Bikemum

Through all the chaos and the efforts of the last few years, something is emerging. Oakley and I have been elbow to elbow, plowing the earth like a team of oxen. We have hauled each other up mountains, skied across frozen lakes, and screamed at each over broken chains on our mountain bikes, deep in the woods. We have wrangled wild mink, and biked in the snow, the rain, and in 100-degree heat. We have hiked many 4,000-foot peaks in winter, summer, and dark of night. We have slept in city parks, rest stops along the highway, and on the open prairies of the West. We have slogged through the Covid pandemic with everyone else.

It hasn’t always been pretty; in fact, sometimes it has been awful, full of frustration, intense emotion and fatigue. Oakley is a teenager, after all, and I am a nagging mother, hell-bent on dragging him into adulthood, healthy and strong. Sometimes our expeditions evoke self-flagellation, for both of us, as we deliberately choose hardship over comfort. But, after every adventure, when we make it back to the safety of our home, we ask each other: “What is next? Where now? Wouldn’t it be fun to…”

I say we have been like a team of oxen because I do feel like we have been tilling the earth, trying to make space for something to grow, and now, I am happy to announce that it has.

On June 1st, we will be opening Lighthouse Bikes, LLC: Tours, Rentals, and Repairs. It will operate out of Knightville, South Portland, Maine, in the shadow of the old Million Dollar Bridge; we will be offering guided bike tours to the coastal bike paths and lighthouses and beyond, as well as rental bikes so that our customers can create their own adventures. Oakley will be in charge of the rental department and I, as always, will be trying to figure out everything else as I go along. We have ordered 24, bright “Racing Red,” Worksman-brand bikes (America’s oldest bike manufacturer, since 1898!). We are busily building the shop with the help of friends and family.

Lighthouse Bikes is the next chapter of our journey together and, hopefully, it will create an opportunity for people of all abilities to gain access to the outdoors and to that part of themselves that craves to see what is around the corner, and the next, and the one after that.

I am incredibly excited. Whether it is a three-mile cruise, a ten-mile ride, or a day-long expedition, we will get to hear the tales, and celebrate the adventure that can be found every day as the world continues to open, day by vaccinated day, around us.

Come visit! https://www.lighthousebikesportland.com

A scream erupts from the duck pen. A quacking scream, if there is such a thing. I am just finishing a zoom counseling appointment, and stick my head out the window to find the reason for the cacophony and what I see stops my blood cold. “Oakley!” I shriek, my pitch rising above the chaos, “The ducks! Save the ducks!”

Outside, there is a mink, and its jaws are fastened around the neck of our lovely Anacona duck, Chestnut. The mink is pulling him greedily, lustily, violently around the pen. Chestnut’s white, glossy feathers are bloodied, his neck limp and drooping off his chest like it is suddenly too heavy. Exhaustion envelops him.

His mate, Sequoia, is wobbling around in an agitated daze, her head and neck also lacerated, and she wears a bloody cap on her head, but she seems a little better off than her mate. There is no doubt he was trying to defend her with his very life, and she is at a loss of what to do.

Oakley is out of the house and in the pen in seconds. He chases the mink, brandishing a board that is lying on the ground, until the mink drops the duck and flees — into the duck house, where Oakley locks him tight.
I go to Chestnut and Sequoia and squat beside them. My heart sinks. I hold my head in my hands, more-or-less paralyzed by the violence of it all, I don’t know how to help. I feel impotent.
Not Oaks, this is where he shines.

Without hesitation he runs to a neighbor’s house and returns with an adult friend, wielding a homemade snare. Together, they work to corner and trap the mink. It seems to be able to disappear and reappear at will, becoming a shadow, becoming a feint, but they are dogged and at last they succeed.
As they pull him free from the dark corners of the hutch, the mink writhes and snaps in their snare that holds him fast around the belly. He hisses and bites at their gloved hands with his sharp, jagged teeth. His body is snake-like and sinewy; all muscle, all fight. I know he is just doing his job, maybe even hoping to feed his young, but at this moment, I feel repulsed.

Oakley and our neighbor put him in a cooler while they confer about a plan. What does one do with a wild mink? We try the police—no help—so the two take the cooler to the far side of the island to release this fiend by the sea.

