Fireside Fall 2015

THE MIDDLEBURY FIRESIDE

The Middlebury Fireside
Kindling Stories & Igniting Inspiration in Middlebury’s Outdoor Community
Vol. I
Fall 2015

We believe in the creed of the campfire, the religion of rock, the
pilgrimage of the trail and the meditation of the mountaintop. We are the essence
of stories and want yours to come alive in firelight.

Contents
I. Up Liberty, Jordan Collins
II. Crude, Ben Harris
III. No wonder they call it the great one, Emma Erwin
IV. Constants, Cooper Couch
V. Tchotchkes, Hannah Habermann
VI. Calculating Beauty, Mara Gans
VII. Augusta, Hannah Habermann
VIII. On Earth, For Earth, Jenny Moffett
IX. In Search of Paradise, Meena Fernald
X. Algonquin: Power, Peace, and Metempsychosis, Kent Ratliff
XI. The desert, Mara Gans
XII. Faces of the Ice, Ryan McElroy
XIII. Teton Dreams, Morgan McGlashon

a note from the editor
As I approach the end of my time at Middlebury, I find myself
reflecting on the ‘good old days’ of being here. Those days when I was
younger, the college was newer, and a different party graced the plush
seats of the Proctor lounge. Yet, while faces change, and I feel my own
four years ebb towards their end, there’s a steady cycle to the culture
here. For every fading senior there is a passionate freshman ready to
pick up the pack and shape their new home. And so, just as we all pass
along Painter’s cane at convocation, as students here, we all pass along
the memories and stories that shape our collective identity.
Here, bound between the Greens and Adirondacks, guided by our
shared culture, we become as resilient as the mountains themselves.
As Laurie Patton put it when she joined our community, “These mountains
call all of us to be bigger in our aspirations and yet also to be smaller
and linked to a larger purpose. Middlebury’s mountains give us a sense
of place that is also a sense of community. They help us find our place in
the world, and even if we don’t find it immediately, we have a deep and
abiding trust that we will. This is the strength of the hills.”
We hope to share that strength with you, just as many before us have
shared it, with stories and tales told in the glow of the fireside.
- Mara Gans ’15.5, President
Cover photo by Mara Gans ’15.5; Mission statement photo by Sofi Hecht ’18; Logo by Evan Gallagher ’15.
6

Fremont Peak, Wind River Range. Ben Harris ’16.
Undisclosed location. Ben Harris ’16.
7

Up Liberty
Jordan Collins ’15.5
We talked about how last night was like a birth canal
the two of us starting our ascent without expectation,
knowing only that the sun sets and sight fails,
and realizing what it means to travel as if motionless
through a vortex.
To arrive out of such black silence,
pierced only by our dim sphere of perception:
that miracle headlamp glow, beyond it
noise resounding in the imagination.
What surrounded seemed empty,
might not be.
Moving like this changed our bodies,
tricked them into strength outside of time and space,
the night becoming an escape from intellect—
consciousness pushed to the surface like sweat,
senses carrying us forth as they would
on scrambled legs.
We were born, this morning, naked
on a mountain, its cliffs conducting
a symphony of orange.
Our first wail was a melody
from lives past, our singing caught by the winds
that curve around this world in currents,
the precious sting of those high
breezes on our bare bodies
8
bliss,
coursing through new veins.

Crude
Ben Harris ’16
Only rainbows she ever sees
are in gasoline
so she prays for a spill
in the morning paper. Please no.
No, not petrichor—petroleum,
because the ugliest thing in the world is
a bird so slick and black it cannot breathe.
She watches the ship way out there
keel over
then she says seems like
seems like the water just all of a sudden decided
it don’t care to carry around any more
dead weight.
He laughs and grabs the camera, starts shooting as
a thousand rotting octopi wash ashore one by one.
When the octopus is faced with a predator it
shoots black ink and swims quickly away.
He films as the bird wades back into the bruising sea
beak bowed before the breaking waves,
the bleeding plume.
Accompanying photo by Michael O’Hara ‘17
9

No wonder they call it the great one
Emma Erwin ’15.5
Foreword by Mara Gans ’15.5:
So often when we talk of mountains, we
get caught in the endless edits, reflections,
and missed details of stories long since
past. This watering down, mixing around
and cleaning up of those tales is certainly
valuable as we incorporate them into the
rest of our lives—but there’s something to
be said for the in-the-moment, unabridged
rush of those same tales. This series of journal
entries by Emma Erwin ’15.5 gives you
the raw play-by-play of her daily life on
Denali. It brings with it the fear, joy, awe
and occasionally poor sentence structure of
someone who’s really writing at 17,000 feet.
June 18
Night hiking is awesome but I’m exhausted.
Hiking for twelve straight hours is
the norm now and the lower icefall was
gnarly. I took a big fall when an ice block
fell out from under me as I was crossing
a crevasse. Definitely shaky after that, but
a snickers bar helped. I’m a little nervous
about going back through the icefall tonight
to get the cache and bring it up.
Hopefully it won’t be too bad, just another
big push. My feet are starting to feel it
and show it—long days in plastic boots
make some pretty raw soles. So exhausted
and glad to be able to get some rest.
Real nervous about the move tonight but
hopefully it’ll be fine. This is hard work
for sure—a marathon like no other.
June 19
So tired again and my feet have disintegrated.
The inside arches, heels, and toes
are all rubbed completely raw. They’re
pretty grumpy. Another big night, but
not too terribly long. Snow/ice conditions
were pretty stellar so it’s much less sketchy
than yesterday. The hill of cracks lives up
to its name: a solid running jump to catapult
your body over is required to get past
atleast a dozen of the crevasses. Not too
bad with solid snow, but I’m guessing it
gets pretty sketchy when the snow softens
up (which usually happens around
7am)—luckily we made it through just
before then. It’s awesome hiking at night
though—better snow, cooler temperatures,
no need to worry about sunburns,
and the sky is in a constant state of sunset/
sunrise. It looks that there’s been a pretty
big forest fire way off in the distance, so it
smells like smoke and the horizon is hazy.
Happy to have made it back to camp in
under twelve hours and I’m so, so glad to
get to sleep.
June 24
Feels like Denali weather now. It was
cloudy at 3 am when we woke up, and
10

now it’s pretty much a whiteout with a
decent amount of snowfall and winds.
Getting back down the ridge to pick up
the cache was actually pretty fun. Going
back up along the ridge was pretty gnarly
though. Plenty of fresh powder renders
crampons useless, if that wasn’t enough,
add in high winds and next to zero visibility—plus
you can’t hear anything.
June 25
Today was quite a day. We ferried a load
up to Browne’s Tower and back—it was by
far the toughest day so far and completely
exhausting. Up by 4 am and out by 6; it
took us a solid 6 hours to get up and we
didn’t make it back to camp until just before
6 pm. A long haul for sure with a lot
of ups, lots of rappels, and all kinds of ridgeline
walking. You have to be completely
focused and on your A-game every single
step. ’Cause if you take a misstep and a big
fall we’re all dead!
The way up was quite a beat down—
luckily we got stellar weather. I definitely
freaked out a bit on the home stretch.
Coming off a big ridge I had to monkey
over a huge crevasse with horrible footing
and no solid ice axe placement. But, like
most things, I just took a big leap and it
was A-Okay. Jackson struggled over that
part and took a pretty big fall. But, everyone
self-arrested and that kept us all from
falling too far.
The altitude is starting to get to everyone
now. Little tougher to breathe up here.
July 1
Welp, yesterday got a little crazy. We left
Browne’s tower fairly early and made it
to the cache in pretty good time. It was
getting pretty windy so we pushed up to
11

