The Hard Way to Peekamoose Mountain: Mount Pleasant to Cross Mountain

Appalachia, December 2002

By late afternoon, I'm on the natural causeway that links Mount Pleasant to Cross Mountain; two down, nine mountains to go. Overhanging rim rock trims the edge of the 1,100-foot falloff into Traver Hollow on my left. Ahead I catch glimpses through the trees of a towering citadel. Dark green, boreal Canadian forest caps its summit; it has to be the Wittenberg, the first and most massive of the eight Catskill high peaks along my route. Almost 1,500 feet higher than their neighbors, their summits are in another, colder world.

The landscape grows wilder as I move deeper into the mountains, and the forest's mood turns mean, with quickening gusts rattling the branches. Soon a harsh wind is wailing through the trees as an anemic, amber-colored sun fades below the shoulder of Cross Mountain. I snug my shell's zipper a little tighter and note that the grade ahead is climbing steeply among snow-covered ledges. Rather than risk being caught by darkness on treacherous ground, I drop my pack and spread foam pad, bivy sack, and sleeping bag in a shallow scoop between the roots of a yellow birch.

Night falls, and moonlight bright enough to travel by casts a shadow fretwork across the forest floor. Soon the gale is punching through the trees in measured pulses, each surge howling its approach. I wonder if this curious effect, which I've endured before at night in these mountains, might be waves in the rushing air, as water configures itself in an ocean storm. But nestled snugly in GoreTex and goose down, the tempest loud overhead, I fall asleep with a smile, as wind song becomes a lullaby.