After the ducks have been attended to, given to a kind neighbor who has the wherewithal to give them the care they need, whatever their prognosis, I go inside and am greeted by the other side of death, life.

Chesnut’s and Sequoia’s eggs, which have been incubating for nearly a month, have hatched. Just yesterday, five little bills nibbled and thrust their way into this world, using all their might and mane. How hard they worked to push themselves out of the shells! When they burst free, they all lie, wet and exhausted on the incubator floor, learning to breathe, to live. Now, at one-day-old, they are already dabbling in their watering tray, letting the water slip down their throats by stretching them to the sky again and again. It is like a dance, like a bow.

I sit on the floor with them and am amazed by the brightness of their spirits. They dart around in a duckling herd, little orange feet thudding across the carpet, bumping against me and each other in a gleeful parade.

Oakley comes in after depositing the mink across the island. He sits beside me and picks up his favorite duckling, Greased Lightning, and they coo and chortle at each other. Oakley’s eyes shine and he lets the duckling nestle under his chin for a little nap. He doesn’t move for fear of waking him.

Such gentleness from a mink wrangler, from a young man on the brink of adulthood. I am thankful for both sides of him.

Life is rich; such violence and such sweetness with barely a breath between.

We walk up. There is no light other than the sliver of a moon casting lattice-like shadows on the snow from the branches that stretch overhead. At first I am a little nervous, but then I remember, this is just a walk, and I have been doing that for most of my 52 years.

So we walk up. Away from the safety of the parking lot, away from our cozy beds, away from the warmth of homes, inns and towns. The air is fresh and cool like a mountain stream and its currents caress our sweaty brows as they blow by. My limbs loosen and I begin to feel an uncoiling.

We keep walking up. The stars glitter, the snow sparkles, and our breaths create halos around our heads. There are eight of us, marching like a brigade of gnomes, chortling, whispering and at times traveling in silence up 4,000-foot Mt. Tecumseh in the dark of night to meet spring, in the middle of the night.

Before this year, I had never climbed the White Mountains of New Hampshire in winter. Who would do that? It sounded cold and dangerous. When the snow fell, I had always turned to skiing and skating and other civilized sports with lodges and tasty comestibles involved. But something had brought me out here this year, and I have learned that the mountains do not go away in winter. Rather they become a playground, filled with slides and jungle gyms, silence and wonder, beauty and peace.What secrets they have been hiding!

Now, I want to know what secrets the night holds, here, deep in winter, deep in the snow. Luckily for Oakley and me, we have a great group of friends alongside of us, who are just as eager to explore what these mountains hold.

So we walk up. The snow beneath our feet crunches, our hearts pound, and a flood of well-being comes like it always does when we get to adventure outside. The path becomes a tunnel of moonlight. All we can see is the star-filled sky above us and the snow beneath our feet. Everywhere else is darkness — and silence.

In a few hours’ time we make it to the top. We are surrounded by a bowl of other mountains, and there is not a light to be seen on any of them. Below glows the small town of Waterville Valley. It feels like we are looking down at the peaceful Who’s in Whoville, all snug in their beds, dreaming their dreams. Then I think, maybe I am dreaming my dream, and this is it. This dark, this peace, this moment separated from all others. All chaos and worry. All agendas and appointments. Just us. Healthy and strong in this beautiful world. Oakley grinning in the quiet dark. What a beautiful dream.

This is Scuppers, our cat, doing his best imitation of how I am handling the threat of COVID.

Today, I received the results of my fourth COVID test, and the results came back positive; positive that I have a diagnosis of Munchausen. There are no viral COVID beasties taking purchase inside me, no matter what I have led myself to believe.

Over the past week I have coughed, had chest pain, sore muscles, pain in my throat, brain fog and fatigue. I have been certain that my husband has shared his COVID with me, and have been diligently monitoring my temperature, checking my ability to taste, taking it easy and living in quarantine. I have been so certain in fact, that I have manifested all the symptoms that I have read about, but to no avail. I am COVID free. My whole family is.

So today, to keep the crazies at bay and to whip my body back into submission, Oakley, my husband and I climbed Mount Osceola. A majestic 4,000 foot peak that demands good health to reach its summit.

