Adirondack Peeks Summer 2024

from their time together at Union College and Justine lived and taught in the next town over from us in Japan. Mary and I had spent a delightful “friendsgiving” together at Justine’s house nestled near coastal rice paddies, sing ing, laughing, cooking, and playing charades. We made holiday gifts for each other. It was a serendipitous discov ery that helped seal our mutual affection and connection. Approaching completion of my degree, I worried about finding a job in my newly chosen field. It seemed no one was hiring urban planners; we were still climbing out of a recession. Amazingly, I landed a position with Tompkins County that was a great fit that would allow us to stay in Ithaca. I was thrilled. Tim and I bought an old 22-foot O’Day sailboat together with our friend Dan to explore Cayuga Lake. Mary and I were prepared to make the most of what the outdoors in Ithaca had to offer, with its gorges and state parks and forests, and I would continue to pur sue adventures in high places by taking at least one big trip a year back to Oregon to keep climbing peaks in the Cascades and Olympics. I would just need to find a way to build it into the family budget and schedule. Tim helped me see a better way. Celebrating one evening in the fall of 2011 after receiving my degree and settling into the new job, I pitched an idea. I knew Tim loved Oregon too. A bunch of his college friends were there, and he lived in Portland for a while Becca traveled on a fellowship. Would he take a trip with me to Oregon early the following year to climb Mount Hood? Without hesitation and with a glint in his eye he said, “Buddy, we don’t need to go to Oregon to get the experience of climb ing real mountains; we can just climb the Adirondacks in the winter!” We started with Mt. Marcy on MLK weekend 2012. Most of the early trips involved treks to base camps staying in or near lean-tos, with a couple of days of peak bagging and camping in the interior. Later, we figured out that 15–20-mile days with starts and finishes in headlam ps had a certain charm, especially the warm bed at the end of the trail, dry warm layers the next morning, and ac Winter 46ers

cess to cold 16-oz IPAs and ping pong in the game room at the ADK Trail Inn in Keene or the VHS collection in the Pilot House at Cloudsplitter Outfitters in Newcomb. We learned, in part through trial and error, how to manage our gear and movement to maintain a level of safety and com fort in extreme conditions. I bought a used North Face sleeping bag called the Darkstar, rated to -40 degrees Fahrenheit/-40 degrees Celsius, learning that’s where the two units of temperature intersect. Tim and I kept returning. Each year, we held MLK weekend on the calendar for our ADK pilgrimage, and we started adding one or two more weekends as we got clos er to completing all 46 peaks above 4,000 feet. Our first summit view was on our second trip. It was from Bound ary Peak, a 20-minute break in the clouds while hovering in a windbreak and rewarming ourselves with hot cocoa after an unsuccessful attempt of Iroquois. I was tired and wet with sweat from the struggle of climbing out of three spruce traps that I had fallen into attempting to navigate the snow-laden broad ridge, and the fog broke to reveal a glorious view of the Colden summit. As we kept add ing peaks, the summit views became more frequent, as if encouraging us to keep coming back. I added solo trips when Mary and I visited over President’s Day weekend. Others joined us along the way, some just for one trip. Winter climbing and camping isn’t for everyone, it turns out. Others stuck around. Kent Johnson joined from day one. John Licitra joined about five years ago. Kent and John are now just a few peaks away from their 46W and buddy John Guttridge, who only started with us two winters ago, has caught the winter climbing bug hard and will probably finish in fewer seasons than any of us. When they finish, they too will become 46ers at the same time as they become winter 46ers. We’ve all climbed at least some of the peaks in the summer and fall, but all 46? Only in the winter. My strongest memories from the hundreds of miles, hundreds of thousands of feet of climbing and de scending, and millions of calories consumed, are not of glorious but impersonal summit views. To be sure, some views are strongly imprinted, such as the jaw-dropping

Tom and Tim's Winter Finish on Whiteface, February 2022

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