The Hard Way to Peekamoose Mountain: An Odyssey Ahead

Appalachia, December 2002

Three more weeks pass, and, though April is almost over, winter hangs on along the high ridges among naked, wind-tortured trees and in snowdrifts in the shadows under balsam and spruce. Below the mountaintops, clear sight lines before the leaves open make this my favorite time to roam the high country. And now the idea of attempting the longest bushwhack has become irresistible.

Where the Esopus Creek carves a deep notch through the highlands, Romer Mountain forms the gap's southern buttress. An old friend and local townsman, who goes by the handle "Blue Dog," has agreed to drop me off at the mountain's base and now watches as I vanish from sight, swallowed by the forest. If I'm not delayed by rough country or injury, we will meet in 72 hours at Gulph Hollow.

Almost three days of lonely route-finding lie ahead of me. For fun, I will try to find my way without looking at a compass, and, unless I encounter poor visibility in rain or fog, I will steer a course in the manner of travelers before the invention of the magnetic needle.

I enjoy a quirk that puzzles a lot of my hiking friends: I would rather visit places that people rarely see than follow trails. Many of the trackless summits to the south have felt the crunch of my boots, but on those climbs I ascended the main ridges. This trip, though, will take me through the seldom-visited forests that lie between the ridges. I'm feeling so drawn to these lonely parts that I selfishly refuse Chris's last-minute petition to come along. His good company would be a distraction, and I want to drink deeply of, and savor, each moment of the adventure.

So here I am, plunging into a questionable odyssey, but with joyful intensity and so energized that I can't restrain my pace until, eventually, a low cliff band tempers my headlong ascent. Higher up, as I close in on the summit of this first of the 11 mountains along my route, I remember Thoreau's "We need the tonic of wilderness. . ." and my pulse beats even faster at the promise of solace and fulfillment in the old-growth forests ahead.