the ridge to check out the conditions and
try to scout camping at 18,000 ft. But at
the top winds were so insane we decided
to head back to the cache and hide behind
a big ice boulder to set up and install
high camp at around 17,000 ft instead.
After putting in a few hours of work, we
got the three-man tent up. Conditions
quickly deteriorated and the wind picked
up so much that all seven of us ended up
hunkering in the three-man tent for over
twelve hours straight. That was pretty crazy.
Six big men and I do not fit in a threeman
tent too comfortably. Don’t really
want to do that again. Pretty sure no one
got more than an hour or so of sleep, and
we were all feeling pretty awful. Conor
was starting to exhibit signs of HAPE and
April was pretty hypothermic. The night
was rough and far from pleasant, but we
made it through.
July 3: Summit Day
We made it! The view from on top was
unreal and almost everyone shed some
tears coming around the last ridge. It took
a hell of a long day’s work getting there
and back from high camp. We left around
7 a.m., stood on the summit at 7 p.m.,
and got back to camp well after one a.m.
The way up was rather chilly and windy.
I was pretty exhausted the whole way—
maybe altitude, dehydration, or a lack
of sleep. Who knows, but we didn’t take
many breaks—maybe just three or four
the whole day. Nevertheless, after making
it to Denali pass, up to Archdeacon’s Tower,
through the Football Field and up to
the Summit Ridge, we all stood on top of
the summit. A month of hard work finally
brought five of us original twelve to the
top. It was pretty awesome. Not the clearest
of days, but it felt cool standing on top
of all of the clouds and all of North Amer-
12

ica. As TJ reminded us: “Only because we
have stood on the shoulders of giants can
we see further than most.”
Coming off the summit ridge Jackson
started rapidly exhibiting serious signs of
HACE, so we had to get him down fast.
He pretty much looked like a drunken
toddler and couldn’t function much on
his own, so TJ short-leashed him and basically
pulled him down to the Football
Field behind me. Everyone was pretty
dehydrated and completely exhausted.
Conor started hallucinating on Denali
Pass, but luckily David and TJ kept it together
and we all made it down safely.
July 11
At Wonder Lake campground and it feels
so good. It is surreal being here—finally
done! And a kind of an overwhelming
feeling of safety. No more obstacles to
overcome—no crevasses, icefalls, avalanches,
glaciers, bears, or raging rivers.
Just a bus to catch in the morning.
Today the skies cleared up a bit so we get
an incredible view of the mountain. It
looks absolutely humongous from down
here. Crazy to think that we were standing
on the tiptop just a week ago. We worked
hard for it—and the hard work paid off.
What’s even better is that we all made it
safe and sound back to solid ground. Fingers
and toes, too.
No wonder they call it the great one.
All accompanying photos, Emma Erwin
13

Constants
Cooper Couch ’14.5
I went backpacking for the first time
when I was twenty-three years young,
and it won’t be the last. Never before had
I carried a pack that held all I would need
for a short jaunt away from civilization.
With a group of close friends, I went to
Point Reyes National Seashore in California,
where the crisp, dry heat from the
sun helped warm the winter skin I’d built
up over the last six months in Vermont.
It was refreshing to feel so disconnected
from the over-technologied, overworked
atmosphere we live in at Middlebury, and
away from the resources we so often take
for granted in our homes and workspaces.
After a long first day of hiking, we made
it to camp shortly after sunset and had a
quick dinner before passing out. The next
morning, we woke up early to watch the
sun rise over Alamere falls. Our groggy
dawn march down the mountain path to
the seashore wasn’t the most pleasant, yet
still, it made me feel more connected to
my friends. We were all fighting fatigue
and pushing our tired bodies past our
comfort zones with the goal of sharing
a breathtaking scene together. I felt their
companionship as I trudged along the
seashore in the darkness of early morning,
mist shrouding my already half-open,
sleep-seeded eyes.
We each walked at our own pace, watching
waves crash against the shore as they
were made visible by the rayitos of light
creeping over the cliffs. We reached the
waterfall slightly before the sun. Rushing
water plunged down from the mountains,
diving into the vast ocean behind us - the
same ocean that swallowed the sky in its
hues of deep blue. Such a scene marked
the beginning of a perfect day.
I can’t exactly say why we all kept calling it
“the perfect day.” Maybe it had to do with
the weather, or the serene beauty of the
natural environment surrounding us, or
having shared the experience with people
who care about each other. Maybe it was
the feeling of accomplishment for having
beaten the early-morning urge to stay
asleep. Perhaps it was the cool refreshing
water coupled with the warm sun at the
swimming hole we stopped by on our return.
Or, perhaps it was the ice cream we
devoured afterwords at Fairfax Scoops,
a local favorite. I honestly can’t attribute
that feeling of “a perfect day” to any one
of those moments or even a particular
combination of them. I am much more
inclined to say that it was the fact that we
were all present in each moment. We were
present together at times—cognizant of
each other’s presence while still living in
14

the beauty of the moment. At other times,
we were each individually present, free of
any distraction to separate us from that
inner connectedness between mind, body
and spirit.
There have been very few “constants” in
my life, or at least the typical constants
many college students tend to have. The
issue that feels most constant in my life is
loss; however, I decided recently that I’m
ready to focus on creating some constant
good in my life. As I do that, I look forward
to experiences like these, which have
proven to continually empower me, boost
my self-confidence, connect me with others
on a deeper level and clear my mind
to find that sense of inner peace. For me,
exploring the outdoors with good people
is the most nurturing space for resilience,
and I can’t wait to see what adventures are
coming my way!
Accompanying photo by Cooper Couch
15

Tchotchkes
Hannah Habermann ’18
Much to my parent’s chagrin and the chagrin
of airport security, I am an expert at
packing, lugging, moving, lugging, and
unpacking what would be considered by
many as, to put it bluntly, a lot of shit. Last
fall, one of my friends visited my room for
the first time and said, equal parts stupefied
and amazed, “that’s a ton of tchotchkes.”
Being from the pulsing, diverse
metropolis of Montana, I was decidedly
unfamiliar with this Yiddish term, which
I later came to discover refers to “a small
bauble or miscellaneous item.”
Wikipedia also goes on to say that depending
on context, this term can have
a connotation of “worthlessness or disposability,
as well as tackiness,” but clearly
that context doesn’t apply to the tangled
collision of colorful beads hanging
from my lamp, the rusted piece of metal
I found on a school playground that almost
certainly could give me tetanus, the
flower seed packets that I insisted were
too pretty to be thrown away, the scraps
of cloth and seashells and pinecones and
feathers and rocks and concert tickets and
scribbled notes from friends that pass for
my version of interior decorating.
Amongst this hodgepodge of nouns that
clutters my room, there is a string of prayer
flags draped across my window. Most of
you probably know the ones I’m talking
about, with red and yellow and green and
blue squares that college students hang in
their dorms after taking one class about
Asian religions. Outwardly there is nothing
notable about these flags – they aren’t
handmade, they don’t speak of a lifelong
devotion to Buddhism, nor do they come
from trips to India or hiking expeditions
in the Himalayan mountains that I’ve never
taken. In fact, you can currently order
a ten-pack of prayer flags exactly identical
to these ones on Amazon Prime for $7.97.
But when I was seventeen, I spent forty-two
days paddling on a river through
northern Canada with five other young
women, and every night we would fall
asleep staring at these flags hanging in our
tent, the colors illuminated by the golden
sun that never sets when you’re that
far up north. As we camped somewhere
new each night, they became a symbol
of consistency, of brightness, something
grounding and comforting and familiar.
On my eighteenth birthday my parents
told me they were getting divorced, and
my flags, my dog, and I drove up to the
mountains to start the process of beginning
to grapple with what that means.
16

Since that trip they’ve hung in goat barns
in foggy late October Washington, flitted
in the breeze down California’s Highway
1, and grown sun-bleached in the unforgiving
Utah desert heat. As I moved out
of my childhood bedroom, and into the
room across the hall that my parents used
to share, they stood witness to my small,
brave, determined attempts to start fresh,
to let go. I hung them up as I moved into
my cramped freshman double at Middlebury,
scared after a year of traveling
to commit myself to one place for four
years. A year later, they keep watch over
my sprawl of tchotchkes, objects that hold
stories of me despite their outward knickknacky
appearance. They remind me of
the places I’ve been, the place I am, that
is finally, slowly starting to feel like a good
thing, and the places I have yet to go. They
remind that home is wherever I choose it
to be, and that making a place a home can
be as simple as hanging up your flags and
calling it your own.
Accompaning photo by Hannah Habermann
17

