SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2019
BACKPACKER.COM 81I
HAVE TO ADMIT that even now, in middle age, I look to JR for
clues as to how to live. When he came to rebuild my kitchen, for
instance, I paid close attention as he contended with a construc-
tion challenge. The f loors in my 220-year-old home tilt steeply, and
at uneven pitches. Carpentry in such a context is less mathematical
than intuitive and, as I sat upstairs, listening to JR work as I wrote,
I tuned into both the high whine of his bandsaw and the crazy long
silences during which, I’m sure, JR was cogitating, strategizing. I
knew that it was in the silences that I was getting my money’s worth,
and I asked myself if I could bring the same rhythm to my writing—
the same deep digging punctuated by sharp bursts of precision.
One winter I thought of JR’s taste for hiking in temperatures as
low as minus 20°F, and I decided to turn off the furnace and plumb-
ing and rely on a wood stove and an old-fashioned privy. When JR
came by one evening, taking a short break from the oil-heated com-
fort of his den, he regarded my hermitage with doubt and concern.
“Dude,” he asked, “what are you doing?”
Another experiment is proving more successful. It involves my
exercise regime. I do a little open water swimming and a ton of
cycling here in New Hampshire’s Lakes Region. If I don’t rack up
200 miles on Strava every week, I begin to feel guilty. I’m aware
that the statistics I obsess over (elevation gained, miles per hour,
average wattage) do little to afford me cosmic peace, so I decided
recently to compose and tackle a list of my own—obscure and per-
sona l, just like one of JR’s.
I am now endeavoring to bike to, and then swim across, each and
every lake and pond that sits within Gilmanton’s 80 square miles.
And Gilmanton is a very watery place. Already, in consulting a New
Hampshire gazetteer and my own memory banks, I have identified
18 potentially swimmable bodies of water. Reconnaissance mis-
sions will surely reveal additional lakes and ponds. I need to get off
the roads. I plan to thrash my way into the woods with binoculars,
for I’ve learned, watching JR, that lots of cool stuff is not on the map.
In a mountain range so teeming with hikers that you sometimes
need to wait in line to move summitward, JR knows where to find
refuge, off trail, in 20-foot-wide pools of calm black water on a ter-
raced green slope. He’s shown me that there is so much nature close
to home. You just have to look. That may be the biggest lesson JR has
to impa r t: Always keep your eyes open. W
HEN JR AND I go out for our next bushwhack, up tiny
Smarts Mountain on a warm spring morning, I ask him
why he never advertises his feats.
He’s tongue-tied for a moment, embarrassed. “I guess I’m humble,”
he says finally. “I don’t like making a big deal of myself. And do you
really think that what I do is interesting to people?”
Well, yeah, I say, to hikers it is. JR concedes that Steve Smith,
the guidebook editor, is always asking to look at the skeletal diaries
in which JR records his backwoods adventures. “But I’d feel weird
showing them to Steve,” he says. “I’m terrible at grammar. Spelling
is a mental block for me. In school, if I got a C, I was ecstatic.” He adds
that reading is also a trial for him: “If I get through two novels a year,
I’m lucky.”
As JR says this, I’m picturing his mind as a vast warehouse. The
facts f low in and come to rest, each one of them, on its own neat shelf.
And his mind is so orderly that the facts never leave, and they never
get lost. JR may be aff licted with something like dyslexia, but when
you’re JR, that’s a minor impediment. You find a way to bull past it, to
strategize around it. You become a scholar of the White Mountains
anyway, despite limitations, and you keep dreaming up lists.Not long after our Sandwich Dome hike, JR finishes the 100
highest list, and for a couple weeks he’s a little at sea, without a
list for the first time in decades. The lull does not last, though, for
soon enough he decides that he will climb every peak noted on the
AMC’s six White Mountain maps—every single one, even the dinky
800-footers with convenience stores at their bases.
No one has ever counted all the peaks on the maps, let alone
climbed them, but there’s probably about 1,000 of them. JR has
summited over half these peaks already (the big ones, mostly),
meaning that he’s got roughly 500 small ones to go. “The bumps,” he’sHave List, Will Hike
In New England, the local lists will keep any hiker
busy for a lifetime—or two.NEW HAMPSHIRE 4,000-FOOTERS
Hike all 48* peaks above 4,000 feet and get a patch from
the AMC.
NEW HAMPSHIRE 4,000-FOOTERS IN WINTER
Same peaks, but a LOT harder. And another patch.
NEW ENGLAND 4,000-FOOTERS
Bag the 67 peaks on this list, and you’re sure to start eyeing
the hundred highest.
NEW ENGLAND 4,000-FOOTERS IN WINTER
Serious bragging rights.
NEW HAMPSHIRE HUNDRED HIGHEST
Exactly what it sounds like, and more than 30 of them have
no trail to the summit.
NEW ENGLAND FIFTY FINEST
These peaks all have a prominence of more than 1,800 feet.52 WITH A VIEW
Harder isn’t always better. All peaks on this list are below
4,000 feet yet have great views. It’s also known as the Over
the Hill Hikers list.
TRAILWRIGHTS 72 SUMMIT CLUB
To complete this list, conceived by a nonprofit focused on
trail stewardship, you have to bag all 72 of the designated
New England peaks (limit one per hike) and perform 72
hours of trail work.
NEW ENGLAND HUNDRED HIGHEST
Exactly what the name implies. Yes, there’s a winter list, too.NORTHEAST 111
Despite the name, this list actually includes 115 peaks: the 67
New England 4,000-footers plus the 46 Adirondack High
Peaks plus Slide and Hunter Mountains
48X12 (“THE GRID”)
The exclusive club who have completed this list tag every
New Hampshire 4,000-footer in every calendar month.RED LINING
Surprise, this is not a list of peaks. To achieve this one,
simply hike all the trails in the AMC White Mountain Guide
(more than 1,400 miles).
* The AMC’s cartographer recently discovered an elevation discrepancy that
may change the number of listed 4,000-footers from 48 to 47.