It was a beautiful, blueberry of a day. The sky pulling us into the depth of its blueness, the snow burning our eyes with its brightness, and the birch trees showing off their red tipped branches that come only when the promise of spring is close.

We took long deep droughts of air, kicking our micro-spikes into the steep, icy trail again and again; our ski poles flailing, knees screaming, as we tried to gain purchase on the mountain. We must have sweat out every last toxin that our bodies have ever harbored. My shirt was soaked through and my bangs were stuck upright into a salty-frozen wave.

When we reached the top, we feasted on Oreos, peanut butter and honey sandwiches, clementines and chips; relishing the taste of them all. After a short, although acute, appreciation of the fantastic view, down we went.

It was so steep on the way down that it felt more like a prolonged fall than a hike; our toes compressing into the front of out boots, our leg bones percussing in our knee joints, and our brains thumping against our skulls. By the time we reached the bottom, we more than welcomed the idea of sitting still again, of being warm and comfortable and safe. The crazies, and COVID are behind us for now.

On a cool February morning, we stand together in the Maine ocean, full of horror and anticipation of what we have set for ourselves as a Wednesday Adventure challenge; a dip in this 39-degree Fahrenheit bath. It bites at our ankles and all we can do is shriek. “We just have to do this one thing! One thing!”

“Oh, Jesus. Oh my God. It hurts!” shouts Oakley, but he is grinning; radiating life.

“Come on, no turning back now!” I cry, the sun and the cold and the bright winter day fill my lungs and burst out of my mouth triumphantly. “We are doing this!”

With that I hold my breath and plunge under the water, then porpoise up and out, lunging for the shore, tripping over my feet gasping, sputtering, and laughing. My skin feels afire and my heart pounds in my chest. Oakley is seconds behind me, shaking his head like a wet golden retriever. When he reaches the beach, he gallops up and down the sand, caterwauling with pure glee and spewing a sequence of joyful obscenities. r

Everything tingles. Everything is bright. It feels like happiness.

Two days later, my husband begins to feel a little lightheaded and develops a slight cough. The next day he feels achy. The next day he is tested for COVID and finds that he has it and due to Oakley and my proximity to him, we find that we will need to quarantine for 10 to 20 days depending on how the virus travels in our family unit. We can not leave our home. I knew this day would come, and I know we will be okay.

It is Adventure Wednesday again. My husband Twain feels better and for that I am grateful, but this week, my chest does not feel full of radiating light; it feels tight, like a toddler is sitting upon it. A little toddler. I believe the virus is sniffing around for fertile ground, but I am a healthy woman and not too worried. This will have to be a different kind of adventure.

Oakley seems fine and so we are busying ourselves with small projects that don’t require much energy. I think he is relieved by the quiet. He builds a fire in the backyard and bakes a chocolate cake in a dutch oven-it is delicious. We give our ducks a bath and watch them munch on floating lettuce and preen themselves as if they are preparing for a ball, then Oakley decorates his room and nests in it, perhaps inspired by the ducks.

Today, I breathe shallow breaths and feel like napping and watching bad television. I have no desire to jump in the ocean, but the memory of the shock and beauty we felt lingers. It will be there another day. That’s the thing about the ocean, about the mountains, about the sun. they are always there, and I know we will be back to play in them all, after I just take a little rest.

The forest is dark, but not asleep. As we slip along the trail in the shadows of a slim moon, I feel all my senses aquiver, yearning for sound and for vision, yet gulping in the darkness like a delicious feast. Tonight, we have decided to cross-country ski out of the safety and warmth of the Gorman Chairback Lodge (AMC hut) outside Greenville, Maine, to experience the true dark of night; away from man-made lights. Away from mainstream madness. Away from the cooped-up chaos that is our life.

It is cold, perhaps ten degrees, and the interplay between the heat in my core and the chill of the night has created a feeling of dancing between two worlds; a perfect balance. Frosty tendrils of air tickle my ears and feel like kisses on my cheeks. Snow is falling gently, and our skis slide effortlessly across the crystalline flakes. The dark hills loop up and down carrying us forward. Beckoning us to go just a little further, and then further still.

