I'll always associate Dad with the mountains he loves.
Times have been good and bad, as they are for all families, but he's always been there, for advice, for support, or to drag you out of bed at 4am up into the hills.
Those long days are what I remember, clear as day. 22 miles in the winter, 5 summits, starting when it was dark, finishing when it was dark. Endless crunching through the snow.
The time we went through the ice, 6 miles in, the cold black water bubbling down into snowpants, soaking everything, snowshoes pulling our flailing legs further under. Grabbing at frail pine trees along the creekbed to pull ourselves out. Stripping naked and wringing out the clothes and putting it back on... and then deciding whether to try for the car or to run for it, 2 more miles into the interior, to a ranger station we hoped was open to dry out.
Or Allen, the worst and most remote of the 46, a 3 day ordeal. So cold at night that the stove couldn't boil water and we had to eat the ramen uncooked. crunchy unflavored mass. and we woke in our sleeping bags under an inch of snow in the Leanto and our clothes were frozen solid and crackled when we put them on.
Or the Dix range, when he was too proud to bring a tent, so we used two tarps... and our body heat melted the snow and we started sliding downhill and couldn't sleep. for 4 hours laying there freezing. until we said fuck it and packed up at 0330 and headed home in the dark, dropping off the range through quiet glades before the sun was even starting to rise.
Or when I finished my 46, Emmons and Donaldson, in the pouring rain, absolutely pouring, and instead of camping like we planned we turned around and headed back down the slide track and the whole trail home was flowing water like a river and we were lugging 15 lbs of extra weight in the water soaked packs full of camping gear we never used, splashing endlessly for miles in the dark, mindnumbing and exhausted, back to the car.
Avalanche Lake, when we bagged two more by scrambling up the dike, roped up. And on the way out the wind came down the valley and we held open our coats and like some awkward sailboats were pushed across the frozen lake by the gusts... and then the descent, plummeting down the trail on unturnable skiis with the only rule being don't hit a tree. just go straight and keep it together. keep it together.
Lost on Street and Nye, having started at 0100, tired and cold, missing the trail, and opting to follow some rabbit tracks, following them, up and over and under the trees, for half an hour under the full moon that lit up the forest as daytime, following those tracks since there was nothing else... and when we looked up there was the summit sign in the dark... and we were out by 0800... passing all those early-bird go getters who thought 7am was an early start.
Or failing Whiteface, twice, when we tried from the backside. The first time, 8 miles took longer than 10 hours, back slipping on the ice covered rocks, trying to find escape routes onto the ski area, and our lunch sitting forgotten at home on the kitchen counter. I lost 8 pounds that day. in one day. and how we had to turn back when it got too dark and around 10pm I was hallucinating so much from exhaustion and thirst that I could see lights and cabins that didn't exist, and my quads cramped, and he gave me whatever water hadn't frozen in the bottles and went on ahead through the night. always ahead, saying we had to get out. And I knew it, and followed, limping, for hour after hour until we were safe.
Or the second time... when the same thing happened, but instead of turning back we kept going up, into the cloud and the night, and topped out at 7pm with the ski lifts closed. And we slashed our way down to the top of the ski runs, strapped on our skiis and skiied all the way down in the dying light, exhausted, but victorious.
East Dix, when we went up the slide track in the morning, scrambling up the sheer rock. and the flake i was holding broke off and i was sliding, 500 feet up the slide, picking up speed. And I dug my forearms and pressed my face and chest into the rock face and stopped myself, grinding to a halt, bleeding and full of adrenaline. And we reached the top of the slide, the 12 foot cliff, that was a waterfall from the rain. And we climbed up it, up the waterfall, with a 1000 feet of death behind us if we slipped, and I promised never to tell mom.
and NH, the Presidentials, running half the range in a day, up Huntington ravine and the next day out over the rolling summits in the afternoon sun, up one and down and up again, on and on and on in the sunlight.
All those times, tired and hungry, cold and wet, sometimes a walk in the park, sometimes desperate, where you didn't think about what COUlD happen because it was scary, and you focused on what had happened and what was the present because that's what you had to do if you wanted to live... all those times he's been there. He's always been there. Pushing. Guiding. Inspiring. Protecting. Driving. I think it's how he feels alive, how he escapes, and forgets the hospital, the doctoring, the shitty hours dealing with drug addicts and malingerers and red tape bureaucracy that drain him like leeches.
If he's not in his shop building guitars he's planning his next elopement to the hills, to silence and peace, and even if it's dangerous, at least he'd die on his own terms, somewhere he loves.
And I am ever grateful and ever the wiser and ever thankful that he dragged me out, time and time again, to the Adirondacks, to the Greens, to the Whites, to the Gunks, to Whitehorse and Cathedral, to the Grand Canyon, to Arizona some 14's, to Cali and Montana and Wyoming and Canada and France... to wherever there was something towering that could be hiked or skiied or climbed..... to face things with him... as father and son.
Happy Father's day, mountain man.
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