I am in pain.

Yesterday I went for a little hike with my old college advisor (whom I now consider a good friend) up Stratton Mountain in Southern Vermont. He and his wife have a place up in the mountains, and their property is adjacent to the Green Mountain National Forest, which comprises some of Stratton and the surrounding peaks. Stratton is also a peak along both the Appalachian Trail and Vermont's own Long Trail, the latter being the original inspiration of the former.

We, however, did not take any stinking trails.

Six summers back, I came up to live with my advisor and his family as their au pair, in an arrangement that left my mornings blissfully free for reading Sophocles, Lucian, and the New Testament in Greek on a porch that looked out over a babbling mountain brook. During the afternoons I minded the girls, cooked dinner, and tried my best to become re-acquainted with the constellations of the summer sky. On the weekends, however, we'd hike. Always up Stratton, always without using any trails. The hills of Vermont are ideal for bushwhacking, and me and my advisor took full advantage and found a different way up the mountain every time. We forded streams, scrambled up boulder fields, pushed our way through dense undergrowth, got hopelessly turned around on the mountaintop (which has two peaks, Stratton and Little Stratton, in between which mountain lions are rumored to prowl), and stumbled upon the ruins of 18th and 19th Century settlement - stone walls, foundations, pasture markers, wells, bridges, and mill ponds.

Needless to say, I was excited to return to the mountain, which I hadn't seen in six years. My advisor had chosen a somewhat ambitious route, a loop from the family property up the foothills of Stratton then more or less straight up its headwall, a near-vertical slope of rocks swallowed by the lush vegetation for which Vermont so deservedly earns its moniker of the "Green Mountain State". I did my best to keep up at first, but soon found myself lagging behind, although my advisor was kind enough to linger over a stone wall here and a birch or beech tree there in order to keep me from expiring right then and there. We had a wonderful break at an old homestead which had been forgotten for generations before being rediscovered by us back in the Summer of 1997, all thats left of which is a depression where the cellar was and an overgrowth of tiny lilies, the wild descendents of flowers that the lady of the house had doubtless planted all those years ago.

After the homestead, the true pain began, and for a while I started to seriously doubt my ability to make it up this mountain that I had climbed dozens of times before. My legs alternated between burning unbearably and refusing to work at all, the first time something like this happened to me on a hike since I started hiking as a young adult. Soon I was pausing to catch my breath every four or five steps, like a yuppie trying to make his way up Mt. Everest, only there were no sherpas to drag my inert body to the top should I fail to do so myself (although my advisor did his best to encourage me). After what seemed like an eternity, we were at last up in the mists and atop the headwall, and I knew it was only a matter of time before we'd reach the top of the mountain proper.

That's when we saw the moose. Or at least, what was left of a moose. Sometime over the spring a moose had chosen the mountaintop as a fine place to die, lay down, and shuffled off this mortal coil. The place where it had decomposed was still a black indentation in the otherwise green undergrowth, and the beast's bones were scattered all over the place, scavenged no doubt by coyotes or other carnivores looking for an easy meal. Here is a picture of its jawbone, which we found right along a trail we were following:



After our grisly find, it was time to meet Hugh and Jean, the caretakers of Stratton. Hugh is a sculptor and a mystic, who found his inspiration atop the mountain years ago and decided never to leave it. A professor of mathematics by training, Hugh took Pythagoras and his "golden proportion" an integrated into his art. I've seen pictures of some of his work, which is occasionally on exhibition in New York City and galleries in Vermont; it's quite good, and captures the essence of the Pythagorean spirals that have so entranced him. His wife Jean is just a joy. She made us green tea and we talked as if we'd just been up there last a week or two ago, and said goodbye with a warm hug and a gentle reminder to come back soon.

Then it was back down again, before darkness overtook the valley. Descending the headwall was a relief, since it took virtually no effort whatsoever, save to brake and to watch my footing. Once we had made it back to the foothills, however, my legs started to ache again, and my feet started to complain now after a long afternoon of abuse. We followed the course of a mountain stream on our way down, a deep gulley whose trickle became a gurgle then a roar as it gathered force from its tributary rivulets; and despite my good sense, I took a drink from a particularly inviting pool, hoping I didn't swallow a nasty little waterborn bug in the process (I couldn't help it, though! I'd drunk my two liters of water and was still thirsty, whereas my advisor had quaffed no more than a few sips from my water bottles and didn't feel the need for any more! And the water from the stream was so cold and delicious).

Finally we were nearing the end of our hike, so naturally it was time for me to poke myself in the eye on a twig. Ow. I ended up scratching my cornea and providing the good people of the New England Eye Institute (the clinic for the New England College of Optometry, where my wife administers financial aid) with a bonafide eye trauma. Since the students spent the majority of their time fitting glasses and contact lenses, they were overjoyed to have someone like me stumble into the clinic. The good news is that my eye is fine, despite the fact that I gave it a very deep gash. The doctor who was supervising the optometrists-in-training actually said he was shocked that I wasn't in agonizing pain! And fortunately there's been no sign of infection, which is apparently a real danger when the eyeball encounters "organic" matter like tree branches.

So at last we were done, just as the light had failed entirely. A good time, no doubt, that was made all the better with a heaping plate of Greek finger food (stuffed grape leaves, spinach pie, and hummus) and pints of MacNeill's Octoberfest at a pub in Brattleboro before returning to the flatlands of the Greater Boston area once more. At least a little bit of alcohol to numb the limbs, before the agony of the morning after...