It is too dark to make out any detail in the woods around us. I can see the silhouettes of tall pines on either side of the trail, the white snowy forest floor, and the forms of my husband and son up ahead. They appear to become one with the trees when more than a few feet grow between us, and I struggle to make out where they stop and the wilderness begins. My husband and I giggle crazily when we swoop down unseen steep sections, thrilled by flirting with the unknown. Never knowing how steep a hill might be, just trusting that the ground will rise again, loom up in the darkness and slow our descent. Oakley is more nervous, unsettled by what might lurk outside his vision. I whisper calming words, asking him to relax, reassuring him that out here, he is safe. It is so quiet. All my pores feel open in an effort to collect the peace found in this winter forest.

Two days later, and the darkness is behind us, now the bright white expanse of frozen Moosehead Lake slams against the brilliant blue winter sky. The air is filled with the sounds of snowmobiles revving their engines and ricocheting from one side of the lake to the other like hundreds of misquotes. We are wearing snowmobile jackets, helmets, pants, and boots so that our bodies are completely protected from the elements. We can’t even hear each other’s voices so we gesture emphatically to communicate. My son Oakley and my husband share one snowmobile, and I straddle another. “Be careful, Oakley!” I shout over the din. None of us have ever ridden a sled before, and the countless stories of careless accidents fill my head. He gives me a thumbs up and a grin and takes off, careening across the lake at what appears a break-neck pace. I chase after. Our sleds jump over snow-covered compression fractures and rattle over the icy trails left by others. Sometimes we cross large unmarred snowfields, and our runners slice through the snow effortlessly, making a zipper-like sound.

Oakley stands on his snowmobile, his bright red snow pants like a flag that boasts of unbridled happiness. I stand on mine and try to keep up, slowing whenever the terrain varies ever so slightly and speeding up to catch him again and again. We travel over 65 miles until my ears are swollen with the roar of the engines and can no longer hear quiet, until my eyes can no longer focus because of a slight snowblindness, and my thumb has cramped from pressing against the throttle. When we finally climb off our machines,and pull the helmets from our heads, Oakley is glowing as if he has just swallowed a bottle full of happiness, and my heart feels full.

Oakley and I keep stretching each other, forcing each other to try new things and hold fast through difficult challenges. We are following each other as we zig and zag through adventure, behavioral issues, and this pandemic. Each time, I push him, he resists, each time he pushes me, I resist, but it is through this interplay that both of us get to experience parts of life that awaken us. Yin and Yang, Ebb and Flow. Heartache and Joy. Darkness and Light. Sliding through dark forests and hurtling across stark frozen lakes.

For a second, I stand on top of the thin crust, exhausted from post-holing repeatedly through three feet of powdery snow. Sweat has soaked through my shirt and my heart is pounding. Ahead of me, I see the last glimpse of my son and husband’s backs as they snowshoe out of sight. Our plan is to climb Cabot Mountain, but we have chosen a route that is unused and so has no packed trail to follow, and we have only brought two pairs of snowshoes with us. I am the only one with gaiters so, I have volunteered to go without. I pretend that I am so tough, but I am not.

I take another step and my leg plunges deeply in again. This is not hiking. It is more like wallowing, of which I am doing a lot lately. It is taking all my energy to move forward and the fruits of my efforts seem incremental. I can barely keep going.

When people speak of depression, they often liken it to wading through molasses or feeling like the littlest effort takes Herculean energy. Well, I have a new metaphor for us. It is this. Swimming through the snow, watching as others seem to float on top, and finding that you are running out of reserves. The simplest step is way too hard.

This has been a tough few weeks; maybe it is because of the pandemic, maybe it is because it is February in Maine, maybe it is because I am finding parenting exhausting, or maybe it is because I am wicked menopausal, but life currently feels a lot like this hike.

Morosely, I trudge on. About every ten steps I decide that I need to quit, but then one step holds me on the surface of the snow and I think, “Maybe it is getting better.” Every time I am wrong. I fall through again, and again. I am traveling at a rate of a little less than a mile an hour. When I finally reach my family, I feel hollow and light-headed. They are pacing back and forth trying to keep warm while they wait for me.

