On Columbus Day I drove west from the northeast corner, in a way, on heading toward home, although I had several places to be on the way.

 

The White Mountains of New Hampshire are the largest mountains in the Northeast.  The highest peak in our corner of the country is the Presidential Range's king, Mount Washington.  When I first moved to the capital region of New York, near the borders of southern Vermont and northeastern Massachusetts, I would sometimes see cars with bumper stickers reading "This Car Climbed Mount Washington."  Having come from the flat fields of malls and parking lots in suburban Long Island, I thought going to the top of a mountain in any fashion would be an unbelievable experience.  I'd ridden through the Adirondack Mountains many times before then, but those grand pedestals high in the sky seemed unattainable for a small helpless human like me.

Years later I got the idea to join some kind of hiking club in New Zealand (although they called it "tramping.")  I think all of the international students went on the first adventure, and then 90% of us stopped after that and found other adventures to go on here and there, but not with serious camping and climbing.

A few years after that a great friend of mine got a few of us into walking up mountains back to back summers, and that gave me the courage to climb some much bigger ranges in Asia.  And, naturally, that made me want to explore more of America's mountains when I returned home.

That summer I hiked a Vermont mountain with a friend soon after returning to the states, and then decided to make a pilgrimage to Mount Washington, but on foot as opposed to inside a car.  I highly recommend you go someday.

When I returned four years later a couple weeks ago, I was very excited to see the same mountains with autumn leaves.  I'd originally hoped to ascend Mount Jefferson, or any mountain, but I had taken my time in the city that morning, and the drive there was three hours.  A couple summers ago I might have tried to hike a mountain the same day, but it was overcast and probably wouldn't have afforded any good views.  And Jefferson was right next to Washington, so the view was pretty similar.  I eventually asked for camping advice at the visitor's center and found a place just before dusk where I could walk in a short distance, pitch my tent, and rest with the sounds of nature and the spirits of evergreen trees.

At first it appeared that it would stay cloudy all evening and that I should just turn in early, especially since I planned to get up very early in the morning.  I wasn't sure I was supposed to be camping where I was, and I thought it would be best to pack up and move on before anyone might take notice of me.  You're supposed to be 100 feet from the trail, but it was almost dark when I got there, and there weren't many places in the dark forest, so I just found a small field near the entrance and walked over a couple very small hills before finding a small space beneath a tree where nobody would see me.  As the state motto declares: Live Free or Die.

I thank my lucky stars that the very same show their serene splendor by moving the clouds and shining on a sanctuary for a soul seeking solemn solitude.  I stood in the field on the little hill and watched the stars for a long time before deciding to get my sleeping bag and lay down while staring up with music making me happy beyond words.