About a year and a half ago my friend, Fin, an avid hiker and native Mainer, said for the umpteenth time that we should hike Mt. Katahdin. So one day in September we woke at midnight, drove six hours north and hit the trail at first light. It was an abysmal day. So much rain we had to rock-hop long portions of the flooded trail. The summit was clouded out, we couldn't see a thing. We were a bit disappointed when out of the fog came one hiker, then another, then maybe 20 in all arrived at the summit sign. They were thru-hikers who were just completing the 2,100-mile Appalachian Trail.
"We just finished the AT!" One girl said to us. When we didn't react with the excitement she was expecting she burst out: "We just walked here from Georgia!!" We got it then. There were hugs all around and bottles popped. If we were underwhelmed by our own experience, the vicarious bliss of these hikers' accomplishment was so inspiring Fin and I vowed then and there that someday when the time and the money was right we'd hike the Trail ourselves.
But what to do until then? We went home to our jobs and spent most of our weekends drinking beer. Until one day, a couple months later, Fin said, "You know there's a bunch of 4,000 footers in the White Mountains. Some people hike them all. They're peakbaggers. We could do that for awhile." So we started spending our weekends hiking mountains. We began on November 3, 2013 and 365 days later we had hiked all 48 in New Hampshire.
The experience was beyond words. We're what you'd call "outdoors-y" types, Fin and I. I'm not going to speak for him, but when I don't get outside for a while I get weird, unsteady, out of balance. The air, the sky, the pines, they keep me even-keel. Mountains are just the outdoors on steroids. Everything's bigger and enhanced. A profound sense of humility comes over me at the foot of a mountain that's only overcome by how much smaller still I feel at the summit. As part of a society that often feels to me to be self-absorbed and bent on mindless consumption, being reminded regularly how small we are yet how vast is our world lends so much value to my life that i keep coming back for more.
Our nature as humans is to strive. The numbers game, or the "peak-bagging" aspect just lends the hiking an aspect of challenge that makes it seem at least, more significant than a hobby. It's also a simple, uncomplicated pleasure. Trying to navigate our day-to-day lives can be so mentally intensive. Peak-bagging doesn't require a whole lot of thought or analysis. You climb the mountain because it's there, and because you love it. Or as Fin and I like to say, "They ain't gonna bag themselves."
Trying to get them all, if nothing else, gives us an excuse to keep going out, because scheduling time to do the things we love is often the biggest challenge. Work fills up most of our time. Fin works on an intensive ward at a home for autistic children and keeps the most insane hours I've ever seen. Days, nights, weekends, and holidays are all game. I work for a small urban farming company trying to do a whole lot with a small number of people, so 40 hours generally doesn't cut it. But whereas his job offers very little in the way of relief, (sorry, buddy) every year when it gets too cold to grow, I get four to six week off. With the Whites all in the bag, this year I started looking to other mountain ranges to keep me going. As geography would have it, New York's Adirondacks have their own set of 4,000'ers - 46 of them. And they're only three hours further from Boston than the Whites. I was easily sold.
When I started telling friends I was headed to the Adirondacks in January and February to hike the High Peaks there most of their responses were disturbingly similar: "In winter?!! What's wrong with you?" I admit, the entire concept of winter hiking was pretty new to me not long ago. Talking to a few baggers in the Whites in the late fall and hearing that hiking didn't have to end when the snow came it was a complete game-changer. I was born in winter, my fondest memories are all snow-covered. Winter is the season in which I feel most at home. Sometimes, in order to see the obvious, you just have to be introduced to it. So we hiked a few peaks in the snowy Whites to see what it was like and discovered a Brave New World of experience. Hiking had never offered so much as in winter! The trails were less crowded. There were no bugs. The leaves fallen from the trees opened up shrouded groves into vistas as far as the eye could see. The crisp air gave crystalline sharpness to the shapes. And my favorite, the generally gray skies seemed to demand an introspective mood. I'm naturally a brooding type; I was firmly in my wheelhouse.
So here I am. I have six weeks to accomplish my goal. I'm mostly solo, though Fin joins me whenever he gets a day or two. Having hiked just a few peaks since arriving I have to admit, these ranges are rugged. Half of these mountains don't even have trails! They have "herd paths." Which is a funny term that means: better bring a compass! Which i do. Three of them. One compass can lie. Two in agreement are more convincing. Three declare, in unison: move confidently in the direction of your dreams. (Or was that Thoreau?)
But there's more to this winter adventure than just attaining a personal goal. Crowd-sourcing has become an increasingly viable way to do some good in the world. From the Walk For Hunger and the Walk For Breast Cancer to the Ride For Climate Change it seems everyone's undertaking these physical challenges to raise money and awareness for causes they believe in. I thought this would be an excellent opportunity for me to channel my own endeavor into supporting a cause I firmly believe is worth it.