“That’s good coffee,” said Eli Mauksch (’15)
as we drove his Subaru out of Lander, WY
and up towards the Wind River Mountains.
I sipped my own coffee, trying not to
critique the under-extraction too much;
I’d had better. Mostly though, I thought
about the adventure ahead. I’d spent my
entire life growing up in the shadows of
the Cirque of the Towers and had long
ago learned to
sport climb in
their foothills,
but until today,
I’d never had
plans to climb
any of their big
peaks. Sure,
I’d fantasized
about it, but
most of those
dreams were
pushed away
into the ‘todo-when-I’molder-and-wiser’
drawer of my life plan.
Which mostly means I didn’t actually believe
climbing them was possible.
However, when a peppy and confident Eli
showed up at my house with his friend
Austin and a trad rack in tow, I certainly
wasn’t going to turn down an offer to ex-
Calculating Beauty
Mara Gans ’15.5
pand my outdoor playground a little. So,
after some driving, hiking, and a thorough
discussion on who we’d put on our Zombie
apocalypse team and whether we were
cake or pie people, we set up camp at the
base of the cirque. Eli and Austin spent the
remainder of the evening with their heads
towards the rocks and their noses buried
in the climbing guide, scoping out routes
and fantasizing
about being
stronger climbers.
I spent
most of my evening
looking
at flowers and
taking pictures
in silent disbelief
that we were
actually going
to manage to
climb anything.
We packed up
for the next day:
some extra clothes, climbing gear, food,
and a couple headlamps amongst the
three of us. I sort of thought we should
each bring our own headlamp, but mostly
I was still caught up in the flowers.
View of the Cirque from our camp. From right to left, the three
peaks we summited are Pingora, Tiger Tower and Wolf ’s Head.
Our first day was a breeze up the threepitch
5.8 K-cracks variation on the South
18

Buttress of Pingora. Or at least I thought
so; I’d given up any decision-making,
route finding and leading to Eli and Austin,
and so I happily, thoughtlessly followed
along, stoked about the clouds, and
rock crystals, and flowers. I also complained
some about my feet. Apparently
multi-pitch climbing and scrambling aren’t
so great in way-too-small aggressive
sport climbing shoes. Lesson learned. We
summited Pingora and rappelled to the
base of its mini neighbor, Tiger Tower.
Trailing behind Eli and Austin, I scrambled
up barefoot, trying to save my feet
and imagining how not cool my parents
would be with my current combination of
unroped exposure and lack of appropriate
footwear. I guess you have to break their
rules sometime. We rappelled off the other
side of the tower and walked back to
camp.
The next morning we packed up and again
took off towards the granite walls. Confident
after a successful yesterday, we tied
in at a leisurely 10 or 11 am—definitely
stretching the borders of “the alpine start.”
We started a not-so-highly-recommended
grassy ledge approach to the 5.6 classic,
the East Ridge of Wolf ’s Head. Besides
a general lack of protection and layers of
ledges full of exposed, slippery, wet grass,
the grassy ledge approach wasn’t that bad.
Nonetheless, I was thrilled when we finally
made it onto the ramp. Ahead stretched
pitch after pitch of sidewalk-like exposed
ridge, followed by columns of rock towers
waiting to be woven between. I may not
be one to pore over images in guidebooks,
but once on the rocks I knew there was
nowhere I’d rather be—the flowers could
wait.
In many ways climbing is a lot like dancing.
The wall is your partner, and each feature
is a sequence in the flow of the dance.
The best climbers aren’t the strongest individuals,
but rather the ones who can
best match their own movements to the
lead of the rock. Dancing with the East
Ridge is unreal: tiptoeing exposed slabs
Eli scrambles to the East Ridge of Wolf ’s head.
19

over thousand foot drops is broken up by
flawless hand crack traverses—guiding
you boldly over its stunning ridge and intimately
through its many towers. All that
said, however, I’m not really that great a
crack climber, so my dance definitely involved
more bicep strain than grace. But,
I guess that’s what there’s a ‘next time’ for.
Above us, the sun moved across the sky,
and we watched a storm system build up
above Wind River Peak to the south. We’d
lucked out; afternoon storms build up
quick in the summer, but this one missed
us.
More dancing was matched by the continual
saunter of the sun, and we eventually
reached the summit. You never want
to spend too much time on top, but our
seven pm summit time made hanging out
particularly unappealing. Eli’s guidebook
recommended a descent involving a few
raps and a way-longer-than-we-wanted
scramble off another part of the ridge.
Some mountaintop I-spy revealed a different
set of rap anchors just below. The
guidebook didn’t note them, but confidence
in the length of our double ropes
directed us there anyway.
It was a good call. A couple raps later,
hanging off a vertical wall at 12,000 feet
I watched an absurdly phenomenal sunset.
Normally during a sunset you look
up to the horizon. This time I was looking
down. One rap later, it got dark. I suppose
that’s what normally follows phenomenal
sunsets.
Sunset from the Wolf ’s Head rappel
Eli and Austin pulled out their headlamps.
I didn’t have one to pull out. The
next three-ish (60 m long) rappels I made
were in the dark. Well sort of. Stars lit up
the sky, marking a clear division between
rock and heavens. Eli and Austin’s headlamps
danced above and below. Murmurs
of nylon jackets and whispers of ropes
sliding through expensive rap devices
spoke a subtle reminder that, as much
as I call the mountains home, I owe it to
my ‘man-made’ props to even make it out
there. Alpine romance is charming, but
it’s not outright purity.
After an eternity of rappels (Eli was count-
20

ing, I was looking at the stars), my feet
came to support their own body weight. It
was late, and our sleeping bags were still a
mile or more of steep boulder fields away.
Now I wanted my headlamp. I switched
my thoughts out of ‘beauty appreciation
mode’ and into their ‘pay attention now,
or you’ll break an ankle’ setting. Silently
computing our footsteps, we worked our
way down. I hovered between Eli and
Austin’s headlamp beams, reducing my
world and mind down to each step and
the pool of light around it.
Sometime after midnight we made it back
to the valley floor, but not to our tent.
After all the technical climbing, scrambling
and navigating we’d done, locating
our beds proved to be the surprise crux
of the day. Stumbling around, everything
looked the same in the dark: tents and
boulders, trails and streams. For the first
time all weekend I felt my good attitude
start to waver. I insisted our tent was farther
south. I was wrong. Eli suggested
backtracking on the trail we came down.
Still no tent. We stopped to elect another
direction, referencing boulders, tiny
streams, and faded trails. Nothing was
that convincing. I zoned out and looked
up at the sky. My mind’s ‘pay attention’
setting faded as I retraced the silhouette
of the cirque—again, that clear division
between rock and heavens. This time,
however, it was different. The new angle
was a turned page in a coloring book; it
brought the same theme, but with different
outlines. . .
“Wait! I know how we can find our tent!”
I announced. “Which peaks could we
see from camp? We just have to walk until
we find the same view and we’ll find
our tent.” As I stated this, I felt dumb for
not knowing myself what the silhouette
of the cirque had looked like from camp,
but I knew in the hours Eli and Austin
had spent pouring over the guidebook
and mountains, they would know exactly
what we’d been looking at.
Sure enough, they did.
A couple days later, Eli and Austin piled
into the Subaru to depart for their next
adventure. As they drove off, I sat enjoying
a not under-extracted cup of coffee,
contrasting the science and precision that
goes towards brewing it with the brilliance
of its divine taste. It’s not unlike
a good day in the mountains where you
need both a meticulous calculation of the
details and an appreciation of beauty to
make it home.
Accompanying photos by Mara Gans
21

augusta
Hannah Habermann ’18
put yourself in the way of beauty, my mother told me
when I was a gap-toothed seven hiding in the sunflowers,
elbows dirty with the morning’s explorations, hair tangled,
smiling.
now each peak is everest and we are in antarctica,
just us, the sky hills trees, the two-fingered wave to every truck that passes.
have I ever really known
how delicately wind and sun and snow dance together?
a waltz tango box step sped up slow dance
over the road clouds over earth,
a free joyful kind of fleeting
this blurry window screen whipping past moment is a gift,
freeze frame, the frost an elongated leaf of diamonds.
this is the quiet sacred sigh
of your body pressed against mine in the back of your car,
curled into a nest of winter coats and soft scarves and a sled.
and yes too this is the empty still of the moon
with the crooked line of a barbed wire fence
carelessly strewn across its surface.
I want to share this moment with you,
like the little green plant on my crooked sill wants to grow tall.
if you start to come here I must warn you –
you can never go back to small,
the sky too big to be pushed back into the place in your mind that forgets.
anyone can be an artist –just stare at the mountains long enough,
but if I made you stop the car every time I wanted to take a picture
22
we would never get anywhere but here.

