The Loop Over Franconia Ridge With Sam

I love challenge and drama. What better hike on a beautiful, yet cool, summer day in July than the loop over Franconia Ridge with Sam, my standard poodle, my favorite hiking buddy at my side. We left the parking lot at Lafayette Place in Franconia Notch at eight on Thursday morning. The temperature that morning was fifty-three degrees, and would perhaps reach seventy. Cooler in the mountains. No rain or wind in the forecast. Perfect. We entered the woods. At two tenths of a mile, the trail split, Falling Waters to my right, Old Bridal Path, our descent, to my left. Both trails are steep and difficult, but the Falling Waters Trail is a little more challenging, and with all of the rain we’ve had, I’d rather we hiked up a slippery trail than slide down. Sometimes, Sam took the lead; other times, he followed behind, always making forays into woods, then back to the trail. He’s been hiking since he was a pup, trained by Lucy, my older standard, who died this past spring. She was the more avid hiker, bounding ahead, finding the best route up and around a challenging spot of rocky trail. Sam waits until I give him a boost, then scrambles up. Always, he sticks close. I like that.

            The climb is rugged, but beautiful, exposed roots, rock stairs, boulders, loose gravel, water making slabs slippery, brook crossings where I managed to find stepping stones, where Sam waded. We stopped as everyone does at Cloudland Falls, an eighty foot cascade sending mist into the air. Soon the trail moved away from the brook, offering a brief respite from the steep, before rock steps began again. Most hikers summit Little Haystack in about two and a half hours. Sam and I made it in three, emerging from woods and onto the summit, Sam summiting before me. He senses opens space, a place to rest or perhaps to stand. He loves finding the height of land, standing and surveying, and I love seeing him there. A standard poodle is an anomaly in these mountains, although I see labradoodles and goldendoodles—but standards, true, regal, loyal standards—not many.

            From the summit of Little Haystack, Mount Lincoln is seven tenths of a mile north and Mount Lafayette at 5,261 feet, is nine tenths of a mile beyond Lincoln. The ridge is exposed, a three hundred and sixty degree view. Sections are steep. There is a knife edge where I call Sam back. This is where Sam began to fatigue, looking for scrub in which to lie down, low growing evergreens where he could find cool dirt. I’d peeled down to a sleeveless shirt. No way Sam could shed his thick black fur. We rested. I ate half of my sandwich, gave Sam water, fed him kibble.

            Along the trail, we’d made friends, a woman hiking with Sadie, her Golden Retriever, a couple hiking with two labradoodles. They’d kept Sam going. Now, they were no where in sight. I thought about turning back, but by then, the way back was as difficult or nearly as difficult as the way forward, and we were close, so close. I wanted to summit Lafayette, wanted to complete the loop. Loyally, Sam followed. He’d turned eight last March, and he was slowing down faster than Lucy had. Still, he summited ahead of me and was sniffing a backpack, looking for food, gathering both disapproving and approving glances when I arrived. Tired, exhilarated we found a spot of rock where we sat, looking out at mountains and sky.

After about a half an hour, we started down the Greenleaf Trail, a series of rock steps leading to the Greenleaf Hut, its green roof visible in the distance. Sam was reluctant. I leashed him. Not easy to climb down, holding a dog, so I let him go. He doubled back. Usually, after reaching a summit, we go back the way we’d come. I’m sure that’s what Sam wanted to do. He’d had enough. Luring him with treats, I leashed him again. He looked for scrub, lay down. I let him rest, then urged him on. After about forty minutes of stopping and starting, Sam lay on his side, head resting, tongue lolling, side pounding. Here I was with seventy pounds of exhausted dog, about forty minutes from the hut and another three miles down a steep trail. Seeing us, a kind man and his son stopped. He offered to inform people at the hut and ask them to send help. Generally, people at the hut are not sympathetic to people who exhaust their dogs. “Oh, don’t do that,” I said. “They’ll probably call search and rescue and send out helicopters.”

            The helicopter line was fantasy. Not the fear of search and rescue. This was my folly. Somehow, we’d get down. After half an hour, I rallied Sam, and we made our way to the hut where we spent another forty-five minutes resting on the porch. No dogs inside.

Sam drank water. He lay at my feet. My goal was to leave at four. That way, I figured we’d be out of the mountains by six-thirty—if we didn’t have to stop too often—and that’s what we did, climbing slowly and carefully, my loyal dog following until he sensed water and the end of the trail. He would and he did lead me out. 

Cold Mountain

Here in the Blue Ridge, this Monday morning of Memorial Day, where I’m hiking, I am alone. The trail is mostly dirt, gentle up hills, down hills, switch backs, a few steeper climbs. The perfect hike to warm up my hiking legs. The path cuts through a field where tall grasses grow. Wildflowers. Now an opening After hiking through a large field to an open meadow. Leaving the meadow, I sit on moss, pen in hand when I see a hiker approaching. A young man wearing shorts, a white shirt, cap, a small pack on his back, he hums his way along the trail, sees me, or I see him. I say “Hello.”

Hardly pausing he says, in a voice that sings more than it speaks, “Hello, how are you?”

And he’s on his way, humming, again.

A breeze stirs the air. In the pale blue sky, the rumble of an engine. A plane I can’t see. I love these colors, this particular blue of the sky, these leaves on the mountain laurel, on birch and beech. Conifers.

An artist at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts where I’m in residence loves color. Vibrant color that dances and sings. His colors come to him as he paints, and he describes for me a white rabbit, a golden monkey, a dancer spinning inside her red dress. I see only shape and texture. Color, of course.

