At my sleepaway camp, every division gets its own trip. The youngest girls go blueberry picking, some of the middle girls go to Bar Harbor or Vermont, the oldest girls go white-water rafting and the second oldest, the subs, receive the task of climbing the tallest peak in the Northeast, Mt. Washington. The hike felt cruel compared to the other trips, but tradition meant we had to climb.
The tradition of the subs climbing Mt. Washington runs deep. Everyone who was once a sub has a story of their experience on the climb, and these stories always frame the trip as purely hellish. When my sister was a sub, a sickness had spread through their cabin on the days leading up to the hike, and they had to make it up the 6,288-foot-high peak in fits of coughing and sweating.
While all of the stories are good entertainment, these memories are not much motivation for the subs once they’re on the bus towards the base of the mountain. The shared fear on that bus was unreal. We drove down a winding road, lined with mountain after mountain trapping us in, each getting larger than the last. However, no matter how large the previous one was, no one lived up to Mt. Washington. This mountain was a freak of nature.
One thing that our friends had taught us from their hikes was the “this is so much fun” trick. When you are having a terrible time, whether you are scared, sad or tired, you simply grab a friend and say “this is so much fun,” over and over again. You repeat it until you realize how silly the action is and eventually laugh at your current situation, realizing that no matter how bad it is, it truly is a little bit of fun. This kept us going through the hike, and even before we started walking, my entire division of 40 girls sat on the bus repeating “this is so much fun,” until we could all laugh about our fear.
Despite gaining more confidence through this, the mountain immediately reminded me of our practice hike and scared me. The practice hike mountain was considerably smaller, but also insanely steep to the point that I would have to crawl for a substantial amount of the hike.
My friend Summer and I made it up the entire practice hike together. We encouraged each other to walk and scolded each other when one of us wanted to sit down. The purpose of the practice hike was to evaluate our hiking abilities. So, Summer and I stuck together not only to make sure that we could keep up, but also to ensure that we would be in the same group for the real thing. Group one would be the fastest and group five would be the slowest.
To this day, I remain unsure how I landed in group two. Not to diss my athletic abilities, but mine compared to those of the other people in my group were two completely different leagues. As I looked around at my group, I was hit with athlete after athlete. My friends Ashley and Maya were in my group. It was comforting to see two of my best friends, but Ashley is a competitive soccer player who competes in tournaments in Italy, and Maya is a double athlete excelling in two cutthroat sports.
Without a moment to rest, group one went off. Straight from the bus, I watched my friends run off into the forest and disappear onto the trail. About five seconds later, they shoved us out, too. Summer and I stuck to the back of the pack. The journey began as a straightforward walk, with us occasionally dodging a root or hopping over a rock. It was simple and helped us build confidence. We walked like this for about a mile, only talking amongst ourselves, until we reached a stream.
As you will begin to see, streams quickly became my enemy on this hike. The first stream did not really have a clear crossing, requiring me to hop from rock to rock to get across. Whether you know me or not, it is extremely obvious that I am not a very graceful person. I drop things a lot, I trip a lot and I fall flat on my face a lot. This is, of course, on flat, dry land. Now picture me hopping from slippery rock to slippery rock. We can all see how this would end poorly. I was slipping and sliding all over these rocks to the point where I genuinely gave up and walked through the water, emerging with soaking socks and an unfortunate cold feeling in my feet.
I remember laughing with my friends about my socks, turning around, pulling out my camera and taking a picture of this stream. I thought it was absolutely beautiful and forgave it for drenching my socks. There were mossy rocks surrounding a little waterfall ahead, trees framing it from every side. The greens, browns and yellows blended beautifully, and the scene was picturesque. That is, until I turned around and saw the worst sight to ever grace my eyes.
I swear, all I saw were stairs. Not artificial stairs, but stairs of rock that were each about the length of my foot to my knee. You could tilt your head up, you could turn it to the side and follow the path with your eyes, but from every angle, all there was to see were stairs. Imagine about an hour of being on the Stairmaster, except every single time, you would have to pull your entire body up the stairs as well.
Summer and I mostly kept up with our group, but after about 45 minutes, we became the self-titled group 2.5. We were just close enough to our group that our chaperones could hear us repeating how we were having “so much fun,” but any regular person walking by would assume that we were unrelated hikers from the group in front of us.