I have a friend in Nepal in dire need of assistance. He's the father of two young children and is living in an area where what small opportunities there were traditionally to make a living are rapidly dissolving. He's a subsistence farmer living in a small village at the beginning of the Annapurna Circuit, one of the most popular trekking routes in the world. That's how I met him, some years ago, while beginning my own trek, when he was only 20 years old and an aspiring trekking guide. The details of how we came to know each other can be found in more detail in the entry on this blog: "My Travels With Rupesh: A Backstory." Having formed a deep bond, Rupesh and I have over the years kept in close contact. I regret to say that in the past couple years I've watched his situation deteriorate steadily.
The Nepali government is undertaking a large public works project to build roads the length of the Annapurna Circuit. This has devastated the local economy, based as it is on international tourism and the trekking industry. The trekkers are becoming fewer and fewer because few traveling to Nepal choose to hike roads crowded with buses and trucks when they can travel to at least a dozen other nearby areas for a better experience. Rupesh's dreams of being a guide have basically shattered, and with a family to support, he's had to scramble to find the only employment available, which is ironically to work on one of the road crews that's wrecking his livelihood.
But like almost every Nepali I've ever met, Rupesh is resilient and realistic. He's ready to switch gears, and dedicate himself to a reliable endeavor - farming. He's been doing it his whole life, and he's confident that with some effort he can produce enough to support his family. In fact, just the other day Rupesh called me to say he had found a suitable piece of land, and with the small amount of money he has been able to save from the road work and a little help from me, I'm happy to report he's now the proud owner of some very farmable land! The problem now is that he has nothing to live in. The cost to build even a temporary home is outside his reach, and the tin shack he lives in with his mother, father, and his own growing family is cramped as it is. Long story short, I'm hiking these 46 peaks trying to raise money to help Rupesh buy the materials and the manpower he'll need to build his family a home.
$3000 is our goal, which I truly believe we can reach with just a little help from everyone. Think about it: $10 from 300 people. That's it. I know it's not easy to find extra money to spread around. But I also know that on occasion, maybe when we see someone on a street corner with a cup, most of us have great generosity in our hearts that enables us to dig a little deeper to try to help those that need it. Rupesh and his family can certainly use the help. That's why I'm focusing my efforts to try to make his very humble dream a reality.
Please visit: https://www.crowdrise.com/AHomeForRupesh/fundraiser/eriksol to donate to Rupesh and his family. And stay tuned to this blog to keep up with my progress, and the progress of the fundraiser.
Thanks so much for tuning in, and thanks in advance for your support!
"We just finished the AT!" One girl said to us. When we didn't react with the excitement she was expecting she burst out: "We just walked here from Georgia!!" We got it then. There were hugs all around and bottles popped. If we were underwhelmed by our own experience, the vicarious bliss of these hikers' accomplishment was so inspiring Fin and I vowed then and there that someday when the time and the money was right we'd hike the Trail ourselves.
But what to do until then? We went home to our jobs and spent most of our weekends drinking beer. Until one day, a couple months later, Fin said, "You know there's a bunch of 4,000 footers in the White Mountains. Some people hike them all. They're peakbaggers. We could do that for awhile." So we started spending our weekends hiking mountains. We began on November 3, 2013 and 365 days later we had hiked all 48 in New Hampshire.
The experience was beyond words. We're what you'd call "outdoors-y" types, Fin and I. I'm not going to speak for him, but when I don't get outside for a while I get weird, unsteady, out of balance. The air, the sky, the pines, they keep me even-keel. Mountains are just the outdoors on steroids. Everything's bigger and enhanced. A profound sense of humility comes over me at the foot of a mountain that's only overcome by how much smaller still I feel at the summit. As part of a society that often feels to me to be self-absorbed and bent on mindless consumption, being reminded regularly how small we are yet how vast is our world lends so much value to my life that i keep coming back for more.
Our nature as humans is to strive. The numbers game, or the "peak-bagging" aspect just lends the hiking an aspect of challenge that makes it seem at least, more significant than a hobby. It's also a simple, uncomplicated pleasure. Trying to navigate our day-to-day lives can be so mentally intensive. Peak-bagging doesn't require a whole lot of thought or analysis. You climb the mountain because it's there, and because you love it. Or as Fin and I like to say, "They ain't gonna bag themselves."