“I need a snack.” I gulp, unable to quite admit that this adventure may be beyond my abilities.

“We need to keep going. We are freezing. Let’s eat and walk.” says Twain. Tears spring to my eyes. I can’t. I am done. I open up a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and shove it into my mouth, hoping it will stem the flow. It does. I take a ragged breath and watch as fear and concern flash across my son Oakley’s brow.

“Are you okay?” He rarely sees me become undone.

“Yes, but I need to give up, I can’t do this.” I can see visions of our warm truck quickly replacing his concern, and he tells me readily that I am making a great choice. In minutes he has turned and is double-timing it off the mountain, shuffling down merrily on his snowshoes. Twain also is happy to turn around. It is as if they were just waiting for me to run myself out.

As we make our way down to the trail head, I notice that intermingled with my post holes are the postholes of a bear. “Twain, are these from a bear?” I call out just to make sure.

“Yeah, didn’t you notice we have been following them all along?” I hadn’t, but now I use them to my advantage, placing my feet into its deep prints. One step after another, slow and steady, and no longer falling through the crust of the snow. I use the bear’s strength to supplement my own.

Sometimes, I get struck by what a braggart I sound like, boasting about my adventures and telling tales. How privileged I sound, romping through the wilderness, galavanting around the country without a care in the world, but I do struggle. That is why I do it. I go on all these adventures not because I am strong, but because they help me find what strength I do have, and they help me gather it from the world around me.

“I hate cross-country skiing. It is stupid, you just come out here and slide around for no point.”

Oakley is ranting again. It is understandable. Not only is he a 17-year-old boy forced to adventure weekly with his mom, but he is also wearing skis that require wax and it keeps wearing off, making him slip one way and then another. Every way but forward, really. “Let’s just go up to the top of that hill and then we can call it a day. There will be some good views.”

“I don’t care about views. You do. I am going back to the truck.”

“No, you are not. We have driven more than an hour to get here and we are going to have fun.”

“No, we are not!”

We are cross-country skiing at Quarry Road in Waterville, Maine. It is beautiful. There are eight miles of groomed trails that loop through the forest and the snow is perfect; an all-natural, corduroy, roller coaster. I will be damned if Oakley ruins it. “We are going up that hill,” I say with firm resolution. He knows that to fight me when I use this tone would be futile. It would get ugly.

So, up we go. I am as determined to enjoy myself as Oakley is to squawk. I do my best to tune him out, and he follows angrily, cursing under his breath and thrashing around like an ice-skating giraffe. When we finally reach the top, we find ourselves overlooking an old, downhill ski run. It is a straight shot to the bottom, fairly overgrown with small shrubs and grasses poking up out of the snow. He instantly brightens. “Let’s go down that!” His eyes flash with dare and bravado. His bad mood swept away in his surge of excitement. It is far too steep for me on my cross-country skis, in fact, it looks far too steep for anybody.

“No, I will break my leg.”

“Yeah, but I won’t! I will meet you at the bottom! This will be fun.” It is true, he will have fun, and escaping his caterwauling sounds like a slice of heaven.

“Okay, I will meet you at the bottom in 20 minutes.” With a whoop and a grin, Oakley takes off down the hill. He really is a stimulation junkie. I, on the other hand, pick my way along the ridge on what appears to be a snowshoe trail. I am sure it will descend eventually, but I am in no rush. The woods are quiet and still and I lose myself in the serenity found there.

For a while, I follow blue blazes that mark the snowshoe trail, but then on a whim, I decide to go off the route and follow what looks like a gently sloping ski run. There are dog prints on this track, so I know someone else has traveled this way. Deeper and deeper I go, the quiet of the woods calling me, the snow muffling all sound. I am lulled into a meditative state. I continue to follow the dog tracks, occasionally wondering when they might begin to descend, but not really caring one way or another. Oakley can wait. Suddenly, I hear a loud snort. The small hairs in my ears stand at attention, straining to feel any vibration of sound. What the heck was that? That was not the sound of a dog. I look at the tracks again.

They are bigger than I first noticed and have heavy claw marks poking deep into the snow. They also seem to be surrounded by a larger imprint, of maybe, fur? Tingles ride up my spine. My brain turns on. What would a dog be doing up here without any human prints beside it? What exactly am I following?