Fishing in the last light. Owen’s River Valley, CA. Sofi Hecht ’18.
Cochamo. Chile. Mara Gans ’15.5.
23

On Earth, For Earth
Jenny Moffett ’16
I believe in conversations with ravens.
I believe in keeping mindfully mindless,
a stream of consciousness, and wide set
eyes.
* * *
My breathing riffles, lingering in the shallows.
It darts—arrhythmia. I feel no feelings
and just keep pinching myself, pulling
up more skin, hoping it will pull me
out, but the skin tents. I drink in the water
of the barren, dry lake and dust swirls
inside my lungs. Cementing my alveoli,
I take in more, more. I lay down in the
desert whose edges have blurred. Sierras
press down on me to the east, visions of
deep pools churn in a wide ocean overhead.
I’m drowning. Yet I have drowned
before and the peace was greater. Empty
life moves past my lips through osmosis
and I dissolve. Dust to dust. Breath labors.
Pumping, thick, bloody lungs find it hard
to decipher the identity of the particles.
Oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, just dust?
Are we fluid? Where has the water gone?
It’s flowing East now, I suppose. I’ll stay
here and wait for it to find me.
* * *
Blue-green creek water billows through
the eddies of my consciousness. I watch
caddisflies touch like water skimmers on
the folds of the bleached white, sunsoaked
water. My eyes burn at the sight. In a haze
that comes from eyes too fragile for a
world so bright, my gaze softens back to
the flow of the water. It moves with me. I
lie down like a boulder in its path and let
the current flood my body. I am a fixture
of the waterway. Each torrent, pool, and
riffle is predicted by physics; I simply play
along. My mouth opens just millimeters
above the arc of the water’s pourover on
my chin. I am full. I have enough.
* * *
I wake from a still sleep. I am floating in
a sea of blue whales. Interpreting blue,
opaque objects. They see me and are singing.
I understand their songs but they are
meaningless; they sing of nirvāna. The
greatest calm I’ve ever felt, reaching out
to them. Our eyes lock and hold. The one
on my right, her eye is deep blue and I see
my reflection. I hold on. Submerged in
belonging. I have been a whale, I tell the
lump next to me in bed.
* * *
Tires rolled on black pavement. Spring
babbled from the speakers like mountain
runoff. Warm summer air wrapped me
in place. Suddenly, we heard them. Like
24

a gospel chorus driving a congregation to
its feet, the frogs’ voices compounded on
each other, rising out of shallow pond waters
near the road. I bore witness to a miracle.
In perfect harmony with Vivaldi, the
frogs joined the music, becoming members
of an interspecific orchestra. Instruments
were inherently, instantly inferior
to the music of the world. Inspiration and
art collided and clattered down around
me. Foot hit brake and neither spoke. Every
window and ear opened to be filled.
My eyes closed and a hand held mine.
The bullfrogs, the spring peepers threw
out their voices as dutifully as members
of a choir. Where the song told the story
of three high-pitched notes, the peepers
obliged. Tears swelled and turned tides in
my eyes. Rapt, my foot gripped the brake.
The night dissolved into their concert.
* * *
Today I know grey. Grey jays at lunch.
Grey evening sky. Grey fog on my
thoughts.
Clarity and focus go out from the meditating
mind like spruce needles off a branch.
Their bodies like spokes, like outstretched
arms to a god above. Nature arranges them
in rows, structured and purposeful, their
angles precise. I long to be a drop of rain
off their tips. To stay and observe the path
of life before it erupts. To literally hang
on to the moment. To graze the hand of
a higher power—then only to fall. To pull
into myself, gather all of my light, and reflect
it out. A single drop of light against
the grey sky. Brilliance lasting only for an
instant. Likewise, I am moved by winds,
by the hands of the world around me—a
ball of clay. I sway.
Light stratifies with the mountain horizons
in a monochromatic painter’s palate.
Feathery blue-grey streaks across the sky,
dark-to-light-to-darker. The sky tells stories
in color. It speaks in rhymes and riddles
and paradoxes and when you finally
sit for a still life you find life is not still.
It makes profound statements in rising
clouds. It holds dialogue with the heavens.
Stratus is more mild-tempered than
cumulonimbus. Cirrus does not engage
in such trivial matters, preferring to muse
about the state of life below. They chatter
on as light rains sprinkle damp spots on
my knees.
* * *
Spruce limbs wear delicate opal earrings
of leftover rains. Mist rises off a mountain
stream—the world saturated with moisture,
air thick with water. Spider webs
apparate into view with the turning rays
of the sun. In their centers artists become
hunters. I watch them all. Wood thrush
dances from limb to limb above the forest
floor, then flits out of sight. Stillness
pervades.
25

* * *
Lighting bugs rehearse their choreography
in open fields at night. Sparkling
like scattered glitter, the hills are alive.
Flash. Flash. Flash. Their pulses of light
are breathtaking alone, heart-stopping together.
They put on the only show worth
watching tonight. I think of bottling up
their masterpiece, of holding a dancer in
a jar, but only this stage will do. Inspiring
awe. Let’s close our eyes, close our minds,
and watch them dance.
* * *
Blue sky on blue lake. From the shore the
water looks blue. On it, it is as dark as the
depths of the ocean. Like paddling across
a pool of black tar. A pond in a deep cave
where bodies rise out of the water, met by
a blue fire on an island. My imagination
strike-slips. Crushed ideas brush past one
another and powder my mind with their
sandstone rubble.
arrow-like points. Navy blue backside,
white face, black cheek. Yellow eye. As
she tumbled up into the wind, she exposed
her white, grey-banded underside.
The image formed. Just moments ago,
in my periphery, less than five feet away,
she had dove, snatching a songbird from
the air, before releasing it, startled by my
presence. I stood alone now in a grove
of tamarisks, red ants crawling up my
legs, sand hot on my soles, neck craned,
eyes strained, to watch her fly away over
the terraced red canyon walls. The wind
blew hard and hot against my face, like
someone had opened an oven. My mouth
opened, and I said her name out loud:
Peregrine.
* * *
From the corner of my eye it happened.
A flash of navy, a flash of yellow, a flash of
gone. And I dashed. Images from half-seconds
before registered slower than my feet
hit the sand. She soared higher and higher
above my head. Past a grove of tamarisks,
I met her, six feet above my head,
as she soared away. Larger than a raven,
smaller than an eagle. Outstretched wings
curved like a boomerang narrowed into
26

In Search of Paradise
Meena Fernald ’16
At the base of Mad River Glen, it is -15 degrees
without wind-chill. In the warmth of
the basebox lodge, patrollers insist “we’re
lucky there’s no wind today.” Good god it is
cold. No wind today my ass.
I am suspended mid-air in a chair made
for one, rocking back and forth as I slowly
ascend to the summit, where fresh powder
and rugged terrain await me with
frosty, open arms. A GoPro awkwardly secured
to my helmet catches the wind as it
soaks in the breathtaking views, compensation
for the frigid conditions. Bursts of
blinding sunlight behind snow-encrusted
pines, white-topped ridgelines for miles in
every direction, and deep powder stashes
combine to create the perfect winter
wonderland vista. After weeks of freezing
rains followed by warm, 40 degree January
days, winter is finally here
and the Single Chair lift at Mad
River Glen is open at last.
Downhill skiing seems like a
rather mundane adventure for
a 20-year-old like myself, whose
fate as a skier was decided before
I could walk, when my dad
took me speeding down mountains
in a backpack, much to the
distress of the other parents on
the slopes. However, rumors of Mad River
Glen, hidden in the peaks of the Green
Mountains and home to legendary glades
and unbelievable snow, have traveled with
me throughout my skiing career. “We’ll
take you there when you’re older. When
you’re ready,” was my father’s constant refrain.
His depiction of the iconic single
chair to the summit—so cold that they
once provided wool blankets to keep skiers
company—contributed to the enthralling
shroud of mystery that surrounded Mad
River in my youthful eyes. What’s more,
at the top of this solitary journey, Paradise
lies hidden. This trail, deemed by experienced
skiers as “an actual black diamond
in the east,” remained elusive to our father-daughter
team in the winter of 2013.
So, now, in the winter of 2014, following
a newly discovered instinct to push my
The Mad River Single Chair, by Mara Gans
27

