I scoffed at the notion that a 900 foot hill could be called a mountain. Of course, my only basis of comparison was the views from the tops of ski runs and photos of panoramic vistas from the Rockies, and other, more exotic ranges. I had never actually hiked or climbed up any mountain, anywhere, before.

My wife and I are geocachers. OK. Done snickering? Fine. Having said that, our take on the activity of geocaching is “an excuse to go hiking” and we tend to go after caches that are farther afield instead of the easiest to grab. After having survived several relatively pampered camping trips out of the trunks of cars and off of the back of the motorcycle, we decided that this year we would try to combine our interest in “Hiking” and “camping” and try “backpacking”. So we did the first and BEST thing that can be done when undertaking a new hobby, sport or activity: we bought gear!

There are two realities of this situation. The first is that my wife is in much better shape than I am as a baseline. The other, incongruously, is that I will be expected carry most of the communal gear. So I have been buying the pack(s) that I will need and trying to do progressively longer and more difficult hikes. Last week I did 5 miles over a 400 foot elevation, out and back. This week I wanted to try out the big 80l Habitat and I determined that the best place to do that would be the 900 foot South Pawtuckaway Mountain. The pack weighted 35 pounds. I got a friend to go along who is much more outdoorsy than I am and has often hiked the White Mountains in the past. The rout would take us over 6 miles in sunny, 50 degree weather.

I had my kit in my backpack (tent, bag, stove, food and pad). I wore my LL Bean hiking boots, a fairly thick poly-pro long-sleeve shirt under a cotton t-shirt under a thin wool commando sweater under a nylon half-zip windbreaker. I was loaded, layered and raring to go. The first sign that things were not going to go quite the way I thought was when we got to the park headquarters and there was no one to register with. There were lots of little white envelopes and an Iron Ranger. There was no ATM and there was no money in our pockets. Well, almost none. I had seventy eight cents and my hiking partner had a crinkled dollar bill. It went into the envelope and into the box. Yes, Dear Ranger Smith, I.O.U. six bucks, twenty. I SWEAR that I’ll make it up to you.

The trip started off easily enough with a paved descent and a gentle up-hill along a dirt fire road. There were a couple of blow-downs across the path and some icy, snowy and muddy sections but overall the going was easy. We swung right onto South Ridge Trail and things got a little more interesting. The ice was slicker and less snowy. The mud a little thicker and the mud puddles longer. There was running water cutting across the trail and even running along the trail. Of course this naturally meant that there was a nice little waterfall along the trail too. Still on the same trail, it suddenly switched back and then the climb began!

Up, up, up we went. The slick rocks were treacherous and the angle difficult to negotiate. The weight of my fat rolls counterbalanced the weight of the pack somewhat, but not in a way that was natural to me or that I was at all used to. Sadly, as steep as the grade was, it never got to the point that I could employ my hands to help me make it up. I slipped less than I feared and ached more than I had expected. I quickly re-evaluated weather or not this “hill” deserved to be called a “mountain”. As far as I was concerned it did! I uttered a quiet apology to South Pawtuckaway Mountain and carried on to the top. Once there I was richly rewarded. The views were amazing if slightly obstructed by the trees that so inconveiniently grew on the summit. This problem was quickly solved by climbing to the observation platform of the fire tower atop the mountain. The ascent and descent up and down those stairs was more un-nerving than any portion of the actual trail had been! We rested up and prepared to retrace our steps for the descent.

It went well. We were both tired. It was not surprising in my case but I really did expect much more from my hiking companion, after all he is all ‘outdoorsy” and stuff. It actually made me feel better about myself that after a while he was the one calling for rest stops and not me! Of course, all this self congratulations was to come to an end on one of those stops. As we sat huffing and puffing and he was, unknown to me, polishing off the last of the one 20oz bottle of water that we had taken with us, a fellow hiker happened along. Fit and trim and slightly scruffy he wore a flannel shirt, carried trecking poles and his rather large day pack hung at a casual level down about the middle of his back. We chatted briefly about what a nice day it was and the trail conditions. He told us that it was not so muddy yet because the school children on field trips had not started to turn up for the season yet. School children! Really? I was as proud of myself as I could have been right up until that moment. In those few words the Sense Of Accomplishment that I had worked so hard for during the last four hours fled like a cockroach in a suddenly lighted room. Looking back on it, it truly was a big deal for me. It was a challenge beyond any that I had yet set for myself. I laid out a difficult goal, achieved it and was rewarded with a view seen by few other middle-aged, out of shape, non-hiking adult males but joyfully shared with hoards of school children who I hope enjoy that view so much that it inspires them to never “let themselves go” like I have. Climb-on little buddies!