowy summit half a world away.
What a fucking trip.
-mario