limits, I turn to face the mountain and the
trail that has, for so long, loomed on my
horizon.
Past the mid-station, the sunshine becomes
a little more consistent, and like
a morning glory, I instinctually turn my
face to bask in the warm rays. Below me,
the run Chute promises to be my first real
test as I embark on my adventure. A logically
crafted strategy for descent replaces
what once would have been mind-numbing
fear and confusion at the winding,
rock-strewn, mogul-ridden trail through
the trees. At one point not too long ago,
I would have looked down at Chute from
the lift and thought: No way in hell. I am
not jumping off that rock. It’s too patchy,
too steep, and too public. Instead, I find
myself picking out potential routes, thinking
strategically and excitedly about my
impending descent. Several minutes later,
my plans become a reality as I plant and
turn around moguls, rocks, towers, and
ice. I reach a rock wall, only a two-foot
drop, and finally my nerves start to kick
in. Eyes scan the precipice, straining to
find a point to launch. I breathe easy. Skier’s
left, a layer of powder cushions both
the rock face and the landing.
Bend knees. Deep breath. Go.
* * *
Back at the bottom, my blood is pumping
a little faster now, and the lift ride is not
nearly as frigid as before. Channeling my
inner owl, I twist my neck to take in the
snowcapped mountains and valleys and
lose my breath again. It’s not like the view
is new; I’ve been living here for over a
year. Yet, I can’t help but be overwhelmed
by the sheer beauty of the three mountain
ranges that surround my home in Vermont.
In the middle of the Green Mountains,
I look west to the Adirondacks of
New York and East to the Whites of New
Hampshire. Again, I marvel at my luck.
Ski tips up. Poles in right hand. Go. Disembarking
from the single chair, I immediately
look up to the right, where I know
the trailhead to Paradise lies hidden. A
wooden sign reads “Paradise Closed Today.”
The temptation to ignore this warning
and embark on my adventure is overwhelming.
Paradise is a supposed rite of passage
for Mad River skiers. It was originally
declared too dangerous to be an official
trail, but thrill-seekers and daredevils
continued to trek through the woods to
leap over the waterfall and down its steep
turns. Thus, in 1984, Manager Bob Cooke
decided to put “Paradise” back on the
map, making it the steepest official trail in
New England. Such a reputation is daunting,
and dissuades me from my original
plan to disregard the sign and venture out
28

to Paradise today.
Next time. Next time. Don’t be an idiot,
Fernald. You don’t want to lose the rest of
your season. You’ll get there eventually.
I head to Fall Line, Paradise’s steep companion,
instead. Cutting under the lift, I
shoot across Chute and into a small path
through the white evergreens and deep
powder-stashes and emerge on Fall Line.
Narrow, winding, steep and mogully, my
knees, quads, and ankles are pushed past
their breaking points, and yet I speed
downward, sweating and exhausted to the
base.
* * *
Back in line, I’m suddenly alone. On this
sunny, -15 degree Thursday, the mountain
is occupied by myself, a small handful of
other skiers, and the members of the Mad
River Glen ski patrol. I think to myself:
This is it. This is your deadline. Today is
the day you ski Paradise.
Only one problem: I’m alone. And Paradise
is closed. Nearly every other trail on
the mountain is readily accessible, and yet
the one trail I need, I can’t get to. Just hike
up, ignore the sign and ski it.
The line for the single chair is shortening,
and as I obey the red “WAIT” sign covered
in a light dusting of snow, I remain
conflicted. “Paradise is one of those trails
you want good conditions on. If it’s not
open, it’s for a reason,” says ski patrol officer
after officer. Neck strained to see the
incoming chair, I release my knees and
enjoy the steady ride to the summit. Every
ride up, I get less cold, and I feel lonely
only when the wind picks up. I wonder
how much good those wool blankets used
to do?
The consistent snowfall, a blessing on the
trails but a curse on the lift, finds its way
into my goggles, through my face-mask
and freezes the back of my neck. Shoulders
hunched, eyes down, I think: If I fall
and hurt myself and I’m alone… and the
trail is closed… ski patrol won’t happen
upon me and neither will any other skiers.
I am a strong and independent individual.
Get over this, Fernald. I am not only
by myself on the lift, but also on this adventure.
I experience solitude unlike any
other.
Arriving at last at the top, I look to my
right at that fateful sign “Paradise Closed
Today,” my stomach drops and I turn my
back. I may not have conquered Paradise
yet, but I will return soon. Its gates have
been opened and I have an adventure to
finish. Next time I come I’ll bring backup,
because Paradise alone is no paradise at
all.
29

Leigh Lake Alpenglow. WY. Morgan McGlashon ’17.5.
Sometimes the best adventures aren’t the crazy summits and extreme hikes. Sometimes
they’re the days where you pack the truck, grab some fruit, and drive to a place that fills your
soul. Santa Fe, Ecuador. Anahí Naranjo ’17.
30

Algonquin: Power, Peace, and Metempsychosis
Kent Ratliff ’16
I step out of the van onto the hard packed
snow of the Adirondak Loj parking lot.
The wind sweeps flurries of white, dancing
from snow banks, and bullies clouds
to the horizon, drenching us in warm
sunlight and crisp blue air. Parker Peltzer
’17 and I prepare to lead a training trip for
students pursuing a winter guideship for
the Middlebury Mountain Club. Around
me are participants strapping on snowshoes
and hoisting their packs, excited for
the chance to be in nature. Their stressful
lives, now left somewhere on College
Street could no longer be called that.
I watch as a sentinel, the energetic guidesin-training
eager to prove that they are
prepared for full “guideship.” “Trip to
Marcy Dam, let’s gather over here!” “Does
everyone’s pack feel comfortable? Here.
Here’s how it should fit.” “Oh, you have
your snowshoes on backwards.” “Everybody’s
got two full water bottles?” As I
look around, I realize that I’ve personally
trained every one of these guidesin-training.
It was a strange thought,
simultaneously bringing forth the emotional
realization that I am past the halfway
point of my college career and filling
me with a sense of wonder that I was, in
that moment, significant. It is interesting,
how our perceived relationships with the
outdoors can so differ from the bonds and
experiences we truly cultivate.
With all packs on backs, all feet in snowshoes,
and all spirits high, we embark on
the trail. As a training trip, my role is part
participant, part teacher, and part mentor.
We had spent a little over two hours a
week for the past three weeks going over
skills of leadership and familiarizing everyone
with equipment in a classroom
setting. Now, I must provide the example
of proper outdoor etiquette for these aspiring
guides to witness, allow them opportunities
to prove and polish their own
leadership skills, and take any teachable
moment to give constructive curriculum.
Amidst the teachable moments, Parker
and I have two concrete scenarios
planned: the “Lost Person Drill” and a
medical emergency. Parker and I had talked
through the situation earlier: I was to
be a patient with a broken ankle, an allergy
to ibuprofen, and severe internal bleeding
due to blunt abdominal trauma. All day,
I will hike with painted bruising around
my ankle and lower abdomen, carrying a
bottle of fake blood in my pocket should
I want to make it interesting. Parker and
I agreed that I would fall injured whenever
it seemed logical. We want to make the
situation as believable as possible.
31

