4,000 Footers
One women's quest to climb all of New Hampshire's 4,000 foot peaks
By Rebecca Steinitz
“I am never hiking a 4000-footer again!” I snarled as I stumbled up the steps to the mountaintop observation tower with no view.
My husband and I had been hiking in the rain for six hours. The pleasant drizzle early in the day had become a relentless downpour. The tree-lined, gently rising trail beside a babbling brook had become a terrifying climb up a steep granite mountainside followed by a trudge along a muddy ridge, a plunge down more slippery rocks, and one last climb up a wooded path matted with twisted roots.
Along the way, I’d slipped on a sodden boardwalk and landed on my belly in the mud. I’d cried twice. My feet felt like sponges and my fingernails were disintegrating from grabbing at wet rocks. The supposedly spectacular views from New Hampshire’s Wildcat Range were nowhere to be seen, and we still had to get down to our car.
How did I arrive at this miserable moment?
You could trace its origins to the first time I climbed New Hampshire’s beloved Mount Monadnock when I was three years old—if you can call it climbing when I was mostly carried. I backpacked in the White Mountains with my high school boyfriend, led hiking trips in the mountains of Vermont and New Hampshire as a camp counselor, trekked in Nepal in my mid-20s, and climbed Mount Katahdin with a group of women friends on my 50th birthday.
But during those decades, climbing mountains was just something I did. Mountain climbing only became a passion at the end of the first summer of the pandemic, when my husband and I hiked Mount Greylock during a long weekend in the Berkshires. The view at the top was misty, but the excitement of finding the trail, the beauty of the surrounding woods and fields, and the energy of propelling ourselves upward rekindled a spark.
Even with the pandemic-crowded trails, we knew we were onto something. Thus began our quest to climb the 48 mountains known as the New Hampshire 4000-footers.
A couple of weeks later, we hiked the Franconia Ridge, the most popular hike in the White Mountains—for good reason. It was a glorious, blue-skied, foliage-lined day. You could see forever from the splendid granite peaks of Mount Lincoln (5089 feet) and Mount Lafayette (5242 feet). Even with the pandemic-crowded trails, we knew we were onto something. Thus began our quest to climb the 48 mountains known as the New Hampshire 4000-footers.
The ups and downs of the next few years challenged and thrilled us. We discovered that even though we were fast approaching 60, we could still muster the energy to hike 16 miles in a day, the flexibility to scramble over human-sized boulders, the grace to accept that we would never be the fastest hikers on the trail, and the vanity to still be excited when we passed younger hikers.
We braved relentless winds atop Mount Moosilauke (4802 feet), but the beautifully maintained trail, rolling ridge, and endless views were worth it. Atop Mount Osceola (4340 feet), we learned that Biden had finally won the election. We literally ran down Mount Eisenhower (4780 feet) to escape the swarms of bugs determined to fly into every orifice. We trudged over the viewless Mount Tom (4051 feet), Mount Field (4340 feet), and Mount Willey (4285 feet) on a single brutally humid day.
Distracting myself on that unpleasantly sweat-soaked hike, I came up with the brilliant idea to finish our 4000-footer quest by climbing Mount Washington on my 60th birthday with as many of our friends who wanted to join us. I finetuned the idea on subsequent viewless climbs in the woods and long walks back to the car, planning a weekend-long celebration and designing invitations and t-shirts in my head.
Then two obstacles appeared in our path: rainy weekends and family crises kept us from climbing mountains for an entire summer, and when we finally had a free sunny weekend, we climbed Mount Washington. The rare good weather made me determined to find a hike with great views. Mount Jefferson (5712 feet), Mount Washington (the tallest 4000-footer at 6288 feet), and Mount Monroe (5384), the heart of the vaunted Presidential Range, were our best bet, so we went for it.
It’s the entire up and down of it all, rain or sun, clouds or views, one mountain after another, for as long as we can.
Under a brilliant blue sky, we joyfully clambered over rocks, gazed out on miles of wilderness, hiked solitary trails, and were entertained by crowds of tourists at the top of Mount Washington (which you can also reach by car and train). Those crowds made me realize that the chaotic top of Mount Washington would be a terrible place for a birthday celebration.
I’d already known in my heart that our hiking break meant we would not finish the 4000 footers on my birthday, which was less than a year away. But it was OK. I also knew that on my 60th birthday I would climb one of the 4000 footers, someday I would finish climbing the 4000 footers, and after that, I’d climb more mountains.
When we finally got back to the car after that dreadful rainy hike on the Wildcat Range, our friend and occasional hiking partner, David, who was with us, asked if we’d made the right decision early that morning when we’d debated whether to hike in the drizzle. We agreed that, despite our travails, we had. Because it’s neither the destination nor the journey that makes climbing mountains so satisfying. It’s the entire up and down of it all, rain or sun, clouds or views, one mountain after another, for as long as we can.
About the Writer
Rebecca Steinitz writes about books, diaries, education, politics, fiction, Victorian studies, feminism, motherhood, food, and various other topics for The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, Salon, The New Republic, The Utne Reader, Cognoscenti, The Millions, The Rumpus, The Women’s Review of Books, Literary Mama, and various other places. In her spare time, she’s an education and communications consultant, and in her previous life as an academic, she wrote Time, Space, and Gender in the Nineteenth-Century British Diary.
