Troubles forereckoned are doubly suffered.
Christian Nestell Bovee
In the mid-1970s, while I was attending law school in Manhattan, one of my most pleasurable diversions was to drive to Vermont the last weekend of September. There I would meet my close friends, a married couple living in Boston, and we would camp in a state park to enjoy the breathtaking views of the leaf turning season in Vermont’s countryside. We would normally camp in the Molly Stark Park, one of the parks in southwestern Vermont. However, in 1974 we chose to stay at a park by Lake Groton in the northern corner of the state: not only was it one of the most beautiful locations in rural Vermont, but it was close to the state’s eastern border and a convenient starting point for the execution of my friends’ proposed project of driving into New Hampshire to reach Mount Washington, the highest peak in the Northeastern United States, and hiking to the top of that mountain.
Let the record show that, from the start, I had serious misgivings about the venture. Not only was I in worse physical shape than my friends, but had never been steady on my feet and dreaded any undertaking that involved serious walking up, and particularly down, a steep incline. My friends, however, belittled my concerns and essentially talked me into going along. There was a winding road one could drive to reach the Mount Washington summit, but my friends dismissed that option with a sneer – what would be the fun of doing that?
I finally agreed and prepared myself the best I could for the anticipated ordeal. I packed my heaviest winter jacket, thick leather gloves, a woolen cap, and the sturdiest shoes I owned (I refused to buy hiking boots just for this outing) and drove out of Manhattan that Friday morning. The weather was warm and dry, but rain was forecasted for the weekend. When we secured a camping spot at Lake Groton it was dry, but rain was expected to arrive that evening. From our campground we drove to St. Johnsbury, and then across into New Hampshire.
We arrived in the parking area at the foot of Mount Washington in the afternoon. It was overcast and rain seemed to be approaching as we started our hike. The first portion of the trek was relatively easy: the path was steep, but presented no major climbing obstacles that deterred progress. We eventually arrived at a campground where we found a lean-to in which to spend Friday night.
On Saturday morning we resumed our trek up and arrived at a juncture where hung a large sign that indicated that an important landmark, the Lake in the Clouds Hut, was two miles away. From that point on the climb became rather strenuous, forcing us to scramble over boulders, sheets of granite, and rough staircases made out of irregular slabs of rock. I nearly lost my footing a couple of times, and finally uttered an emphatic declaration: “This will be a bitch coming down!!” My friends laughed at my anticipated discomfort.
***
We stopped at the Hut (which was actually a set of small lodges) and looked around the breathtaking panorama of mountain ranges, lakes, and steep hillsides covered by low shrubs and pincushions of yellow and orange mats of vegetation. Heavy clouds were approaching from the west and we had to make a decision: proceed the remaining mile and a half to the summit, or turn around before the bad weather caught up with us. Obviously, I favored declaring victory and going down as fast as we could safely negotiate the descent; my friends, however, would hear nothing of this and insisted on going up to the observatory at the summit.
As we pressed on, it got noticeably colder and the first drops of rain began to fall. Finally, we were greeted by a wooden sign announcing that we had reached “Mt. Washington Summit,” 6,288 feet above sea level. The summit housed an observatory and a visitor center – a concrete bunker built on the side of the peak. Had the weather been better (it seldom was) we would have spent time touring the visitor center and looking at the museum it contained; as it was, we hurried around for a few minutes and set off downhill.
I must admit I started whining the moment I set foot on the trail. It felt even steeper than on the way up, and it was becoming increasingly slippery as the rain began to come down. I tumbled a few times, and slid down some distance on my back, feet forward, suffering a rainbow of cuts and bruises. As my friends helped me to regain verticality, I kept shouting, over and over: “I knew it was going to be this bad! I knew it! I knew it!” I think they actually laughed, or at the very least smirked, at my complaints.
In addition to the injuries, I was soaking wet and shivering from the dropping temperature. When we finally descended to the more or less level portion of the trail, I started racing towards paradise, our parked car. I don’t know how I made it, but the warmth of a dry car with the heat turned on kept me going until we stopped somewhere for a scalding cup of coffee.
As we started the drive back to our campsite in Vermont, my friends asked how I had liked the experience. My response essentially had three parts: (1) I was happy that I could cross Mount Washington off my list of “to go places;” (2) I had hated every minute of my walk, back and forth, on those trails; (3) however, the experience, bad as it was, did not rise to the level of horror that I had anticipated: I did not break anything and by Sunday I was ready to return to Manhattan. I might be willing to return to Mount Washington again someday, but in July, and subject to closely scrutinizing the weather forecast.
THE END
Bio:
Born in Cuba, Matias Travieso-Diaz migrated to the United States as a young man. He became an engineer and lawyer and practiced for nearly fifty years. After retirement, he took up creative writing. Over two hundred and ninety of his short stories have been published or accepted for publication in anthologies, magazines, blogs, audio books, and podcasts. One of his four novels, an autobiography entitled “Cuban Transplant,” and four anthologies of his stories have also been published.