old any time soon.
We stop at our campsite on the way to
Algonquin Peak, a small snow-covered
clearing just off the trail, to eat and drop
superfluous gear. Doing so, I catch Parker’s
eye and hurry away with the excuse of
a full bladder.
Photo by Kent Ratliff
The metal lining the bottom of our snowshoes
crunches against solid snow as we
make our way towards Algonquin Peak.
Conversations lull to an appreciative silence
for the sounds of snowfall and the
odd bird call. The wind flows through
snow-muted needles of evergreen and
the leafless branches of maple and birch.
There’s something so sublime about the
sound of winter in the woods. The tracks
of the snowshoe hare cross the trail and
dart off behind a boulder. Fresh, crispcold
air fills my lungs, carrying with it the
metallic taste of cold and physically ridding
me of the past, rooting me to my surroundings.
This is why I go into nature.
When training guides, I get much less of
this sense of rejuvenation, though it is satisfying
in a different way. I risk approaching
nature more as a job than a passion,
but it’s a job I love, and I can’t see it getting
In a snowy winter, it’s difficult to get “lost.”
Anywhere you go, you leave a two-foot
deep trail, easily traceable. I walk on the
path, hiding my prints among many others
before embarking into the thigh-high
wilderness. I climb over boulders and
to the top of a small cliff—finally finding
my stage: a hole in the snow, just big
enough to snag a snowshoe. I lower the
bruise-painted ankle into the hole, surprised
at just how deep it was. With my
entire leg and lower torso in the hole, I
finally find the bottom, a tangle of roots
perfect for snaring my snowshoe and
getting properly stuck. In my head, I go
through my mechanism of injury, deciding
exactly how I have gotten injured. I
had stepped above the hole, slipped and
fell, bashing my abdomen on the sharp
rock and coming down on my ankle at a
sharp angle.
The scene is black and white, lacking color.
I smear the tube of blood on my forehead,
allowing it to drip down my face.
Head wounds bleed more than you’d ex-
32

pect, even from a small cut. A small cut!
This wasn’t believable if there was blood
and no cut. I grab a sharp stick and scour
a line just above my bloodstained face,
not deep enough to actually bleed, but
deep enough to make them question. I
embed the stick in the snow in front of
me as evidence. With the stage set, I have
only to wait.
Within five minutes, I hear my name
shouted in unison from our little clearing.
For this first call, I give no response.
I count the silence. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1…
“KENT!!” This time I give a feeble call.
If they can’t hear me, they are to remain
in place calling my name for a full ten
minutes before moving to part two of the
missing person drill. Ten seconds pass.
“KENT!!!”
“Here”
10 seconds
“KENT!!!”
“Over here!”
They hear this call and move towards me.
From the crunching of their snowshoes, I
can tell they move on a snowpacked trail,
not straight towards me through the brush
as I had hoped. “Here’s some tracks!” Too
easy; Damn those tracks. At least they
had performed the first part of the drill
well. They struggle through the obstacle
course of boulders, fallen trees, and
snow-hidden holes, arriving with good
communication, guiding one another
over the obstacles. A first head pokes into
my field of vision, and her eyes go straight
towards my bloodied head. Then, a team
of two comes to assess, picking their way
up the steep ledge to my position. “Are
you alright?”
“I don’t know” I manage, fear in my voice.
I must be quite the sight. Having no mirror
I have no concept of just how much
blood was on my face. My right leg is
buried up to my hip, and my left splayed
across the snow, with the angle between
painfully obtuse.
“Is anything hurt?”
“My ankle’s killing me.” The words wince
through gritted teeth. Their primary concern
is my bloodied façade, as it should
be. The possibility for serious head injury
is present, so movement has to be limited
until they can rule out further spinal
damage. Through several quick questions
about mechanism and pain quality, they
diagnose that it is only a surface-level
wound. Each of the two reaches under
an arm, ready to hoist me out of my selflaid
trap. “AHHH!” The snowshoe pulls at
my wounded ankle and my outcry causes
them to pause their hoisting. I have given
33

them a lose-lose situation. They obviously
cannot leave me in the hole, but my removal
would hurt my ankle further. Carefully,
positions are reassumed and steadily
I creep inch-by-inch out of the hole. By
this point, I am entering acute hypothermia
from lying directly in snow for nearly
20 minutes, and they quickly move me
onto an insulated pad.
“So your ankle hurts, let’s take a look.” The
distraction had worked, they miss my abdominal
wound, and without following
the proper protocol my internal bleeding
would go unnoticed. They take vitals, but
are treating it like a basic scenario to practice
splints, disregarding the possibility of
more serious afflictions. My hypothermia
is dealt with expertly. I lay wrapped in a
-30 sleeping bag, insulated from the snow
with a thick foam pad, and protected from
the elements with the outer tarp casing of
my insulated cocoon. They begin work on
my ankle, pried out from the other end
of my swaddling, and I begin to mentally
and physically deteriorate. With my
breathing hidden by the layers, I hyperventilate.
Rapid, shallow panting tricks
the brain into emergency mode. My pulse
skyrockets, and some pigment drains
from my face. Emerging from my preparations
I gaze at some point well beyond
my attendees, wincing with every jostle of
my ankle. “How does this feel” they ask
with nurse-like care as they tighten the
bindings on the make shift splint. Silence.
“Kent?”
“Huh? What?”
“Does this feel alright?”
“I…”
“Something’s wrong.”
Photo by Ryan McElroy
“…n..no, that, that doesn’t… hurt”
I begin to go into shock from blood loss.
Recognizing my worsening condition,
they place a call to 911 through Parker to
34

equest an evac crew. During shock, the
body pulls blood to the core vital organs,
leaving the rest of the body at risk. It’s the
last-ditch effort in prolonging life. They
take vitals again. “Pulse is higher, breathing
rapid.” I am passed three water bottles
filled with hot water to place in my groin
and armpits, areas with high bloodflow,
to help warm my hypothermic body. I’ve
been under care for two-and-a-half hours
at this point, and they still haven’t found
the main injury. I decide to help them out,
give them at least some reason to suspect
a stomach or abdominal wound—plus, I
was having fun with the fake blood. I dip
my head into the sleeping bag and fill my
mouth from the tube. The acrid, sickly
sweet blood fills my mouth, but I let it sit
until I am forced to talk. “Are you feeling
warmer?” I look up in glazed comprehension,
teeter back and forth, and heave
blood onto the pure white snow beside
me, now looking like a strawberry snowcone.
That did the trick. They peel back my
layers and do a pain quality check on my
abdomen. I can see the realization of this
missed step in their eyes, in the sagging
shoulders and furled brows, in an awkward
half-smile. They have learned something.
left beyond the trailhead. After acting
out such an extreme situation for nearly
four hours, it takes time to regain composure.
With participants debriefed, lessons
learned, and myself composed, we
pack away our little scenario, making our
careful way back to the trail. The day was
gone, and the peak would remain pristine,
unconquered and infallible, until
next time.
The next day we break camp and retrace
our way to the van. We hurry, rushing
to make it back by the appointed time.
We climb a hill within one mile of the
trailhead and one participant stops in
his tracks, gaze shooting upwards as he
exclaims, “Wow…look at those trees!” I
break my pace, pausing to gaze up, aware
that every stop delays us. But these trees,
what majestic trees. They soar skyward,
in that moment dwarfing any mechanical
achievement of man. Deep red bark
and bright green needles flash against the
white scene of snow and sky. I have led
six trips on this wild trail, but not once
have I paused for these ancient sentinels.
I was lost among their branches, and I
may never be found.
I regain composure, slowly, my symptoms
slipping away like the school stress
35

the desert
Mara Gans ’15.5
Speed-up, keep-up, grow-up quick
play the game, you know the one
caught in the commercial hum.
Get-up, move-up, speak-up quick
work the game, it’s all a race
stumble with its manic pace.
Jobs, people, phones, stress.
Beep, beep, beep, beep.
(Pause, breathe).
Art by Mara Gans
The desert is not like that.
The desert breathes,
in and out,
slowly,
a landscape in meditation, tranquil and intentional—but certainly not dead.
Wind and water carry the rhythm of heartbeats, the intonation of respirations.
Together, they sculpt: canyons, arches, towers, and the unnamed features,
those free of entrapment by language.
Notice these wrinkles and dimples. Footprints in the desert’s hearty face,
they tell tales of ancient laughter and share worn records of prior battles. They breathe:
in and out,
slow down a moment, let cease your hasty gainful pace, and perhaps, you will hear
its whisper.
36

