Bill, who seemed serenely impervious to cold and of course had no idea that we were
doing anything but proceeding along a high ridge in an unseasonal breeze, looked back
from time to time to ask how I was doing.
"Great!" I'd say, for I was too embarrassed to admit that I was in fact losing my mind
preparatory to stepping over the edge with a private smile and a cry of "See you on the
other side, old friend!" I don't suppose he had ever lost a patient on a mountaintop, and I
didn't wish to alarm him. Besides, I wasn't entirely convinced I was losing my grip, just
severely uncomfortable.
I've no idea how long it took us to reach the windy summit of Lafayette other than that
it was a double eternity. A hundred years ago there was a hotel on this bleak, forbidding
spot, and its wind-worn foundations are still a landmark--I have seen it in photographs--
but I have no recollection of it now. My focus was entirely on descending on the side trail
to Greenleaf Hut. It led through a vast talus field and then, a mile or so farther on, into
woods. Almost as soon as we left the summit, the wind dropped, and within 500 feet the
world was quite calm, eerily so, and the dense fog was nothing more than straggly,
drifting shreds. Suddenly we could see the world below and how high up we were, which
was a considerable distance, though all the nearby summits were wreathed in clouds. To
my surprise and gratification, I felt much better. I stood up straight, with a sense of
novelty, and realized that I had been walking in a severe hunch for some time. Yes, I
definitely felt much better: hardly cold at all and agreeably clearheaded.
"Well, that wasn't so bad," I said to Bill with a mountain man chuckle and pressed on
to the hut.
Greenleaf Hut is one of ten picturesque and, in this case, wonderfully handy stone
lodges built and maintained in the White Mountains by the venerable Appalachian
Mountain Club. The AMC, founded over 120 years ago, is not only the oldest hiking club in
America but the oldest conservation group of any type. It charges a decidedly ambitious
$50 a night for a bunk, dinner, and breakfast and consequently is widely known to thru-
hikers as the Appalachian Money Club. Still, to its considerable credit, the AMC maintains
1,400 miles of trails in the Whites, runs an excellent visitor center at Pinkham Notch,
publishes worthwhile books, and lets you come into its huts to use the toilets, get water,
or just warm up, which is what we gratefully did now.
We purchased cups of warming coffee and took them to a set of long tables, where we
sat with a sprinkling of other steamy hikers and ate our packed lunches. The lodge was
very congenial in a basic and rustic sort of way, with a high ceiling and plenty of room to
move around. When we'd finished, I was beginning to stiffen up, so I got up to move
around and looked in on one of the two dormitories. It was a large room, packed with
built-in bunks stacked four high. It was clean and airy, but startlingly basic, and
presumably would be like an army barracks at night when it was full of hikers and their
equipment. It didn't look remotely appealing to me. Benton MacKaye had nothing to do
with these huts, but they were absolutely in accord with his vision--spare, rustic,
wholesomely communal--and I realized with a kind of dull shock that if his dreams of a
string of trailside hostels had been realized this is precisely how they would have been.
My fantasy of a relaxed and cosy refuge with a porchful of rockers would actually have
been rather more like a spell at boot camp (and an expensive one at that, if the AMC's
fees were anything to go by).
sean pound
(Sean Pound)
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