Contents
This page brings together the seven lean-to chapters into one continuous story.
Chapter 1: Home Away From Home
Home Away From Home
If someone asked me where I've slept over the last forty years, the answer would probably surprise them.
I've slept on mountaintops, beside remote ponds, on riverbanks, under rock overhangs, in snow caves, on glaciers, in hostels around the world, in the back of my truck, in bivy bags on exposed ridges, and in more lean-tos than I could ever count. If I had to guess, I've probably spent close to a hundred nights in those simple three-sided wooden shelters scattered throughout New England, along the Appalachian Trail, and especially on Vermont's 300-mile Long Trail.
People sometimes think of a lean-to as just a primitive place to spend the night, but to me they became something much more than that. They were temporary homes. They were places to dry out after hiking through cold rain, warm up around a campfire after a bitter winter day, cook a hot meal, swap stories with complete strangers, and wake up to another sunrise in the mountains. Some introduced me to lifelong friends. A few probably saved my life.
Why Lean-tos Felt Different
One of the things I loved most about lean-tos was that they never separated you from nature the way a tent does. You could still hear the wind blowing through the spruce trees, the rain drumming on the roof, owls calling during the night, loons on a nearby lake, or someone hiking up the trail long after dark, hoping there would still be room to spread out a sleeping bag. Some nights I shared a shelter with a dozen people. Other nights I had one entirely to myself. I enjoyed both equally.
There was something special about the unwritten etiquette of those places. Everyone carried their own life on their back. Everyone was dirty, tired, and hungry. Yet people naturally shared firewood, offered extra food, compared maps, talked about trail conditions, and told stories until the fire burned down to glowing coals. It didn't matter whether someone was a doctor, a college student, or living out of a backpack for six months. Once the backpacks came off, everyone was simply another hiker.
The Mid-State Trail Years
Many of my earliest lean-to memories came from the Mid-State Trail in central Massachusetts, only a few miles from where I lived on Billy Ward Pond. Those shelters became our winter playground.
The one at Muddy Pond was probably our favorite.
It wasn't a difficult hike, which made it perfect for quick weekend trips during the winter. There was usually plenty of dead wood nearby, so we'd spend the afternoon gathering firewood before darkness settled over the frozen pond. By evening we'd have a roaring fire going, pots hanging over the flames, and enough laughter echoing through the woods that anyone hiking nearby would probably have wandered over to see what was going on.
The Space-Blanket Reflector Oven
One winter, Dann, Marty, Diane, and I decided we were going to outsmart the cold. We carried several heavy-duty aluminum space blankets into the shelter and thumbtacked them across the entire back wall. The idea was that they would reflect the heat from the campfire back into the lean-to like a giant reflector oven.
Whether it actually worked or not is still open for debate.
What I remember most wasn't the temperature. It was the fun of trying something completely ridiculous just to see if it might help. We cooked over the fire, laughed most of the evening, watched sparks disappear into the dark sky above the frozen pond, and eventually crawled into our sleeping bags convinced we had invented the greatest winter camping innovation in history.
The Lessons Were Still Coming
Looking back, those trips were simple.
We didn't have expensive gear.
We certainly didn't have lightweight equipment.
Most of what we knew came from trial and error.
And sometimes...
from making mistakes.
The biggest lessons were still waiting for us in the White Mountains, where one cold, rainy weekend would teach me just how unforgiving winter can be—and how important a good friend can be when things start going terribly wrong.
Chapter 2: Two of My Nine Lives
Learning the Hard Way
By the winter of 1985, Dann and I had become completely hooked on backpacking. Every chance we got we'd head for the White Mountains, especially during the winter. Looking back, it's almost funny how little we actually knew. We thought we were pretty experienced because we'd done a fair amount of hiking by then, but winter backpacking is an entirely different game. The mountains don't care how enthusiastic you are. They only care whether you're prepared.
The funny thing is that back then we didn't even realize how unprepared we really were. We were wearing whatever clothes we already owned. Dann almost always hiked in blue jeans, and I usually wore old cotton sweatpants and a sweatshirt. Today every backpacker has heard the saying, “Cotton kills,” but I honestly don't remember ever hearing that back then. We certainly didn't understand why it mattered. We just figured that if we got cold we'd build a fire, eat something hot, and everything would be fine.