After what felt like forever, we reached another stream where we sat and had lunch. One problem I have left unmentioned is my water bottle. All the seniors had told me to bring a small backpack so that it would not weigh me down on the hike. I did just that, selecting a tiny backpack that my dad had gotten at a charity event. I could carry everything in the bag without it being too heavy, and its fullness served as a backrest when I took breaks. However, the one problem was how minuscule the water bottle holder was. As a result, my water bottle, a 32-ounce Owala, fell every time I leaned too far to any side. Flashback to the stream, where I had to climb on a big, steep rock to get past it. At this point, the stairs ended, and these rocks began. I crawled up to the lunch spot, completely ecstatic to have a break. Of course, upon ascent, my water bottle felt it would be a good idea to fall out and roll all the way down back to the stairs. Luckily, my counselor, Sydney, is an angel and offered to go down and grab it for me. Unfortunately, my Owala had a dent halfway down the middle from where it leaked, scraped paint on every side and a top that had fallen out and gotten dirt in every crevice, making my water undrinkable for the rest of the hike.
This was likely the worst thing that could have happened to me. That water was one of the only things keeping me going. My face was bright red from the heat, my hair was falling out of my braids and I was sweaty and in pain. The water helped me slick my hair, cool me down — everything I needed, the water did for me.
I accepted this reality over my nutritious meal of trail mix, which was truly an extremely healthy blend of granola, M&Ms and raisins. We sat for probably 15-20 minutes and then continued the hike, when I — of course — tripped and fell on my face.
My flat face fall was a product of the steeper rocks that could only be conquered by climbing them on our hands and knees. While I cleverly thought one hand on my water bottle would prevent any more droppings, it actually led to me having a lesser sense of balance than in my natural state.
The Climb by Miley Cyrus was the only thing playing in my head at this moment. I suddenly recalled the previous year, when the subs returned to camp singing the song. This song ran through my head, as if I were listening to it repeatedly. My favorite part has always been when Cyrus sings “keep on moving, keep climbing, keep the faith.” Whenever I spaced out and thought about how much pain I was in, Cyrus’ voice kept me going.
Every time I asked the chaperone, Tyler, where the Hut would be, he answered with the Alpine Zone, the zone above the treeline. When we got to, of course, another stream, we finally saw a sign saying that we were entering the Alpine Zone. I never thought I would be happy without trees and oxygen, but here I was. For the most part, you could see the path ahead, and occasionally, there would be a small peak that would have you believe the Hut was on the other side. These peaks were deceitful, but I kept my faith that we would see it soon.
After pained legs, ruined hair, a bright red face and very little oxygen, I had finally made it to the Lake of the Clouds Hut. I used every ounce of energy I had left in my body to run to the Hut and see my friends from group one. I sat with my friend Jordyn, and we talked about every section of the path.
Getting to watch all my friends reach the end after me was exhilarating. My best friend Blake was in group five, and seeing her reach the top was the most exciting thing. We finally got to claim our rooms once everyone arrived, and my friend group of eight snatched a room with our counselor, Tessa.
After we all reached the top, we could finally relax. Some people played cards, others ran around and explored the area while some simply sat in their beds and conversed. Blake and I sat outside, looking out at the nonexistent view as all we saw were clouds, and made a vlog on my camera reflecting on our hike. While we were sitting there, we met a girl who was climbing the Appalachian Trail. She taught us all about Appalachian Trail hiking and why she was doing it. I do not remember her real name, but she told us that her trail name, the nickname other hikers had given her, was Vista because every time there was a view, she would go out of her way to see it.
Before Vista, we knew hikers as what everyone else knew them by, the “Mountain Men.” “Mountain Men” gained a terrible reputation at my camp; however, Vista inspired us to ditch the stigma and to actually talk to the “Mountain Men” who were there with us. The ones that we spoke to the most were the employees at the Hut. They told us that they were all college students who took the summer off to stay there. They worked the entire season, not descending the mountain for a couple of months. We learned about their life stories that led them to this adventurous job, as well as new things about hiker culture. They even showed us hidden places surrounding the Hut.
We all shared beds since night on Lake of the Clouds was extremely cold. I shared with Blake, and we stayed up until midnight for her birthday. While we sat there talking, I realized that I had not signed the infamous book. Each year, the Hut has a designated book where everyone who stays in the Hut that year is allowed to write a note, immortalizing themselves on the mountain. At my camp, everyone writes notes to each other. Looking through the books is so special as you get to see everyone message each other, communicating despite climbing at different times, and I was not going to pass up my chance to leave my mark. At about 11 p.m., we left our room and signed the book. After writing, we saw a group of other teenagers playing cards. After speaking to them, they invited us to play with them. None of us knew each other’s names, and we were all just a bunch of random kids who had climbed a mountain the same day, but playing spoons with these kids were some of the most enjoyable hours of my life.
