You road I enter upon and look around, I believe you are not all that is here, I believe that much unseen is also here. – Walt Whitman “Song of the Open Road”
The White Mountains, AKA “The Whites,” are where I cut my backpacking teeth. It’s where I first learned to love wild places.
I learned to love them in a way that had less to do with idyllic interludes and more with what it means to schlep a pack, soak your shirt with sweat, grunt up a trail, and reach a place you’ll never forget.
And now I’m back and reconnecting on a longer walk.
These mountains may be small by Western standards, but they aren’t an easy stroll by any stretch.
They’re steep, rocky, rooty, and blunt in that classic New England fashion. The trails here are often over a century old and don’t believe in switchbacks. Instead, they go straight up.
I found myself moving slower than my normal pace, sometimes scrambling more than hiking. But aside from one gnarly day of nasty alpine weather, I had classic fall hiking.
I had the kind of October conditions that live in your memory: crisp air, clear skies, and those long, wide views that remind you why you ever started walking in the first place.
Thirty-nine years later, I found myself back on Lafayette on the Friday of Columbus Day Weekend. Still steep. Still rocky. Still rewarding.
And a place that changed my life all those years ago.
I even splurged for a night at Greenleaf Hut, where I last stayed as a work-for-stay hiker during my Appalachian Trail thru-hike in 1998.
The sunset from the porch still seemed beautiful to me even after all these years out West.
The alpenglow did not seem lesser because I was “only” at 4000′. Instead I just marveled at the light as I stood in the crisp October air
There are a lot of memories tucked into these ridgelines. A lot of miles, too. These mountains directly led to the life I now live — in Moab, with Joan, immersed in wild places and all the journeys that have followed. From the granite of New Hampshire to the red rock of Utah, it’s all connected.
I may have grown up in Rhode Island, but the Whites are where my outdoor life started.
The Whites shaped me and who I became, and I’m grateful to return.
And tomorrow my walk continues .
Onward!