Faces of the Ice
Ryan McElroy ’16.5
– Zach –
“ICE!” Zach’s voice echoes through the
falling snow, louder than the wind whipping
through the surrounding spruce and
the trucks passing by on route 73 far below.
It cuts across the frozen Chapel Pond,
which I had crossed less than an hour ago.
I hear it, but nothing registers in my brain.
My gaze is ever upwards, neck craning to
spot the orange blob that marked the other
end of my rope. Just barely making out
the moving speck of a man, my eyes shift
focus to the dancing shapes falling from
the sky. Like pieces of glass, these shards
spin and flip, clatter and sing, bounce
down, down, down… Oh shit. That’s what
he meant—I suddenly drop my head and
curl inwards after being struck by a flying
slab. No way I’m forgetting that one! Now
I know: ice is the name of the game. This
season’s first day of climbing was off to a
slippery start.
* * *
I met Zach (’14.5) early my freshman year
at a Geology Department pizza lunch. His
large shoulders and burly frame were softened
by his calm voice and dimpled smile.
We soon became friends, and I learned he
was one of the most patient teachers I’ve
ever had. He could have been in his thirties,
speaking so eloquently, knowing so
much, and climbing so well. Yet, he was
only a year older than me. The story he
told me on the way to the ice, the one
about fishing for crawdads, keeping them
in his apartment sink, and coming home
to find one on the carpet, pincers raised,
looking up at him, reminds me he’s not all
grown up. He’s still a kid just like me.
Or maybe not. I feel like a modified kid.
Like a kid who lost his essential fearlessness.
Now, taking the first step is the
hardest. Putting off an assignment, postponing
a phone call, or stumbling to let
37

someone know how you truly feel about
them – it’s always so damn scary. Zach
continues ascending, now beyond my line
of sight. And then there are those other
fears. Smashing in my teeth. Eyeballs.
Wolves. Abandonment. Addiction. Living
an incomplete life. The list lengthens at a
frightening pace while I stand belaying
Zach at Crystal Ice Tower. He’s gotta be
there soon. The anxiety is closer to freezing
me than the single digit temperatures.
I wait and wait.
“Ryan, off belay!” That’s my signal. He’s
made it up. It’s all me now. If I can just
manage to breathe…here it goes.
My mind is blank. I reach. Swing. Swing.
Step. I’m up. Steel robo-talons pierce the
ice and miraculously hold me. Swing
right. Check the feet. Packs look like dots
below. Kick. Test weight. Breathe. Swing
left. Shattered ice. Swing again. Dinner
plates. Swing and…perfect. Hero Ice. You
can’t plan for it, but when you sink it,
there is nothing better—an ice climber’s
nirvana.
the drive home from a full day in the Adirondacks.
“You gotta have your systems,
man. At least two sandwiches. Make ‘em
before breakfast. Three gloves. Each with
a purpose. Oh yeah, and you can’t leave
your boots in the trunk – there’s no heat
back there!” I certainly made mistakes,
and my lack of systems was laughable, yet
I had managed to keep my feet nice and
toasty. I brought my boots with me in the
front seat. At least I had that going for me.
– Scott –
Scott’s a make-your-own-adventure
kind of guy who skillfully avoids getting
stuck in routine. His decades of climb-
* * *
Our day out ended just as it began: dark
skies, temperatures just pushing double
digits, and turkey sandwiches on my
mind. But my body ached more than it
did at 6:25 am. That’s for darn sure. “Classic
rookie mistakes,” Zach explained on
38

ing, mountaineering, and traveling take a
backseat to his current pastimes: sunrise
hiking Mt. Abe, sledding down Lincoln
Gap, or ski touring a chunk of the Catamount
Trail. The list goes on, but rarely
will he bring this up unless you ask. And
it’s even more unlikely that you’ll get the
details on his past escapades. A climber’s
modesty, filtering both thoughts and
words. Any lessons or snippets of insight
are prefaced by, “I hate to sound like I’m
lecturing here” or end with a “take that
and do what you will.”
* * *
Listening is one of Scott’s greatest gifts.
When we first met, I was taken aback by
how much I opened up—and how comfortable
I felt doing so. Early sophomore
year I struggled with direction and with
finding a place to be comfortable here at
school. The year before was real rough
and lonely. I was searching for something
to fix me. I tried studying harder, running
further, crying louder, and sleeping longer.
What I really needed was someone to
hear my story. Finding Scott was a huge
turning point. I dumped out the jumbled
mess of thoughts I’d been carrying around
with me since walking from Georgia to
Maine just over a year before. Thru-hiking
the Appalachian Trail was unbelievably
satisfying. The hardest part was stopping.
Scott got this. He honored my pain
of the ‘in between’ and deeply understood
the complexity of life off-trail.
* * *
“There’s old climbers and there’s bold
climbers. But there’s no old bold climbers.”
Scott smiles, eyes twinkling. He tries
not to take full credit for any of his wisdom,
attributing this phrase to his good
friend, David Stone.
“I don’t know why going up has such a
draw… it’s a total exhilaration, but I don’t
know how to put it in words.” That’s it.
You can only feel the movement and the
rhythm. Beyond that, it’s just silly. The ice
raining down on you, fingers frozen, and
wind whipping past your face—we laugh
at all of it. “I could just throw rocks at you
all day if you want,” Scott jokes. It might
just do the trick. Pausing a bit longer, he
echoes what Zach has mentioned. There’s
an “addiction to that ‘thunk’ when you
first set a tool and it goes right in…it’s almost
like bliss.” He holds out the ‘s’ as he
sits back, eyes closed. I picture the ‘hero
ice’ he’s dreaming of. “How do I get that
back?” he asks longingly, more to himself
than to me.
* * *
As with other climbers, there’s a tension
in Scott between striving for more and restraining
this drive. Modesty usually wins
out at the surface, but today I see deeper.
Scott appears to be wrestling with finding
39

peace in his life, whether or not climbing
is a part of it. “I don’t climb much, sadly,”
he tells me. “It’s not that I’ve ruled it out…”
but just that there are other things keeping
him busy. And fulfilled. He appreciates a
good cup of tea and loves conversation
with his family. But he’s the same guy who
gets upset when a good streak of getting
outside is interrupted by poor weather or
personal commitments.
Reflecting on my conversation with Scott,
I find that I too struggle with finding a
sense of balance. The outdoor pursuits can
start to dominate and run my life without
allowing me to breathe. But then the
plodding through a semester crammed
full of class and scheduling with no time
for climbing brings me way down, too. I
have been plotting my next long hike for
years now, but I still doubt it will do what
I need it to. Do I spend too much time in
the future, sifting through all the self-created
possibilities? And the reminiscing
on the past? It’s so hard to stay engaged.
So difficult to focus. Maybe that’s why we
climb – to center ourselves.
– Doucet –
It’s now Thursday night, and I scroll
through the backlog of email. It never
stops. Perpetual sounds, images, messages.
Buy our jacket, sign up here, this
weekend at Midd! I don’t care. I hate the
clutter in my life.
Midway down the screen I find an orange
dot flagging a note from Derek Doucet.
“Ice Is Nice!” reads the subject line. “Hey
there, looking forward to seeing you at
8:30 tomorrow morning.” How could that
have slipped my mind? I scramble to pack
up and leave a yellow sticky with a list of
things not to forget in the morning. Thermos.
Lunch. Sunglasses. Wallet. Maybe
I’ll actually get some sleep tonight.
In my dreams, ice shards ominously rain
down. It does not stop.
* * *
Most adults Doucet’s age avoid risk. They
are far more likely to stop at Cookie Love
for a creemee or the Teddy Bear Factory
for a bit of amusement along Route 7.
Why then does he cruise past these spots
in search of icy walls? For Doucet, being
out in the extremes—the cold, wet,
and wind—is “perversely amusing.” He
laughs. It’s appealing to some. To us. “Operating
within an acceptable level of risk,
never recklessness, is a fascinating thing.”
He chuckles again, well aware that what
he says does not ring true with most.
I am so curious about what it is exactly
that keeps him going back. He struggles
to find the right words. “Immediacy and
focus, maybe.” We so rarely are present
in our lives. “I think it’s the necessity of
40

