In the North Country

…who can say where a voyage starts – not the the actual passage
but the dream of a journey and its urge to find a way?
–William Least Heat Moon, RIVER HORSE

I’ve had my “Walk Across New England” route sitting in my CalTopo drafts since 2019. My youngest brother got married that year, so it felt like the right time to return to my roots — to the same woods and hills where I first fell in love with wild places.

But my honorary nephew had his bar mitzvah that same year, and I didn’t want to spend too much time traveling. So I chose the Northern New Mexico Loop instead — a decision that worked out just fine, since I love that corner of the world.

Still, I’m a Rhode Islander at heart — a bit loud, a bit blunt, very loyal. My first real mountain, Mount Lafayette, set the tone for what hiking means to me: straight up, rugged, challenging, and oh-so-rewarding.

After twenty-five years out West, I wanted to come full circle — to walk through New England again, connecting the mountains that shaped me and finishing at the ocean of my childhood.

Back in New England. The foliage may be just past peak, but it’s still vibrant — a mix of golds, russets, and the last stubborn reds clinging to the maples. This New England native turned desert rat is soaking up the color and crunch of the leaves, the crisp air, and that unmistakable fall smell.

It’s been years since I’ve walked these woods in October, and something about the light here hits different — lower, softer, almost nostalgic. Out West, the sky feels endless. Here, the canopy folds over you like a quilt of color and memory.

The journey began, as these things often do, with the mandatory start-of-journey selfie — this time at the quiet U.S./Canada border. A simple monument sign, some fallen leaves, and that familiar mix of excitement and calm before the first steps south.

Continuing my way south, I’m reminded that no amount of planning quite prepares you for New England’s moods. On my bingo card for this trip? Rain, maybe frost. Not 80°F in October.

I expected cool mornings and crisp nights — maybe even a dusting of snow at elevation. Instead, I’m hiking through the kind of heat that feels more like June, watching leaves drop in slow motion under an unseasonably bright sun. I’m used to long water carries out West, but not this slow apocalypse of global warming. The oddity of sweating through my sun hoodie while surrounded by the look of autumn.

Still, the trail provides.

So here I am, climbing rocky, rooty grades because in New Hampshire, they don’t believe in switchbacks. My sun hoodie is soaked through, and I’m missing my button-down.

It got bad enough that I actually considered buying a tourist tchotchke T-shirt. But on the road walk out of “town” today, I spotted a Smartwool polo lying in the road in my size, no less.

Some poor Cohos Trail hiker is now short one snazzy shirt. However,  I’m fancy as hell, leaf-peeping in merino.

Showered, laundry done, and ready to drive a  Subaru to Woodstock, VT.

Now I’m at the gates of the White Mountains proper ; the range that started this whole crazy life of mine back in the day.

It’s funny  decades later, different gear, different life, yet the feeling’s the same.

I’m on a journey and a journey that I’ve anticipated for years. The timing is right and it is time to pack my bag and go!

—

Solvitur ambulando — it is solved by walking.

(My last message to my co-workers!)