I've been hiking the White Mountains since I was 17. Each excursion, each exploration has been life changing. In 1977, on a hot August day, my father and I set out for the summit of Mt. Washington. Blue skies gave way to a whiteout of fog that was illuminated by a fierce electrical storm; exposed and above treeline we learned what it meant to be father & son. 36-years later I shared the details of our story during his eulogy. Then in August of 2013, on their first hike to the Summit of Washington, my three sons and I set his ashes free just above the head of the Dry River Trail.
At the end of summer in 1982 I did solo hikes into Madison Hut, Zealand Falls Hut, and explored numerous trails whose names have all been lost to my aging memory. The solitude and the freedom experienced then has guided me back time after time. There have been many discoveries I experienced in the Whites; It was along a riverbed and by candlelight that I explored the writings of John Muir, as well as trout fishing while backpacking, nude bathing at dusk, and the sheer pleasure and satisfaction that a bottle of red wine can bring to any camp site at the end of a long exhausting day.
I recently returned, exploring the western edge of the presidentials with a dear friend and again with my three sons. The trails were as unforgiving as I remembered them, but the bottle of single malt scotch we portered in mended our aging joints. (My sons' joints were just fine, but miraculously three cold silver bullets appeared to join our toasts with eager smiles and good hearts.)
There is a camaraderie earned when traveling wooded trail and sipping whiskey, especially beneath the blue black sky of a mountain night sky that almosts hums with the power of life. Perhaps John Muir understood this best when he wrote, "Keep close to Nature's heart...Wash your spirit clean."
