REFRACTIONARY

This summer I hiked the Pemigewasset Wilderness Loop in New Hampshire’s White Mountains. The experience left me wanting more, and I determined then that I wanted to hike the loop again in the winter, but more slowly and in the opposite direction. So that’s what I had determined to do with my Christmas vacation, since Covid intervened to prevent family visitation. For some reason, though, I did not want to take this trip. I’d worked myself up over worrying whether I had enough or the right gear, and when it came down to it I just felt burned out and wanting to vegitate on the couch, to be the worst version of myself for a change.

So on the first day, a mere five miles in, I almost turned back. Ten miles in, with dark falling, I hadn’t nearly made my goal and I’d found no place to pitch a tent. So I retreated back down the trail, intending to bail completely, when halfway down I spotted a nice, flat spot. If nothing else, I thought, I can stay for a night and enjoy a quiet campout.

The next morning, again intending to bail on the big hike, I decided that it would be silly not to return to the top of the trail to see Mount Bondcliff and to avail myself of any photo-tunities.

You can see the pattern: once on Bondcliff I reasoned that I’d come that far, so I might was well keep going, and son on, into day three. What I realized was that if I allowed my mind out of the moment I wanted to bail. But when I focused on the present moment and maybe only just the next, I was content and at peace, able to enjoy what was before me. And there’s so much to enjoy on this hike: the Twinway and just beyond might be some of my favorite stretches of trail in the loop.

I spent the second night at Guyot shelter. On day three I looped past Garfield by 3:00 and continued to Garfield pond where I camped. Day four was to be the Franconia ridge traverse and the completion of the hike. I woke early and made my way by headlamp for a mile or so. As the light faded from black to morning blue-gray, I rose from the col between Garfield and Franconia ridges. The wind was up. Whenever the trees broke on the path I found myself pelted by sleet, which conditions a wise hiker multiplies by the number of feet of elevation gain to come for a sense of what is ahead. I did that calculation, and were it not for a sense of having something to prove, and not wanting to backtrack to a less interesting trail, I might have turned back.

So I continued up until boreal gave way to alpine, and finally crossed the tree line to bare rock. Here the wind had erased any trace of previous hikers’ snow shoe tracks but I had clear memories of the rock formations there, and had a good sense of where I was. After all, as long as I was going up, I was going in the right direction. So up I went. And as I went, the wind grew fiercer and the fog became thicker. “This is OK,” I said. “As long as I can see the next cairn I’m fine.” And then I couldn’t see the next cairn, and I couldn’t see behind me either. If I went back, it likely would add a day to my hike and I’d have failed at doing the Pemi as I promised myself I would do. And I wasn’t confident that I could find the trailhead again. So up I went, reasoning that I knew well the way down the other side.

Up I climbed over a wall of rock thinking this must be the summit, only to peer into the blank white ahead and shadows towering over me, another wall of rock. Again and again I kept on, pausing to take shelter in crags just to take a rest and check the GPS to make sure I was on track. Finally I reached the top. Gone were the sheltering crags, now buried beneath snow drifts. Nothing there was recognizable, covered as it was in sideways flows of snow and ice. There was the cairn to mark the summit, but beyond that was blank white nothing. I oriented myself in the direction I knew to be South, and picked my way down. No, this ended in a cliff. Back up I went to try a slightly different direction, only to find myself circling back over my previous tracks. This won’t do, I thought. They’ll find my dead body up here with tracks going in circles and say, “Yep, that’s about right,” and I’ll have become yet another cautionary tale.

At no point did I panic. I only reasoned. Once I decided that I wasn’t going to locate the path down the ridge, the next objective was to locate the alternative path off to the West, which took me off the ridge altogether. It meant finally abandoning the loop, but I could either hitch a ride or call my wife to pick me up and get me to my car. I couldn’t find that trail either. Again, the cairns ran out, so I took what seemed to be a safe path down a gentle slope, which I knew would lead me down into a draw where at least I could escape the maelstrom and determine my next move.

I found myself in an alpine tangle. Trees meshed together like a spider’s web blocked every move but down. I was out of the maelstrom, but I found myself being pushed away from any trail. At 11:00 AM I knew I didn’t have time to keep that up. Every few steps, regardless of how careful I was, I’d find myself waist deep in drifts, grabbing at branches and wiggling myself up and over, only to fall again. Crawling, rolling, tromping, falling, I was soaked and exhausted. I had to get back to the ridge. As alpine transitioned to boreal I was able to move more freely, and so I took the opportunity to shimmy sideways along a contour line about a thousand feet lower than the summit I’d just escaped. Still, I knew I needed to regain the trail. I noticed I had service, so I called J to let her know I’d need a pickup, and headed straight back up the ridge, fighting my way upward and back into the alpine snaggle where I knew I’d find a trail to take me expeditiously down.

Finally, I could see the trail just on the other side of a net of branches. I had to crawl through, using every bit of my strength, forcing the branches apart, yanking my body and my pack onto the trail in a tumble. Standing to brush myself off, another hiker rounded the bend. “How’s it going?” he greeted me. “It goes,” I replied, and began the long march down, counting on the heat of movement to stave off hypothermia.

Readers, I arrived safely at the bottom by 4:30 PM, drenched and cold, where my wife met me with a bunch of bananas, cheese and crackers, a hot thermos of peppermint tea, and a fresh dry set of clothes she’d picked up on her way out. I did take one picture on this day as I stood there shivering, waiting for my wife to arrive.

I feel lucky and stupid. I had something to prove, and I allowed pride to override my good judgment. I went there to take control of my mind. I went there to practice being in the moment, something not natural to an INTJ, and I journeyed too far away from myself in the effort. I found some of my limits, and I now have the experience of managing myself out of a new kind of crisis. This is something to learn from and take forward as I plan other, more ambitious adventures.