Peter Finn grew up in McKownville, went to Catholic schools in Albany, and lives in Averill Park.
He is now retired after 30 years with New York State Parks and then 10 more teaching at the Rockefeller College of Public Affairs at the University of Albany.
His writing itch resurfaced just before the pandemic and these days he’s a regular contributor to the Sand Lake library’s “Just Write!” group where he writes memoir as well as short fiction focusing on growing up, nature and today’s America.
Unnamed Summit
By Peter Finn
I look for it whenever I drive north from Bennington, a notch in the muscle of mountain to the east. The guidebook called it “unnamed summit” – it should be “Just Kill Me Now” Mountain.
Summer 1972. I was an 18-year-old counselor at Stratton Mountain Scout Reservation. As the camp’s “nature guy”, instead of hiking and backpacking, I spent leisurely days tromping through the woods, catching bugs, scoping animal tracks, and identifying trees and flowers.
It was Week Three and two 14-year-old Scouts were taking the difficult Hiking merit badge. Their final requirement is a 20-mile hike and they’ve chosen a route going from camp, south on the Appalachian Trail over Glastenbury Mountain to Bennington. As this was off-property, someone over eighteen needed to lead them.
Me.
We hit the trail a little after six. Our destination: The Notch, a burger and fish fry diner on Route 9 that serves enormous ice cream sundaes. Pick up time: seven o’clock. Gets dark about eight. 22 miles in 13 hours: no sweat.
I carry the trail guide in my shirt pocket, but it’s useless. It assumes hikers on the AT are going north, not south: everything the book says is a de-scent is really an a-scent. “Up is down”, I say to the Scouts. “Is that Orwell or Alice in Wonderland?” I get back blank stares.
It’s wet after overnight showers. Thrushes trill as we climb through a grove of beeches. We squish around mud wallows, stepping from rock to rock. There’s a south breeze, the sky clears, and the morning warms.
We’re up and over the first ridge – flat, through a glade of birches – then down. And down. Like stairs. Losing all the altitude we’d just gained. To a weepy stream. We hop over, kick clumpy mud from our boots, and start back up again.
It’s a 600-foot climb straight up – a fifty story building – stair-stepping all the way. It’s “Unnamed Summit.” The Scouts gambol ahead like a pair of Labradors. What isn’t rock is mud. We go up. And up more. Now they’re singing a goddam Beach Boys medley.
Boots weigh a ton.
Where’s the top?
To a ridge and through a spruce thicket.
And down. And down. And down. Steeply down. Losing all that elevation -- again. Fifty floors. My left knee wobbles. I put my hand on it to make it stop, stoop like an old man.
My right leg spasms. Both legs turn to Jell-O.
And I’m on my knees. In the mud. Deer flies circle my sweaty head like buzzards. The fabled Vermont catamount is likely lurking nearby, stalking, about to cull the weakest from the herd.
Me.
We’re still only halfway to Bennington. Going forward is the same as going back: shame -- or fame? And I’m up. A sip of water to hide why I’ve stopped. A couple of baby steps, a shuffle, like walking on ice.
We slog past a beaver pond, and -- up again. What the trail guide calls a “moderate descent” – except we’re going the wrong way. Up. “Unnamed Summit” is behind us and we’re climbing Glastenbury. Finally. Up and over and down to dinner and ice cream. Left foot: ice cream. Right foot: ice cream. Left foot. On and on. Ahead, the Scouts are jabbering about some girl from school who they think likes somebody who likes somebody else. Or something.
At Glastenbury summit, they’re eager to climb the fire tower – please, just fifty more feet? I sit on a rock.
We’re moving again. Down. Steadily, gradually, thankfully down. It’s past seven. Daylight ebbs. The sky pinks. We hear a creek. It grows louder. We see a house through the trees, hear a truck down-shifting out on the highway.
And pick up the pace: have to get to The Notch before all the ice cream’s gone.