We should have turned back. We didn't.
On Chocorua, Chapter 2
Imagine a time before cell phones, before waterproof Gore-tex, a time when college campuses were not the near-Michelin star establishments many of them are today. This is when my story takes place. It’s too long for one post, so I’ve broken it into six installments, or chapters. That’s the logistics.
But here’s the kicker: Other than Jake Hoffman’s name, it’s real.
It happened.
To me.
Read/listen to the other chapters.
Chapter 1: How I nearly killed my feet.
Chapter 3: We reached the summit. Too soon.
Chapter 4: “Shivering” takes on a whole new meaning.
Chapter 5: Sometimes I know better than an “expert.”
Chapter 6: If you have no choice, is it courage?
The first thing we encountered after leaving the parking lot was a flat, open area we had to cross to get to the trail head. The snow was maybe four inches deep through there, and although the sky was thick with clouds, it must have been sunny in the past few days, melting a little snow that refroze overnight. This had left an icy crust almost an inch thick that I had to break through with every step. The constant lifting of my legs out of the snow and pushing my feet through that crust was not fun, and it felt like we’d never get to the trees.
There were no footprints ahead of me except Jake's. Despite his cavalier attitude, it was weighing on my mind how very alone we were out here, and how very helpless we’d be if something happened. This was before the advent of the cell phone; otherwise I would have texted someone and said: Hiking Chocorua Piper Trail. If I’m not back by Sunday night send St. Bernards.
Before long, little frozen pellets began to strike the shoulders and sleeves of my nylon anorak, making tiny slapping sounds. There weren’t a lot of them, and they melted quickly. Even so, it was frozen rain. It was a warning.
I looked at the red pack on Jake’s back, wondering if he’d stop and say something like, Gee, maybe we shouldn’t do this today. But he didn’t stop. He didn’t turn around. He just reached behind his neck, found the edges to his jacket hood, and flipped it over his navy wool hat. I did the same, though my hat was black.
I was glad when the Piper Trail reached the woods. I didn’t yet know that trees would offer their own challenges to my progress.
Almost as soon as Jake and I left that snow-crusted field behind, I planted my right foot the way that had been working well enough as I’d crossed that field. Only this time: surprise! My foot kept going, and going, until I was in snow up to the middle of my thigh.
I fell forward and threw my arms out in front of me to brace myself. My left hand found solid ground under about three inches of snow. My right arm kept going, and going. Before I knew it, I was on my right side with that arm deep in snow. I nearly cried out, more in surprise than pain.
As I struggled to free myself from the malignant white stuff, I thought, Jake thinks this is fun?
So I started planting my feet more carefully, but that led to another problem that I discovered when I planted a foot slowly to test for depth. I touched a level that felt solid and shifted my weight onto that foot, which caused the false bottom to give way to more snow beneath, sending me sprawling yet again.
“Fine,” I said quietly through gritted teeth, and I decided the best way forward was to send each foot down hard enough to break through any layers of false solidity. That worked for about twenty steps. That’s when my boot hit the side of a large, hidden stone only a few inches below the surface. My foot slipped sideways, wrenching my ankle and forcing me to catch myself with my other leg and making that knee scream.
I lost track of how many times I hissed, “Fuck!” under my breath, not wanting Jake—way ahead of me—to know how much trouble I was having.
Jake and I were still on the lower part of the Piper Trail, still under the trees and plunging unpredictably into snow, either up to our knees or up to our ankles, when the trail grew suddenly, if briefly, very steep. Jake had to work to get up the slope, but at least his equipment didn’t thwart him. My ill-fitting pack made things awkward, and my waffle-stomper work boots had very little traction. Also, they were sueded leather, so not only were they not especially warm, but also they were getting wet.
Watching Jake struggle ahead of me, I stared at his gaiters—those zip-on coverings Nordic skiers wear to keep snow out of their boots. Gaiters hook onto your boot laces, then zip up several inches of snow-shedding material to a tie, or to velcro, that you can tighten just below your knee. I had gaiters; most Nordic skiers did. Jake knew this. But had he suggested to me that I bring them? He had not. Had he taken into account that I might not realize how useful they’d be hiking through all this snow? He had not.
And, by the way, why were we hiking through all this snow, exactly? Was Jake trying to prove a point?
Was I?
Maybe it was partly the frustration of working my way through the confounding snow depths and partly being pissed at Jake for neglecting to tell me to bring my gaiters that made me lose my footing on the steep incline. I grabbed desperately at the skinny branches of a young pine tree, to no avail. Jake turned just as I began to slide backward and downward.
One of my boots lodged against a hidden rock, and that was enough to send me tumbling down, rolling through snow as I went. My body came to a rest at the bottom of the incline, spread-eagle in the snow.
I could barely understand what Jake called out to me, he was laughing so hard. All I could make out was, “You okay?”
Flat on my back, I waved a hand in the air, torn between yelling at him and laughing with him at how absurd I must look. I took my time getting onto my feet, an awkward process that was complicated by the too-large frame pack. I had to extricate myself from that so I could stand.
