There was a pleasant cool breeze and I wandered aimlessly through the Natick neighborhoods enjoying the sounds of kids playing and the smell of Memorial Day Weekend barbeque. Stumbled right onto the trail head of Coolidge Hill and up to the top. Made me remember.
I've always been a hiker and a climber. Never wanted to hike the AT like my remarkable buddy Ron, but enjoyed lots of great hikes and climbs.
I remember the first; Mt Pisgah, Willoughby Lake, Vermont. I must have been 3rd or 4th grade. My friend and I (Mark Zeiner?) climbed up to the cliffs and scrambled all the way to the bottom, bouncing from rock to rock in the dry streambed. It was one of the most dangerous and exciting things I had ever done. Then we stood in the back seats sticking our upper bodies out the window, grabbing leaves as they flew by, while my Dad drove fast down the dirt, mountain roads. Good memories. Happy memories.
So as I "scrambled" down the Coolidge Hill trail, I remembered, my body remembered, the skills I had learned over my lifetime. Muscle memory. And I started remembering my adventures.
Katahdin five times. Others in the Baxter Range; North Brother, Hamlin Peak; in Maine, Tumbledown, Cadilac, Dorr, Otter Cliffs, the Precipice, Bradburry, Mt Battie, Gulf Hagis, Old Speck. Each one elicits a special memory.
In New Hampshire; Washington twice, once in Winter, once with my sons, Mt. Jefferson in the snow, Mt Madison, Crawford Notch. In Massachusetts, Mt Wachusett. In Vermont, Smugglers Notch.
I climbed a volcanic plug on Lamma Island in Hong Kong. Climbed down into The Grand Canyon, North and South rims, and up Angels Landing in Zion, into the hoodoos of Bryce Canyon and the slot canyons off the Burr Trail, along the rim of Canyon de Chelly, across a glacier in Valdez and snowy climbs in the Chugach and Brooks Range in Alaska.
Kayaked the Okefenokee, rafting the Gulkana, whitewater canoeing the Dead, the Allagash, the Kennebec, Narriguagus, The Penobscot, explored the Coastal Georgia Barrier Islands and the sandstone arches in Utah and cliffs of Sedona Arizona and an unnamed mound in Iceland. Glencoe in Scottland, The jungle in Malasia, Tahquitz Canyon in Palm Springs. Calf Creek in the Escalante's.
It would be impossible for me to rank order these adventures, each one different and memorable in its own way. But a few stronger memories do stand out. It was only luck (and maybe skill) that kept me unharmed. Winter climbing on a shear cliff face, alone in winter, on Otter Cliffs in Mount Desert and a slab of rockface spawled into my lap, 50 feet up. I took stupid chances and fortunately never paid the price. My last foolhardy move was dancing, scrambling along a knife edge on Angels Landing. The drop would have been 1000 feet straight down and I felt no fear, only exhilaration. I had never been so close to the edge. I craved it. It was odd. Perhaps for me a better understanding of the Risk Takers among us.
So now I have to get my thrills driving Rt 128 in Boston. Plenty of exhilaration there. That and hiking up Coolidge Hill and scrambling down in the twilight. The risks seem to make the memories sweeter.