We didn't even own backpacking stoves in those days. Every meal we cooked and every cup of coffee we drank depended entirely on a campfire. If the wood was too wet to burn, or if we couldn't get a decent fire going, we weren't eating much that night. Looking back now, it's hard to believe we headed into the White Mountains in the middle of winter with so little equipment and so little knowledge, but that's how most of us learned back then. We made mistakes, survived them, and hopefully got a little smarter every year.
Mount Passaconaway
One of those lessons almost cost me my life. We had planned a weekend backpacking trip into the southern White Mountains, climbing Mount Passaconaway and spending the night at the lean-to there. The weather forecast wasn't great, but it didn't sound terrible either, and besides, we were young. A little rain wasn't going to stop us. It started raining shortly after we left the trailhead, and before long everything we were wearing was soaked. Back then rain gear wasn't nearly as good as it is today, and once our cotton clothes got wet they stayed wet. We just kept hiking because turning around never really crossed our minds.
By the time we finally reached the shelter late that afternoon, I was colder than I had ever been in my life. At first I just thought I was tired, but looking back I know I had progressed well into hypothermia. I wasn't shivering very much anymore, which is actually a bad sign. I just wanted to crawl into my sleeping bag and go to sleep. In my mind that sounded wonderful. I remember thinking, “I'll warm up once I'm in my sleeping bag.”
Fortunately, Dann had enough sense to realize something was seriously wrong. He absolutely refused to let me lie down. He kept telling me to get over by the fire, keep feeding it, and eat something hot. I argued with him because I honestly didn't think I needed to. All I wanted to do was sleep. He wasn't having any of it. Looking back, I'm convinced that if I'd been hiking alone that weekend, I probably wouldn't have come home.
Eventually the fire began to do its job. We kept feeding it armloads of wood, and after forcing down some hot food I slowly started coming back to life. It wasn't like flipping on a light switch. It happened gradually. After an hour or two I could think clearly again, and only then did I realize how close I'd probably come to dying.
Whiteface Mountain
You would think that experience would have taught us everything we needed to know about winter backpacking. Apparently we were slow learners. A short time later we headed back into the same area, this time hiking over Whiteface Mountain to another lean-to only about a mile away from the first one. We had learned a few things, but not nearly enough. Once again we spent the day hiking in cold rain. Once again our cotton clothes became soaked. And once again, by the time we reached the shelter, I was ready to crawl into my sleeping bag and call it a night.
The ending was almost identical. Dann wouldn't let me. He made me get in front of the fire, forced me to eat hot food, and stayed on me until I finally started warming up. Looking back after forty years, I honestly believe he saved my life on both of those trips. I joke that I must have nine lives, and if that's true I definitely used up two of them during that first winter of backpacking. If I've counted correctly, I think I still have two left.
What Changed After That
Those two weekends changed the way I looked at the mountains. From that point on I started reading everything I could about winter travel. Little by little our gear improved. We switched from cotton to wool and eventually to synthetic clothing. We bought backpacking stoves so we weren't completely dependent on campfires. We learned how to stay dry, how to recognize hypothermia before it became dangerous, and most importantly, we learned that confidence has to be backed up with knowledge.
The mountains hadn't changed. We had.
One thing never changed, though. I never forgot what Dann did for me. Good hiking partners don't just make trips more enjoyable. Sometimes they bring you home.
Chapter 3: Growing Into the Mountains
Learning After the Close Calls
After those two hypothermia trips in the southern White Mountains, Dann and I did not suddenly become expert winter backpackers overnight, but we definitely started paying more attention. That first winter had scared me enough that I knew I had to learn more if I was going to keep doing this, and of course I was going to keep doing it. There was never any serious thought of quitting. If anything, those close calls made the mountains seem even more powerful to me, and made me want to understand them better.
That is probably one of the biggest differences between being reckless and becoming experienced. In the beginning, you make mistakes because you do not know any better. If you are lucky enough to survive them, you either learn from them or you keep repeating them until the mountains finally run out of patience. I was lucky because I had good friends, especially Dann, and I was just smart enough to realize that enthusiasm was not enough. You had to know what you were doing, especially in winter.
