Ryan - Following Atticus: forty-eight high peaks, one little dog, and an extraordinary friendship

Following Atticus

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

Tom Ryan

For R.R.always in my heart

Theres no sense in going furtherits the edge of cultivation,

So they said, and I believed it...

Till a voice, as bad as Conscience, rang interminable changes

On one everlasting Whisper day and night repeatedso:

Something hidden. Go and find it. Go and look behind the Ranges

Something lost behind the Ranges. Lost and waiting for you. Go!

RUDYARD KIPLING, THE EXPLORER

We must be willing to get rid of the life weve planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL

Contents

Innocence Lost, Innocence Found

A Door Opens

Carry Him Everywhere You Go

Big Changes

A Gift

People Die Up There in the Winter

For the Kids

The Greatest Quest

The Little Giant

Stars to Light the Way

The M. Is Important

Our Faith Comes in Moments...

Atticus in Disguise

The Spell of Agiocochook

Five Astounding Days

Thank You, Friend

Light over Dark

A Heartrending Turn of Events

Im Not Leaving Him Alone

The Friends of Atticus

Soul Work

Bread Crumbs

Dinner with Frank Capra

The Promise

Full Circle

A New Quest

The Witch

Magic Is Where You Find It

Death on Franconia Ridge

My Last Letter Home

Those Eyes, Those Beautiful Eyes

Mount Washington

Good-bye

Heartache

The Great Art of Sauntering

Paige

Home

October 8, 2006

Dear Dad,

I have a new favorite photo. I took it on Saturday while walking down the Polecat Ski Trail on Wildcat Mountain.

Off in the distancestately, proud, and jaggedstands the gigantic duo of Mount Adams and Mount Madison. Sloping down from their craggy summits and from the low shoulder of Mount Washington spreads an infinite army of trees stationed by rank. Highest are the evergreens, those hardy trees that never change throughout the seasons. They extend up to tree line, just below the summits, and slope downward until they mingle with the deciduous trees in their October war paint. An infantry of red, orange, and yellow that rolls forward like a great wave from an ocean swell. By the colors and the undulating hills at the foot of the mountains, you can almost see the trees pulsing, like an army ready to charge into battle.

This army flows ever onward toward the camera until it forms a battle line both tense and even, ready for the order from high above to advance.

In front of the trees there is a fielda mixture of faded yellow and green, flattened through the years, as if many battles have taken place there. In the foreground, separated from the front lines by yards of grass, sitting with his back to the camera, is a small, solitary figure looking at the legions of trees as they stretch on mile after mile.

The lone figure sits erect, ready for the wave to break, ready for whatever the world is about to unleash upon him. He is serene (or perhaps resigned to the coming test), humble and undaunted because he has faith that he will find a way.

He is Frodo Baggins; he is Don Quixote; he is Huck Finn. He is every unlikely hero who ever took a step out the door and found himself swept up in adventure.

Looking at the photo, I think of what the poet William Irwin Thompson wrote: When we come to an edge we come to a frontier that tells us that we are now about to become more than we have been before.

For there he sits, alone in that field, facing an edge, facing a frontier, facing a wilderness that dwarfs him. And yet he sits. Facing it. Not turning away. Not running away.

The little fellow in the photograph is my hiking partner, Atticus M. Finch, named for yet another humble and unlikely literary hero.

Since May 21 of last year, he has been kind enough to put up with me as Ive flung the two of us into our mountain adventures. Up until then we werent all that active. We mostly sat around Newburyport. We took little walks in the woods or on the beach, but never too far because I was too heavy and out of shape. Then, last year, after being introduced to the four-thousand-footers, we immediately fell head over heels for them and hiked all forty-eight peaks in eleven weeks. We so rushed through them all that I decided to do them again throughout this spring, summer, and falland this time we took our time to enjoy them more.

Watching Atticus gazing upon those trees was when I started to celebrate this round of the forty-eight, but more than that I celebrated this curious little dog. How lucky I am to have him as a hiking partner. Come wind, sun, snow, or rain he has been with me every step of the way. Most of the time its just the two of us, and our tight bond has grown even stronger.

When I saw him sitting, facing that wilderness, I thought of all those unlikely heroes in literature who have faced unimagined challenges and come out seasoned and strangely different. In the end they became more than theyd ever been, and you just knew that through sadness and joy, through good days and bad, no matter what happened next, after the story ended and they walked off into the sunset, they could handle all the trials and tribulations that life had in store for them. But while knowing that, I also knew the sadness that comes with the closing of a book, in saying good-bye to my favorite characters. I often mourn the end of an adventure for that very reason. I have come to judge a good story as one that makes me feel as if Im losing a friend when I read the final page, close the book, and put it down for the last time.

Luckily for me, this is not the end of a book but merely a chapter. Atticus and I have many adventures to go before our days are done. As a matter of fact, the next one starts in just a couple of months, and that will be a story unto itself, Im sure.

While walking farther down the ski slope through the shaded green grass and between sun-soaked golden trees, I took note of everything I was feeling, absorbed the beauty like a sponge, and looked upon Atticus with the same wonder I have for these mountains and for the trees and for the wind that knows them both. In watching him bounce down the slope in his carefree style, I smiled. How could I not?

Looking at this little dog, who weighs twenty pounds after a good meal, I find myself loving him as much as I do because, like all those unlikely literary heroes, theres more to him than meets the eye. And I am lucky enough to count him not only as a hiking partner but also a friend.

There are some days that are perfect, not so much for what is accomplished as for what is felt and will always be remembered. Yesterday was one of those perfect days, when two friends finished one chapter and went off in search of another.

Love,

Tom

Innocence Lost, Innocence Found

May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds.

EDWARD ABBEY

A Door Opens

I led a most unusual life. Some would even say it was exciting. I was the editor, publisher, and lone employee of my own newspaper. In it I chronicled the life and times of Newburyport, a small city on the North Shore of Massachusetts. I was poor but influential, happy but stressed, fulfilled in my work but not in my life. I was making a difference, but at the same time I felt like there was something missing.