eing right here, right now.” We all feel
the distractions. Preventing them from
consuming us is so difficult. Doucet describes
the power of a climb to “strip away
the noise.” I get goosebumps when I recall
Scott’s words matching Doucet’s almost
exactly. And I feel the same way. It’s nice
to know none of us is alone.
When I ask Doucet if he can achieve the
same level of focus in any other part of his
life, his answer is a pained “no.” “I wish I
could say yes, otherwise the whole thing
smacks of addiction.” After some thought,
he mentions that really long days of trail
running with a “healthy element of suffering”
can bring him a similar feeling but
that it truly is a unique headspace when
climbing. Where in my life can I achieve
this? Must it be inherently dangerous to
bring clarity?
* * *
Complete honesty. Doucet values this in
climbing of all surfaces. You must assess
every flake of rock, each piece of gear, all
knots and hitches, the individual muscles
contracting and relaxing to get you up the
pitch. If you can’t be truthful when evaluating
the risks, it’s bound to catch up
with you. Climbing requires an honesty
I wish to emulate in my living. Scott and
Doucet, both older climbers, let this value
speak in their lives. Clearly, with practice,
it begins to permeate all aspects of life off
the wall. For Doucet, one reward is feeling
more engaged at work and at home with
his family. But, it still is painful to realize
that every time you go out, you put yourself
at risk.
“You know, I have thought about quitting
altogether.”
I swallow, not knowing how to respond.
Surprised Doucet has told me this much,
I need a second to take it all in.
“Wouldn’t that be hard?” I ask. Of course
it would be! What kind of question is that?
Climbing “consumes your life,” Doucet
explained earlier. “I don’t have any close
41

friends who aren’t climbing, guiding, or
thinking about their next trip.” There’s
no escape. The odds are stacked against a
cold-turkey halt.
* * *
Focus. Wake up. The day of cold, old, vertical
ice pushes me to place feet more deliberately.
Brittle ice shatters, even as I am
careful to stack tools vertically as Zach
taught me, rather than the vertical matching
I still revert to. C’mon, Ryan. Smooth,
triangle, breathe. He’s watching. Why did
you have to hike seven miles yesterday – before
9 am? Sunrise, was it worth it? And the
seven o’clock ski at Rikert on Wednesday?
In -50 degree weather? You’re wiped. You
can’t do this. Just give up, man. My left foot
scrapes out the thin ice. I look down to
watch it delaminate from the rock below,
not registering what’s happening. I’m suddenly
thrown off balance. My right hand
slips. Harness jerks up into my crotch.
The voices stop as I immediately let out:
“Damnit.”
I have broken the number one rule in
ice climbing—don’t fall. Zach, Scott, and
Doucet had all emphasized this early on
in our discussions. Unlike climbing rock,
especially bolted sport routes where falls
are part of game, ascending ice brings
with it unimaginable risk with one misstep
or tenuous swing. Snapped ankles are
the most common injury, and it doesn’t
take much. Falling even just a couple feet
on an ice route generates enough force to
instantly shear through leg bones if crampon
points stick the ice. And you better
hope they’ll stick if you want to climb
with the orange talons.
Different from rock crag climbing, ice
should not be about testing physical limits.
“Often it’s a mental and emotional issue
on the ice.” I think I’m starting to understand
this. “A huge part of the game is
keeping it together.”
My climbing today is far from perfect. I
blame myself and the crappy conditions.
But I must let go of this negativity and
keep it together. I think back to Doucet’s
story in his Suburu. He talked about how
when things get “funky, goofy, or hairy”
in the mountains he laughs it off. “I got
myself into this mess,” said Doucet, “I better
get out smiling.” He relies on humor
to keep him going, and now I choose to
follow his lead and laugh it off.
* * *
“Nice, man. Get those hips up. Sweet
stance. Maybe stem your right leg?” Who
said that? Belaying Doucet at the end of
the day, I catch myself coaching. He certainly
doesn’t need it. But maybe this is
why he has offered to me out today. I do
enjoy helping people. And I am probably
more encouraging, approachable, and
42

trustworthy than I give myself credit for.
Maybe he wanted to share that, to help me
see myself in a better light. Perhaps we all
transition from student to teacher. And
there is much learned beyond the hardskills
I feel obliged to pass on. How great
it must feel to inspire wonder, provide a
sense of accomplishment, and stand as
one honest person willing to help another
along, up, and away.
bother trying? Are they worthy role models?
As long as I continue to meet these
people and seek answers to these questions,
it’s likely my story will read similar
to those of the men I’ve met. But nothing
is written in stone. I proceed with caution
as on ice, aware that my words may melt,
freeze, flow, or shatter at any moment.
Accompanying photos by Ryan McElroy
– Ryan –
I feel fortunate to have been so warmly
welcomed into this community of ice
climbers. Reflecting on my time with
each, I catch glimpses of an unwritten
future. Might my senior thesis involve
work with ice flows? Will I take Zach’s
job as head monitor at the wall? Might I
lead mountaineering trips out west and
be able to laugh off the dark times? What
would a family change? Is there hope of
being as calm and content as Scott? And
might I someday question all of it? Like
Doucet, might I ask if it is all worth it? Is
this my future?
Possibly. Possibly not. I will forever be in
awe of the extreme. Rigid peaks, ancient
rock, gnarled trees, and violent storms –
they captivate me. But the people testing
themselves out there are even more interesting.
Their pushing of physical, mental,
and emotional limits fascinates me. Why
do they do it? What is the point? Should I
43

Teton Dreams
Morgan McGlashon ’17.5
I’m sitting in Pearl Street Bagels in Jackson
Wyoming, and it is pouring rain outside.
The forecast for the rest of the week is
thunderstorms and more rain. I sigh with
the realization that winter in the Tetons
may finally be coming to a close. The lifts
at the ski area stopped spinning nearly a
month ago and kids are running around
town in board shorts and flip flops, but
if you are as desperate to hang onto winter
as I am, it’s hard to ignore the 70-plus
inches of snow that have fallen since the
beginning of April.
A mere 24 hours beforehand, I was standing
at the top of Teewinot Mountain
(12,330 feet) for the first time; the edges
of my skis clinging to the mountainside
as we began to make our way off the summit.
My partners and I struck out on the
first attempt due to some route finding
and incoming weather earlier in the week,
so we went back for round two.
Confident in our route this time, we
cruised up the first 2,500 vertical feet by
8 am. At this point I put my ski boots on
and started skinning around 9,000 feet,
while my partners Caleb and Andrew
decided to see how far they could get in
shoes—10,000 feet before they started
post-hole-ing and gave up on the trail
runners.
44

The sun was hanging high in the sky by
9:15 and it was heating up rapidly by
the time we started boot packing up the
East Face. We may have turned around if
there hadn’t already been a boot pack put
in by three climbers ahead of us. There
were two guys down-climbing that had
decided they didn’t like the snow conditions,
which was a little concerning, but
they also didn’t have skis, so their descent
would be much slower than ours. We
decided to keep moving at least over the
crux and see how far we could get.
Just as we made our way up through
the narrow crux, a mere 500-ft from the
summit, a rope came barreling down the
narrow couliour and nearly took Caleb
off the side of the mountain. A little confused,
we grabbed the rope and continued
climbing. Shortly after making our way
over the crux, we ran into the party of
three who were making their way down.
Thankful that we had saved their rope,
they told us they would leave a few beers
at the car, gave us a nod of good luck, and
continued down to rope up through the
crux.
We were only 400 vertical feet from the
summit, but navigating slick snow, rocks,
and melting pockets at 12,000 felt like it
took an eternity. Yet, no matter how hard
it is to make the final push to the summit,
the last 15 steps on the edge feel effortless.
There is nothing quite like peering down
6,000-ft between your feet on a knife
ridge, in ski boots and crampons, gripping
your toes for dear life.
The top of Teewinot is breathtaking. The
north side drops off with a few thousand
feet of exposure; there is a stunning view
of the north side of the Grand, and Owen
sits high and mighty just to the west.
After enjoying the summit hangout and
snapping a few quick photos, we de-cramponed,
clicked into our skis and began to
make our way back down the east face.
There were two tricky spots that we could
have down-climbed, but for the sake of
racing the sun and saving time, we skied
through both cruxes. The snow was hot
and heavy as we descended, but we kept
moving and made it back to the snowline.
Reaching the point where we have to
take our skis off and begin the bushwack
back to the car is always a bummer, but
there is a sense of relief that comes over
me, knowing that the scariest parts are
over (usually). After cruising through the
sagebrush, we laughed and high-fived as
we hit the dirt road, excited and relieved
that we had a successful day and a new ski
descent under our belts.
Accompanying photo by Morgan McGlashon
45

Editorial Board
Mara Gans
Ben Harris
Sofi Hecht
Evan Gallagher
Special Thanks To
Scott Barnicle
Anahí Naranjo
Morgan McGlashon
Questions? Submissions? Email fireside@middlebury.edu
go.middlebury.edu/fireside