Trying to get them all, if nothing else, gives us an excuse to keep going out, because scheduling time to do the things we love is often the biggest challenge. Work fills up most of our time. Fin works on an intensive ward at a home for autistic children and keeps the most insane hours I've ever seen. Days, nights, weekends, and holidays are all game. I work for a small urban farming company trying to do a whole lot with a small number of people, so 40 hours generally doesn't cut it. But whereas his job offers very little in the way of relief, (sorry, buddy) every year when it gets too cold to grow, I get four to six week off. With the Whites all in the bag, this year I started looking to other mountain ranges to keep me going. As geography would have it, New York's Adirondacks have their own set of 4,000'ers - 46 of them. And they're only three hours further from Boston than the Whites. I was easily sold.
When I started telling friends I was headed to the Adirondacks in January and February to hike the High Peaks there most of their responses were disturbingly similar: "In winter?!! What's wrong with you?" I admit, the entire concept of winter hiking was pretty new to me not long ago. Talking to a few baggers in the Whites in the late fall and hearing that hiking didn't have to end when the snow came it was a complete game-changer. I was born in winter, my fondest memories are all snow-covered. Winter is the season in which I feel most at home. Sometimes, in order to see the obvious, you just have to be introduced to it. So we hiked a few peaks in the snowy Whites to see what it was like and discovered a Brave New World of experience. Hiking had never offered so much as in winter! The trails were less crowded. There were no bugs. The leaves fallen from the trees opened up shrouded groves into vistas as far as the eye could see. The crisp air gave crystalline sharpness to the shapes. And my favorite, the generally gray skies seemed to demand an introspective mood. I'm naturally a brooding type; I was firmly in my wheelhouse.
So here I am. I have six weeks to accomplish my goal. I'm mostly solo, though Fin joins me whenever he gets a day or two. Having hiked just a few peaks since arriving I have to admit, these ranges are rugged. Half of these mountains don't even have trails! They have "herd paths." Which is a funny term that means: better bring a compass! Which i do. Three of them. One compass can lie. Two in agreement are more convincing. Three declare, in unison: move confidently in the direction of your dreams. (Or was that Thoreau?)
But there's more to this winter adventure than just attaining a personal goal. Crowd-sourcing has become an increasingly viable way to do some good in the world. From the Walk For Hunger and the Walk For Breast Cancer to the Ride For Climate Change it seems everyone's undertaking these physical challenges to raise money and awareness for causes they believe in. I thought this would be an excellent opportunity for me to channel my own endeavor into supporting a cause I firmly believe is worth it.
I have a friend in Nepal in dire need of assistance. He's the father of two young children and is living in an area where what small opportunities there were traditionally to make a living are rapidly dissolving. He's a subsistence farmer living in a small village at the beginning of the Annapurna Circuit, one of the most popular trekking routes in the world. That's how I met him, some years ago, while beginning my own trek, when he was only 20 years old and an aspiring trekking guide. The details of how we came to know each other can be found in more detail in the entry on this blog: "My Travels With Rupesh: A Backstory." Having formed a deep bond, Rupesh and I have over the years kept in close contact. I regret to say that in the past couple years I've watched his situation deteriorate steadily.
The Nepali government is undertaking a large public works project to build roads the length of the Annapurna Circuit. This has devastated the local economy, based as it is on international tourism and the trekking industry. The trekkers are becoming fewer and fewer because few traveling to Nepal choose to hike roads crowded with buses and trucks when they can travel to at least a dozen other nearby areas for a better experience. Rupesh's dreams of being a guide have basically shattered, and with a family to support, he's had to scramble to find the only employment available, which is ironically to work on one of the road crews that's wrecking his livelihood.
But like almost every Nepali I've ever met, Rupesh is resilient and realistic. He's ready to switch gears, and dedicate himself to a reliable endeavor - farming. He's been doing it his whole life, and he's confident that with some effort he can produce enough to support his family. In fact, just the other day Rupesh called me to say he had found a suitable piece of land, and with the small amount of money he has been able to save from the road work and a little help from me, I'm happy to report he's now the proud owner of some very farmable land! The problem now is that he has nothing to live in. The cost to build even a temporary home is outside his reach, and the tin shack he lives in with his mother, father, and his own growing family is cramped as it is. Long story short, I'm hiking these 46 peaks trying to raise money to help Rupesh buy the materials and the manpower he'll need to build his family a home.
$3000 is our goal, which I truly believe we can reach with just a little help from everyone. Think about it: $10 from 300 people. That's it. I know it's not easy to find extra money to spread around. But I also know that on occasion, maybe when we see someone on a street corner with a cup, most of us have great generosity in our hearts that enables us to dig a little deeper to try to help those that need it. Rupesh and his family can certainly use the help. That's why I'm focusing my efforts to try to make his very humble dream a reality.
Please visit: https://www.crowdrise.com/AHomeForRupesh/fundraiser/eriksol to donate to Rupesh and his family. And stay tuned to this blog to keep up with my progress, and the progress of the fundraiser.
Thanks so much for tuning in, and thanks in advance for your support!
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