I hear the snort again, it is quite close, and I realize, I am chasing a bear. It sounds like a warning, full of power and hot breath. I heed it.

Quickly, I turn on my skis, legs all akimbo, and trace my tracks back in the direction of the trail. I have gone farther than intended and can find no way down so, I begin crashing through Beech trees and Maples, swinging from one to the next like a skiing orangutan using them to try to slow down. There is nothing graceful about this, branches lash my face and my skis frequently become tangled in the shrubbery. But. I feel giddy, triumphant.

It takes me nearly an hour to make my way to the truck. There Oakley is waiting. I thought he would be annoyed that I took so long, but no, he is smiling. His cheeks are ruddy and his hat is pushed back on his head, airing out a sweaty forehead. “Aw mom, I wrecked my knees! You should see them. I wiped out so bad. It was awesome!”

“Well, I chased a bear!” As we share stories and load our skis into the truck, I am struck by the fact that this really what we do on all adventures. Chase bears. Both of us in different ways. Our expeditions aren’t complete without those moments when we reach for whatever it is that fills us up. For him, it is physical intensity, for me, it is a story, a tale of adventure, and a connection to something that feels bigger.

What is your bear?

I am losing my mind. I am sure of it, but what option do I have? This morning, when I walked my husband to the ferry to send him off to work in the city, the temperature was hovering around ten degrees and the wind chill was driving it down deep into the negative digits. “It might be too cold for my bike commute,” I mumble, hoping that Twain will quickly agree with me and maybe even insist that I stay home.

“Nah.”

I try again, “It is freezing, and this wind is punishing!”

“You will be fine. What are you, a wimp now?” With that he gives me a goodbye kiss and boards the ferry, leaving me alone to deal with my demons.

Those are fighting words to me and like it or not, I know that I am going to walk home and climb aboard my bike to ride around this god-forsaken island twice to complete my nine-mile commute to my home bathroom/office. But, rather than being annoyed by his pressure, I actually appreciate it and feel myself rising to the challenge. After being married for nearly 25 years, he knows that sometimes I need to be pushed off the curb, for my own good.

I growl back in his general direction, but I feel my mind shifting from trying to find excuses into preparation mode. What will I need to survive this ride with all my digits intact? I will need rain pants over my sweatpants to block the wind, yet give my legs a full range of motion. I will need wool socks and leather boots to keep my toes from freezing. I will need insulated windproof mittens, a warm hat under my helmet, and a scarf to keep out the wind that will surely scream through the zipper on my down jacket. And ski goggles, I think my son Oakley has a pair that I can borrow. That should do it. That and some fine tunes blasting through my headphones so that I can feel like I am starring in my own superhero movie.

When I am all geared up, and ready to depart, I glance in the mirror that hangs inside our front door. What I see there looks far more like a cartoon character than a superhero. My hair sticks out from my helmet like straw, uncut for many months. My face looks pinched and severe, aging rapidly from the cold and wind that has been pummeling it through all our winter adventures. My yellow rain pants bag around my ankles making me look like a cross between a duck and an overgrown toddler.

I realize at that moment that I have turned the corner on crazy. A teenagers nightmare of a mother.

However, there is nothing to be done about it. I zip up the last two inches of my jacket and step into the cold. The wind blasts up around me, and my hair flies into my mouth. I crank up the tunes on earphones and do a little warm-up dance as I pull my bike out of the rack.

I take solace in the fact that many of us are turning the corner on crazy right now, and I hope my neighbors don’t judge me too harshly as they see me pass by. Their crazy is probably just a little more private. And I know it is this, or bite my son Oakley’s head off for just being a teenager. This, or nag my husband right up off the roof. This, or run for the hills. This or give up.

I don’t plan or hope to do any of those things. Instead, I will embrace crazy and laugh at my reflection. I can’t bear to hide inside.

The ride is bracingly beautiful and other than chilly toes and a numb thumb I am quite warm, the heat radiating from my heart and belly and rebuffing the cold morning air.

By the time I arrive home, I am nearly looking forward to my day of zoom counseling and the cozy chair that will cradle me for the rest of the day. Tonight, I will need to repeat this adventure for my evening commute home from work. It is like medicine. My son greets me on the front steps. “You look crazy,” he says.

