Montpelier
When the dog and I go down the driveway in the car and turn east, we very shortly top a rise that gives us a much farther horizon: a roughly north-south string of hills and small mountains that roughly divide the St. Lawrence watershed where we live from the Connecticut River. A little to the right of center, one eminence rises higher than the others. If I look very closely on a good day, I can just make out a fire tower on its summit.
“There, Kiki,” I announce as portentously as I can. “That’s Spruce Mountain. It’ll be your first mountain, as soon as you think you’re ready.” Then I think, whom am I kidding? She’s been ready since she was 6 months old. It’s you who may not be ready. For her part, she hasn’t the faintest notion what I’m talking about. But the tone suggests activity, which is her strong suit. She gazes eagerly through the windshield and leans against my shoulder.
This past weekend was finally the time to do it. The weather’d been unseasonably cool, a pure delight punctuated by what we used to call “good sleeping nights,” when the single fleece didn’t feel like quite enough and a second one too many. Sunday promised more of the same. I don’t like to be alone on a mountain anymore, and I haven’t yet taught Kiki to dial 911. But Spruce Mountain is a favorite Sunday hike for locals, so I knew there’d be help around if I needed it.
I must have telegraphed my anticipation somehow — it might have been the little rucksack in the kitchen, the full water bottle and the little bag of treats — because she took forever to settle down the night before, and began to wiggle again about 5. To tell the truth, I’d been waking up, too, and thinking about it. Further shuteye was impossible. We were up, fed, packed, and ready to go by 7. Out the back door, and she was crouched in front of the garage door wagging madly before I was even off the porch.
It was a beautiful day, cool and clear as a September morning. We parked the car at the end of the road at the foot of the mountain, passed a gate, and started up the old woods road that serves as preamble to the climb. A wild rose bush bloomed brilliantly beside the trail in the light of the morning sun. Kiki fired ahead of me as usual, clearing out the dangerous creatures in our way.
Spruce Mountain is a minipeak: 3,037 feet, with an 80-foot firetower on the summit rising above the trees. But it’s a decent climb of 1,180 feet in just over 2 miles. It’s covered thickly with second-growth like its neighbors north and south (almost the whole mountain was once logged, and the lower slopes farmed somehow), but here and there its bones show through, in long stretches of gray granite scoured and smoothed by continental glaciers not very long ago. A boggy area beside the trail that for years attracted beavers is completely ringed with boulders quarried upstream by the glacier and dumped in what probably started out as an open tarn.
After the beaver dam opening, the footing gets noticeably rougher and, as the guidebook says, “the trail begins a moderately steep climb bearing north through spruce forest.” I should point out that “moderately steep” is a subjective description; “moderate” depends to a great extent on the age and condition of the climber. Kiki bounded through the woods on both sides and from rock to rock as if she’d managed to repeal the law of gravity; I maneuvered through the rocks and roots in a manner betraying deepest gravity, recalling an orthopedic surgeon’s farewell: “Don’t fall anymore. If you do fall, don’t break anything. If you do break anything, don’t bring it back here.” It seemed hard to believe that my foot-by-laborious-foot progress would ever get me up the long ridge I’ve seen from afar almost every day, but I was recalling old landmarks now: the huge split erratic, the chest-high ledge, the long slabs of granite, the mountain ash grove now being taken over by soft maples. One foot in front of the other, ignoring twinges in the quads; shorten up the hiking poles to get more help from them on the steep stuff; and suddenly, as always, there were the concrete footings of the tower right in front of us.
I took off my pack, sat on a footing, and poured a few capfuls of water for Kiki, who lapped them eagerly. I gave her a couple of treats, and suddenly she was gone. She’d found a playmate, another hiker’s dog, and the two of them flew madly round us. Amazing! Didn’t they remember the trail they’d just climbed? And that they’d have to be going back down shortly?
There were about 20 people on top by then, and more arriving. I packed up and called Kiki. A friendly woman took our picture and promised to send it to my e-mail address (which she did, even before we got home). “Let’s go,” I said, and off we went down the mountain. The trail is obviously suffering from overuse, so it was slow going through the roots and rocks for old must-not-fall. Did I sense impatience in the furry face that looked back every half-minute to see if I was still coming? But she was diverted by the groups of folks still arriving in the late morning. We’re a perfect match: We both love meeting people on the trail. And she transforms me from a sweaty, grizzled, old graybeard to the smiling, indulgent owner of an utter charmer of a puppy.
The last mile back to the parking lot is relatively smooth going, and thus faster. Still, it seems to take forever till the gate shows up. The parking lot was full, all but two of them Vermont cars, which imparted a homey feel to the place. Kiki, usually perched on the console or leaping back and forth from back to front, lay down in the front seat for the first time ever. At home, she trotted right into the house. “Boy!” I said to her, “I’m going to have some kielbasa and cheese and take a nap!” I turned around. She’d gotten into her cave very quietly and was already fast asleep.
Willem Lange can be reached at willem.lange@comcast.net.
