willia m morrow

An Imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

fol lowing atticus

Forty-Eight High Peaks, One Little Dog, and an Extraordinary Friendship

T O m R y a n

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templated what had just transpired. Both of us were still looking up at

those angels.

Since i was already on my knees, i decided to say a few prayers. i

prayed for my brothers and sisters, and i prayed for my mother, but more

than anything i prayed for Jack ryan.

Eventually my headlamp flickered to life again. i pulled some sau-

sages out of my backpack to share with atticus and kept looking

until i found my other headlamps. To be safe i put them in the pocket of

my coat before we made our way down. But i had a feeling i wouldn’t be

needing them.

The night wasn’t as dark anymore. a few stars appeared and elbowed

the clouds out of the way. my thermometer now read eighteen degrees.

The trip down the mountain in the dark felt different. it was comfortable

and lighter, and we finished without further incident.

later, while driving home, i understood a bit more of what experi-

enced hikers had warned me about—that winter hiking is entirely differ-

ent from summer, and strange things can happen—especially at night.

You have to be prepared for anything.

i also thought about the abenaki indians who didn’t climb to the top

of the great peaks because they believed that’s where the great spirits

lived.

it wasn’t until we arrived back in Newburyport that night and atticus

and i slipped into bed that it hit me that we’d climbed our first winter

peak. i couldn’t really account for what had transpired up there, but it

was so extraordinary i wanted more of it. as i fell asleep, i wondered

what else our winter in the whites would teach us.

Atticus’s muttluks and bodysuit proved to be essential for us at vari-

ous times during the winter. we encountered colder temperatures

and deeper snow than either of us had ever known. i learned to keep the

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“People Die Up There in the Winter” | 77

suit in my pack until he started to get uncomfortable, and then i’d put it

on him and he’d welcome its snug fit and warm fleece lining.

However, our most valuable piece of equipment was not something i’d

bought. it was something we already had: common sense. we wouldn’t

push it, and we’d take only what the mountains gave us. on the best of

days, when the temperature was moderate, the skies clear, and the forecast

favorable, we’d climb one of the higher, more exposed peaks. Unfortu-

nately, those days were few and far between. on days when things weren’t

as nice but still safe enough to hike, we’d climb where we would be pro-

tected by the trees and there wasn’t as much exposure. on the worst of

days, we simply wouldn’t hike at all. There would be many such days.

as much as people worried about me, the way i saw it, i had an

advantage over most. There were many days where i might have hiked

if i were on my own, but i wouldn’t expose atticus to storms, high

winds, frigid temperatures, or trails that were icy or too deep with new

snow to make our way through. By refusing to subject atticus to less-

than-favorable conditions, i kept myself safe.

i was told by those who argued that dogs don’t belong on the trails in

winter that dogs don’t know the difference between a bad day and a good

one and that they’ll go wherever their owners go. But i never had that

problem with atticus. atticus always had a say, just as he always had in

our life together, and if he felt he didn’t want to go on a hike, he was

never forced to.

There were two occasions that winter when he decided we weren’t

going. on the first we’d driven the two hours up from Newburyport, and

when we arrived at the trailhead, the wind was wicked and the wind chill

far below zero. Snow swirled in mini tornadoes, and when atticus hopped

out of the car, he turned right back around and hopped back in. He had

spoken.

on the second such occasion, the weather was much better. it was a

perfect day for hiking. But it was our third day in a row, and he was tired.

when we parked at the trailhead and i was getting geared up, he stayed

curled in a ball in the front seat of the car. i called to him, but all he did

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was twitch his white eyebrows as if to say, Wake me when you get back. i

took off my gear, put it back in the car, and we drove home. it was a part-

nership, and if one of us didn’t feel up to it, we weren’t going to hike.

another advantage was that atticus had the innate ability to know

things that other dogs might not. He knew when a frozen stream wasn’t

safe to cross even if it looked like it was, and he knew when it was safe,

even if it didn’t look like it. The same was true for some of the icy slides

we encountered. on some he would walk confidently, leading me across.

on others he’d stay back and let me go first, or he would wait for me to

pick him up and carry him a short distance. His ability to read the condi-

tions of the trails and to know his own limits was a great advantage for us,

for we were challenged by an entirely different set of mountains and

there was less margin for error. They were the same mountains we’d

climbed in spring and summer; they just didn’t look it, and they defi-

nitely didn’t feel like it.

at its best, winter in the whites was a wonderland. it was a walk

through a crystalline forest under azure skies, and as we thrust our way

through the last of the snow-covered conifers toward each summit, it was

like stumbling into C. S. lewis’s magical wardrobe and pushing through

the rows of clothes, knowing that there was something thrilling beyond

it all. Stepping out of the trees and onto an open ridge or peak was like

exiting the back of the wardrobe and entering our own special Narnia. it

was a world apart, a world that belonged only to the two of us.

winter at its worst meant that the woods were barren down low, the

colors of the forest gone, replaced by a flat, desaturated monochrome.

There was no sweet and sultry summer scent, no birdsong, and hardly any

wildlife. it was as lonely and forlorn a place as i’d ever known. The wind

cried out like a banshee or a dragon beating its thunderous wings as it

circled above the treetops, and the cold would reach deep into my bones.

we mostly had the trails to ourselves, and i came to understand an

entirely new level of isolation and how that brutal and silent world could

play tricks on my mind and make me long to be back in Newburyport,

surrounded by friendly faces.

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