“I am just doing what I have to do.” We all are.

We step out from the shelter of the ice-shrouded firs onto the bold, rock summit of Mount Moosilauke. Here the wind howls to a screaming pitch, forcing the snow to slam into our skin like frozen sand. My ears ache, my cheeks burn, and my eyes become narrow slits. Up ahead, I see nothing but white. I know the top is close, but how close? 100 yards? A half a mile? The difference feels like it could be a lifetime.

“Twain, I am not sure about this!” I look back at my husband. His cheeks are bright pink, and the fringe of his bangs are frozen into white barbs. I have to shout to be heard. The walk up to this point had been a long, steady incline, a five-mile meander through the safety of thick spruce and fir forest. It had given no hint as to the intensity we would find near the top of this mountain. Now we have to make a decision. We are trying to climb all 48 of the 4,000-foot mountains in New Hampshire, as a way to combat middle-age and COVID fatigue, and getting close to one of the summits doesn’t count. If we don’t make it, we have decided that we will have to climb all this way again.

“I can see a cairn up there!” he shouts. “Let’s just get that far and then decide!” I try to slip deeper into the neck of my parka and pull my hat more firmly over my ears. The snow is blasting into every crevice it can find.

“Okay, but that is it!” We scurry forward, through the blizzard to the rock cairn. Up ahead, I think I see another one, leading us to the top, but could it be a small, ice-encased, gnarled tree instead? “Okay, I will go to the next, but really, then we are just being stupid and should turn back. I don’t want to get lost up here!”

I am often in a quandary about whether I am being a wimp, or using good judgment. I really never know. How hard should I push myself? When is enough actually enough? When am I letting my optimism become a liability? I have been in the wilderness countless times and have even led many expeditions, yet all my experience amounts to little in these moments.

Heads bowed, faces turned to the side to avoid the full brunt of the icy gusts, we continue on, the wind bandying us about like human flags. My skin is burning now, and I begin to feel afraid. A slight panic pulls at my chest. “I want to call it!” I shout to Twain. Before he has time to respond, I see the hazy outline of a man about 40 feet ahead. “There is someone up there. Let’s go to him, and see how close we are, but then, really, that is it!”

We stagger across to the figure and see he is wearing back-country skis, goggles, snowpants, gaiters and over-mitts. It looks like this is not his first adventure. “It is terrible up here!” he shouts. “Real frostbite weather! Cover your skin!” I try to, but my scarf has turned to a stiff board and is no longer pliable enough to snug around my neck. “We are almost there!” he bellows. “Follow me!”

He continues forward into the white, his skis handily allowing him to stay above the drifts that have collected around the ice-covered boulders that seem to be circling the top. Twain and I are not so lucky, and post-hole behind him. Soon the post-holing turns to crawling to keep up closer to the top, pushing our mittens like boxing gloves into the snow.

Then, there it is. The sign that marks the top. I smile at our helper, trying to convey my thanks, and turn to try to scurry off this ridge as soon as possible. No time for niceties. I look back towards the cairns that will lead us back to the safety of the tress, but now I see nothing. Nothing. It is all white. Suddenly I understand how people can get lost 100 feet away from the safety of a shelter. A white-out is indeed just that.

I look down and see the holes that our crawling and post-holing have left behind. They can be my guide if we move quickly before they fill in. They are like the quickly disappearing bread crumbs left by Hansel and Gretel. And so we do, from one to the next until we reach a cairn, and then the next, and then the next.

And then we are safe. Once we reach the ice-encrusted trees, they create a wall, protecting us from the merciless wind. My hair is frozen into long ropey icicles, my hat has become a block of ice, and my cheeks burn, but inside I am warm. Hot even.

We decide to run down so we don’t get chilled, and we bound through the snow, stuffing sandwiches into our mouths as we move. The snow cushions our footsteps, and the woods spread out before us in a muffled beauty. “This is idyllic,” says Twain when we stop to catch our breath. I look around and take it all in. I feel the strength in my legs and in my chest and my heart. I feel like a child again, out playing in this world. Today, I made the right choice.