When we finally left and went to bed, it was the worst sleep I got in my entire life. Not because the pillows were disgusting, though they were. Not because the blankets were disgusting, though they also were. Rather, it was because Blake decided that our tiny top bunk was the perfect place to sprawl out, leaving me shoved against the wall, completely flattened on my side and unable to move.
At what I assume to be around seven in the morning, I had run out of thoughts to think and was staring blankly at the wall in front of me. That was until I heard all the doors around us, ours included, being opened, followed by the loudest belting.
“Here comes the sun, doo-doo-doo. Here comes the sun, and I say ‘It’s all right.’”
The workers sang louder and longer than I had ever heard anyone sing, to the point that it became awkward. But it got us all out of bed and to breakfast, and soon my entire division climbed together to the top of the summit.
We made it to the top with clouds as our only view, and bought the classic “This Body Climbed Mt. Washington” shirts that everyone from camp buys from the shop at the top. After grabbing some extra food and merchandise, I headed down the mountain.
The hike down was harder than the hike up because it was as endurance-based as the hike up, with an extra layer of physical pain. If I cannot even cross a stream safely, it is not a secret that the climb down was not my strong suit. I spent most of the time sliding or falling.
Injuries were common in my group on the way down and there was always at least one of us falling at any given time. One girl in my group, Anya, fell so frequently that her hiking boots even broke to the point where the soles came off, and she had to switch with Tyler, who sported Crocs for the rest of the journey.
I remained decently safe. I would fall, but it was never enough to cause serious injury. That was until one part near the end of the trail, where the path gets cut off for a moment, and you have to climb a rock onto my worst enemy, a stream, before connecting back to the real trail. I was walking and talking, not paying much attention, when I tripped and a rock went into my knee and cut me. It went pretty deep, and I did not walk or even stand up for a full minute. My friend Maya got the medical bag from Tyler and aided me. When I looked at her, I noticed how her knee was bleeding in the same spot as mine. As she recounted how she tripped on a root and injured her knee the same way, we laughed and powered up enough energy to walk out of the woods. It felt like years since we had gotten off the bus, but there we were, standing in that same parking lot just about 24 hours later.
We waited in a cafe at the bottom, bought coffees and snacks and talked about how strange our experience was while we stood by until the rest of our division made it down the mountain. Afterwards, they drove us to McDonald’s to get food, and my friend group of eight squeezed into a booth and sat together. One thing that I have not mentioned is that we are truly a group of nine. One of our friends, Aria, sprained her ankle in the days leading up to the trip and was unable to come. So, as true friends, we could not give this opportunity up, and in this McDonald’s booth, we fabricated a story to trick her with. Our story is as follows:
In our room, it was our standard group, Tessa, and another girl in our division named Emma Ashley. Blake and I were staying up for her birthday, and late at night, we watched Ashley leave the room. We assumed she was going to the bathroom, and we went to sleep. As we drifted off to sleep, we heard the door open and someone climb into her bed, but we did not think much of it. In the middle of the night, our friends Cami and Ashley woke up. They looked across from them at Ashley’s bed and saw a large figure. This was quite startling because Ashley is a small girl, very short and skinny. They immediately knew it wasn’t her and had no idea what to do. Slowly, they woke the rest of us up, and we came to our senses that there was some random “Mountain Man” in Ashley’s bed. He started slowly singing the words “Up the mountain, down the mountain the next day.” All of us freaked out as he sang this over and over for at least 10 minutes, until all of a sudden, he got up and walked out. The next morning, we panicked, asking where that man could have gone and telling the rest of our friends about it. No one at breakfast the next morning fit his stature, and we never saw the man again.
Despite how insane this sounds, this is one of the tamest Mt. Washington stories campers have returned with. We got the rest of our division in on it, including the chaperones, and completely convinced Aria that it happened. The night before the subs climbed Mt. Washington during our senior summer, we finally admitted to her that it had all been a ruse. The chant from the tall tale has remained one of our strongest inside jokes to this day.
This past summer was my senior year as a camper, and I finally got to soak in all the little privileges that come with being a senior. It truly was the best summer of my life. However, watching the subs return from their hike hit me with a little bit of envy. That trip would bring their division closer together, and even in its mix of pain, sweat and spilled water, it was an experience that I would relive a thousand times if given the chance.