On the trail again, I pass the hiker who passed me. He’s sitting on a rock beside a stream, lighting a small burner, eating breakfast or lunch at nine forty in the morning. At a trail junction, I notice that my reading glasses are gone. They slipped through space between the waist band of my trousers and the waistband of my pack. Go back? Continue on? I’ll need to come up with a better system for carrying my glasses. This will be the second lost pair of reading glasses in as many hikes.

Now, on the Appalachian Trail, I’m meeting section hikers, a through hiker, a young woman, heading to Maine. I’m thinking about my glasses again, when I hear a voice. “Ma’am, did you drop some glasses.”

The humming hiker. In his hand, my case with the purple swirls.

He goes on. I don’t see him again. 

Mount Kearsarge North

The day was delightfully cool with a breeze to lift the black flies because they were here, on this Friday in early June, especially in the parking area when we arrived, Sam, my standard poodle, and I, without Lucy my other standard who would soon be eleven and could no longer hike for more than a couple of hours. This was Mount Kearsarge North, a small mountain that presented itself like a larger hike, climbing steadily through woods then over open ledges, gaining 2,574 feet in elevation before reaching the top where the view opened to 360 degrees.

Sam stopped on the trail and looked back. When we hiked with Lucy, the two dogs vied for first place, pushing past each other on the narrow trail, the sides of their packs brushing, and I couldn’t help thinking that Sam missed Lucy as much as I did. Perhaps, it wasn’t missing in the same sense, but he seemed to understand that something had shifted. He hung back most of the way, stopped with me as I stood and looked at lady slippers lining the path, drawing in their beauty like breath. Near the top and growing in dirt between rock, laurel bloomed, deep lavender flowers that somehow reminded me of dragonfly wings.

At the top, the breeze picked up. Sam and I took shelter behind a rock outcropping where I hitched him to a branch, and he lay, head lifted, his body alert as if on guard, and I thought to myself, What a lovely dog. Then, I wondered, Was Sam waiting for Lucy to walk over ledge and down into our secluded spot? The hike had been easier without. She had an edge, holding hikers off with her barking. I couldn’t trust her; she could nip. Still, I missed the old girl, and leaning back into rock, eating my peanut butter sandwich, surrounded by these mountains, I thought about the passage of time. How long before, like Lucy, I would have to give up these heights for a lower climb? Perhaps, this gradual diminishment prepared us. When Dad’s time came, he was ready. And although Mom’s dying was not long, one week in a hospice unit, she, too, seemed, if not ready, comfortably, resigned. Both my parents left this world peacefully and with love, and I know what they would tell me right now, their voices chorusing: Enjoy the day. Stop brooding.

A tiny gray bird with a yellow beak and white on its tail and belly feasted in a patch of unripe blueberries, and sitting here, I was returned to a day just last month when I was walking along Grand Street in New York City, with Adam, my grandson, who was seven. He stopped to pick red berries, growing on bushes lining the sidewalk. I wanted him to hurry up, but I didn’t want to say that: Hurry up. So I said, “Adam, the birds need to eat those berries.”

He argued, his voice firm, his features set. “No they don’t,” he said.

“They do, Adam,” I said.

And I walked on, hoping he’d follow. He did after a while. Then, he opened his hand to show me the berries he’d picked, saying, “It’s okay, Grammy, I left lots for the birds.”

Carter Notch

Water ripples. Here, there is a slight breeze. We’re in the middle of a heat spell, temperatures spiking into the nineties in New Hampshire and Maine. Lucy and Sam, my two standard poodles and I have hiked for nearly three hours. We’re hot. We’re tired. But I’d chosen this hike, carefully. We stand, now, at the edge of a mountain lake. Low growing pine trees ring the shore line. There are boulders, a small sandy beach. Sticking up out of the mist, Carter Dome towers above us. In the distance, cast in blue, the rest of Carter-Moriah range, draws itself against the sky.

I unclip the dogs packs, unclip their leashes. Unburdened, they wade and they drink, lapping, carefully. Because they are poodles or because the water is mountain cold? I unclip my own pack, leave it on a rock. I take off my wet shoes, my soaking socks. I’ve crossed the Wildcat River, three times, stepping on rocks, slipping, filling my shoes, soaking my socks. I strip down to my underwear, wade into the lake, submerge, emerge. Finally, I’m cool, so cool. On shore, knee deep in water, the dogs watch. This is one of those times, I want to read their thoughts, although, I’m told dogs don’t think. I’m the one who thinks, the one who anthropomorphizes, who sees in their faces both concern and amusement.

After snacks, Sam digs a hallow in the muddy sand, settles in next to my rock. Lucy finds scrub and settles down. We’re at the edge of a trail. A couple passes. I’m an old woman, happily sitting on a rock wearing her underwear. Now, I begin to feel a little self-conscious, so I pull on my shirt, a sleeves white, tank top, made of a fabric that dries, quickly. I leave my trousers on a branch. Sitting on this rock, knees raised, feet planted, I tell myself, I look like I’m wearing a tankini. I don’t own a tankini. I eat my lunch, a peanut butter and raisin sandwich on gluten free bread. I drink water. Trail food.

For nearly an hour, I sit in the quiet of this place as if I'm veiled, absorbing stillness, this rippling water, these ruffling leaves, the rising mist. There is no other place I need to be. I am here, no place but here, and there is very, very far away.