Jake watched, hands on hips, chuckling, as I struggled up the slippery incline, hauling myself up by gripping branches and the trunks of small trees until I reached him, out of breath and ready for a break.
“Onward?” he asked. So, no break. I just waved again.
I didn’t notice when the slapping noises of the frozen rain stopped. But at some point I became aware of flakes of snow. They made a sound, too, but it was subtle. Tiny clicks now, which I could hear only if I stood still and held my breath. Not many of them, but they were now flakes, not pellets. They were almost musical.
The falling snow wasn’t heavy at first, just a few flakes floating down through the trees. The incline here was only moderately steep, and the snow depth was more predictable for reasons I couldn’t have explained. So I was staring down at my feet, focused only on the effort of walking uphill through snow, the sounds of my own labored breathing almost all I could hear, when I nearly bumped into Jake, who’d stopped ahead of me on the trail.
We hadn’t talked much; the conditions took a lot of focus, and the climbing took a lot of breath. Between pants, I managed, “What?”
“This isn’t great. I was going to suggest we sit and have lunch. But the weather’s turning.” Clouds of breath fog swirled as he spoke.
At the mention of lunch, I realized I was hungry. I mean, hungry. And I wanted to see if all the snow in my boots had melted, or if I could knock some of it out. “It’s just a few flakes.”
“Are you kidding?” He made a wide sweep overhead with one arm. “Look at those clouds!”
“It’s been cloudy since we started.”
“Those are snow clouds.”
Snow clouds. Was this surprising? “Didn’t you check the forecast before we left?”
“Of course I did. But the mountains make their own weather.”
“So?”
“So we don’t have time for lunch.” He sloughed off his pack and dug a couple of power bars out of a pocket, handing me one. While we munched, he told me, “More snow means harder hiking, difficulty following the trail, lower visibility. All that can make things end very badly. No, we have to keep going if we’re going to make the cabin. And we have to make the cabin.”
Pack in place again, he turned without waiting for my agreement. I was on the verge of saying maybe the direction we should go in was down. He didn’t give me a chance, and something about his attitude left me with the impression that turning around would be cowardly. And I would not be a coward.
I took a deep, shaky breath and hitched my pack up a little before trudging after him.
Head down, struggling constantly uphill through deeper and deeper snow, I almost didn’t see the sign that pointed to my right for the Nickerson Ledge Trail. Jake had already passed it, and I was glad; I couldn’t imagine that being anywhere near a ledge right now would be a good idea.
I was also feeling profoundly frustrated. My feet were wet, my shoulders hurt from the ill-fitting pack, and this snow… this SNOW! Christ, but I was tired of fighting my way through it! Even following in Jake’s footprints didn’t help much. More than once I avoided the spot where he’d gone in up to his thighs only to find myself up to my hips. How many times had I already had to take my pack off so I could scramble out of the stuff? Fifteen? Eighty?
And why the fuck did Jake keep going?
Jake was slamming each foot down hard, harder than would have been necessary if all he wanted was to be sure he found something solid before shifting his weight. And I realized he was angry. No; he was furious. It looked like the snow was his worst enemy, and he was going to kill it if it didn’t kill him first.
This furious approach was apparently helping him make progress. I decided it might work for me.
It didn’t. Over the next hundred yards or so, it became obvious that the more furiously I attacked the mountain, the more it fought back, and the more often I found myself backward or sideways or face down, nearly buried in snow. The stuff got up my sleeves, down my back, and I could even feel it melting around my waist. It was in my hair and my nose and all the way into the fingers of my gloves.
Pulling myself out of a snow pit yet again, I opened my mouth wide for a silent scream, not wanting Jake to hear me yell. I was near tears of pure frustration by the time I hefted that pack again.
I watched Jake nearly disappear around a bend before he looked back to make sure I was behind him. We stared at each other for a second, across maybe a hundred feet and through the falling snow, and something happened inside me.
I’d say something snapped, but it was more of a thud. Suddenly I was empty. Empty of frustration, empty of fury, empty of resentment for Jake’s evidently inept leadership. I was a zombie. A snow zombie. I put one foot in front of me, felt for stability, shifted weight, lifted my other foot out of however much snow was around it, and planted it in front of the first, felt for stability, shifted weight, moved the first foot… and there was nothing else. Nothing existed in the world except moving uphill through the snow.
Lift. Place. Stabilize. Shift. Repeat….
I followed Jake. In my zombie state, all I did was follow, and follow, and follow. I didn’t watch him, though occasionally I glanced up to be sure he was still ahead of me. I might have been cold. I might have been hot. One of my arms might have fallen off. I wouldn’t have known. All I did was put one foot in front of the other, shift weight, wait to see how far in that foot sank, pull the other one out, and repeat. Over. And over. And over. And over.
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I’m an inveterate observer of human nature, writing stories about understanding and connecting with each other. My primary goal is furthering acceptance of people who appear to be different from “us,” whoever that “us” might be. Check out my books on my website.
Feeling a very keen fear for the danger you were in, here... 😱