More to hiking than the peaks
I stood on the shoulder of Blueberry Mountain wondering if Burnside had days like this.
James Burnside’s 1996 book “Exploring the 46 Adirondack High Peaks” is part guide, part chronicle of hiking the High Peaks with his sons Jim and Ben. Many trails have changed since its publication, making it no longer a functional guide, but the charm of Burnsides’ descriptions and adventures with his sons endures.
There wasn’t a ton of charm as my 11-year-old – who we call Wren – started from Marcy Field in Keene Valley. It was already hot and humid when Wren balked at an early steep section while I offered advice about “needing to warm up” that even I didn’t believe.
Our goal was to climb the underrated Blueberry Mountain and then Porter Mountain, which would be Wren’s seventh High Peak. My wife, Gillian, and Wren had done the other six together, so Gillian is more Burnside than I am. After Gillian and Wren conquered Esther Mountain a few weeks ago, Wren told me, “You need to step up your game, Dad.”
Wren and I stopped beside a stream to splash water on our faces. Then, we just stopped a lot. We looked at mushrooms, we watched an ant carry the remains of a moth off to its nest. We did very little actual hiking.
“One almost always meets groups with children on the trail in summer. They generate a high degree of enthusiasm for hiking,” Burnside writes about hiking Cascade Mountain.
There was a child but there was no high degree of enthusiasm. The nine-mile round trip was well within Wren’s range, but you would never know it on this day.
I wondered if Gillian and Burnside edited these parts of the story out of their copy. If Burnside sprinkled bits of history and poetry into his trip reports and cut out the cranky, complainy parts. Then, of course, I wondered if it was me. If there were some magic words to say or attitude I could impart.
At the next break, I didn’t end the break. I knelt just off the trail. There were no other hikers and no conversation. We just sat. I watched two slate-colored juncos flit among the branches and the duff of the forest floor. After a few minutes, the juncos forgot about us and came closer.
I lost track of time as we sat. Thirty minutes passed, then 45. I looked at the new growth on the end of the balsam branches. I tried to identify each tree I was seeing. The ground was scattered with fallen leaves and I looked up to see where they had fallen from.
“This isn’t work,” I thought to myself. There wasn’t a deadline. We didn’t have to get to Porter by 2 p.m. or 3 p.m. We didn’t have to get to Porter at all.
Before our hike, Wren had done five days at a multisport camp. Seven hours a day of soccer and tennis and whatever else they dreamt up. After camp, Wren had an hour-long dose of swim team. A week of all that activity might make a human tired, I realized. There was no cajoling or inspiration that would help.
Wren stood, a sign to start hiking again.
“Can you give me a good half an hour?” I asked. Wren nodded.
I didn’t need all 30 minutes because we reached an open patch of rock in 20. That wasn’t the plan, but plans change. Wren climbed a giant boulder, something Gillian probably wouldn’t have allowed. I thought about my sequel to Burnside’s book, “Almost Exploring the 46 High Peaks.”
We chilled out, we picked blueberries and looked out toward Whiteface Mountain. Then we hiked back to Marcy Field. On the other side of Marcy Field we swam in the Ausable River. Later, in an attempt to ruin our dinner, we ate ice cream looking out at Schroon Lake.
Wren ticked off the day’s developments: breakfast at Dunkin Donuts, hiked with my dad, went swimming and had ice cream. It was a really good day Wren summarized. Maybe we got where we needed to go after all.