Emily Johnsen and Patch ascending Santanoni. WINTER 2023 | 45 out interruptions. As we broke tree-line on Haystack and the 46th peak loomed, a chilly wind kept us moving. Huffing quietly, Mom ascends with hands on thighs, a trick she learned from her son. She is an implacable tortoise on a well-beaten trail, an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object. The result looks inevitable on video, although Mom says she felt much more tired than she looks on camera: a triumph, with celebratory swag that proved a welcome extra layer on the 45-degree peak. We snapped pictures and enjoyed the panoramic view over apples and Met-Rx bars. Mom felt such relief that she’d finished. For months, we’d all followed her health like a professional athlete. She was listed as Doubtful after that camping trip left her sleeping in a living room recliner to ease her back pain. She was placed on IR after her knee made running unbearably painful in the spring. Even setting out on the morning of the final day, she only put herself at Probable. It took most of those six years for her to realize that she really could do this. She used to get nervous before every hike, but after 44 peaks, she knew that her pre-hike jitters and the looming twenty-mile day were not insurmountable. We always told her that hiking is more mental than physical, and she developed a resilience (and fitness) over the years that belies her kindly, grandmother-like exterior. The truth is, Mom is a tank. She is an M1, a Panzer. She chews up terrain that would leave her peers gasping. I hope I am that tough at her age. This fall, Mom will welcome her third grandchild. With each new family member, hearts expand, and love multiplies in unexpected ways. Our family of 46ers has grown from two to four this summer. Rather than stealing some of our Adirondack shine, my parents’ 46er journey has blessed our whole family and opened up new joys in this beautiful place. While their quest for all 46 is complete, our family fascination with the Adirondacks is far from over. * * * Unlikely Occurrence Jim Cooper, #1605 After I finished in 1980, I started knocking off the list of the hundred highest in the back of the ADK High Peaks Trails guidebook. I quit at 96 just because the fire went out. In the long process, a little over twenty years effort, I almost always found some compensating beauty even when there were no views, an open fernfilled understory, a waterfall, wildflowers. There were no natural compensations on one hike anyway. There are four peaks named “Blue Ridge” on the hundred list. On July 25, 1992, I climbed the one north of Hoffman Mountain near Schroon Lake. I was with Tom Lee (#1452) and Rick Stevens (#2688). We used the access tunnel under the Northway on the east side of the mountain. The understory from that direction, anyway, was brutally thick. We needed to use the bushwhacker breaststroke to make progress, sometimes crawling. Rick arrived at a rest without his glasses. He said he had lost them but that it was hopeless to try to go back and find them. Just then Tom showed up with the glasses saying that he had come upon them hanging from a balsam twig, caught there by the hinge of the bow. The summit was flat with no climbing tree, so I thought that there would be nothing memorable about the trip until we heard voices coming from the north. I put my finger to my lips for my companions and waited until the voices became clearer and then shouted over in that direction, “Will you keep it down over there? You’re ruining my wilderness experience.” It was John Swanson (#2618) and a woman who were trying to climb all of the mountains in the Northeast over 3,500 feet. We had a jovial lunch amused by the total improbability that two parties climbing from different directions would meet at the flat top of this remote, nasty peak. Photo credit: Maria Aldrich
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