The Gear That Changed Everything
Little by little, our gear started improving. We learned that cotton was terrible in cold wet weather, so we started replacing it with wool, polypropylene, fleece, and eventually better synthetic layers. We bought real rain gear, better sleeping bags, better boots, and eventually backpacking stoves, which changed everything. It seems crazy now that we ever went into the winter mountains without a stove, but at the time we were learning as we went. Once we had a stove, a hot drink or hot meal no longer depended entirely on whether we could find dry wood and get a fire going.
Backpacking stoves also gave us a little independence from the shelter fire rings, which was a good thing because campfires were not always possible and not always appropriate. Back then fires were much more common in lean-tos and around shelters than they are now, and in many places we could still find dead wood without walking too far. But the popular places were already getting picked clean, and I am sure some people cut green wood because they did not know any better. Over time I came to appreciate a small safe fire when it was allowed, but also learned not to depend on one for survival.
The funny thing is that as our gear improved, the mountains did not get easier. We simply got better at being there. We were still cold many times, still tired, still wet, still hungry, and still dealing with wind, snow, ice, and darkness. But now we had more ways to manage it. A dry layer in the pack, a stove that worked, a better sleeping bag, and the knowledge to stop early when conditions were going bad could make the difference between an adventure and a rescue.
The One-Dollar Book That May Have Saved Our Lives
About that same time I stumbled across a little pamphlet that cost about a dollar. It was written by Daniel Doan and was called Don't Die on the Mountain. It wasn't a big book, but it was packed with practical advice from someone who clearly understood mountain travel far better than we did. I bought one for myself and another copy for Dann, and before long we'd both read it cover to cover more than once.
The biggest lesson in that little book was something we had just learned the hard way: cotton can be incredibly dangerous in the mountains. Once it gets wet, it loses almost all of its insulating ability, and in cold weather it can kill you surprisingly fast. Doan recommended wool for almost everything. At that time fleece hadn't even been invented yet, Gore-Tex and other breathable waterproof fabrics weren't widely available, and most raincoats simply trapped your sweat inside. Even if the rain stayed out, you'd often end up just as wet from perspiration.
I took that advice seriously. I started haunting thrift stores looking for old wool clothing. I'd buy wool sweaters, wool pants, wool gloves, wool hats—pretty much anything made of wool that I could find. The only thing I couldn't replace was underwear because everything available seemed to be cotton. Most of the time I simply went without it so every layer I was wearing was wool. Looking back it probably sounds a little funny, but it worked, and it was a whole lot safer than hiking around in wet cotton.
That little book also convinced us that we needed backpacking stoves. Until then we'd depended completely on campfires for every hot meal and every cup of coffee. We began looking at those little white-gas backpacking stoves because they meant we could still cook if everything around us was soaked from rain or buried under snow. That single change transformed our winter trips. A reliable stove meant hot food, hot drinks, and a dependable way to warm ourselves even when a campfire wasn't practical.
Looking back, I honestly think that little one-dollar booklet by Daniel Doan probably kept us alive before we even realized we needed saving.
When a Cabin Felt Like Luxury
Not too far from those Passaconaway and Whiteface lean-tos was the Jim Liberty Cabin, and we stayed there several times. Compared with an open lean-to, Jim Liberty felt like luxury. It had a wood stove, four decent bunks, and enough protection from the weather that you could actually relax a little instead of spending the whole evening trying to keep the fire alive and stay warm. After some of our early winter trips, walking into a cabin like that felt almost like checking into a mountain hotel.
Of course, it was still a cabin in the mountains, not a resort. You still had to haul your gear in, find or carry wood, melt snow or collect water, cook your own food, and deal with whatever weather was happening outside. But there is something about a wood stove in winter that changes the whole mood of a trip. Wet gloves start steaming. Socks hang from every nail and rafter. People gather around the stove in that half-frozen, half-happy way that winter hikers know so well. After a long day outside, even a rough cabin can feel like all the comforts of home.
Cabins, Lean-tos, and the Places Between
Over the years I came to love both lean-tos and cabins, but for different reasons. A lean-to keeps you connected to the night. You can sit in your sleeping bag and look out at the forest, watch snow fall in the beam of your headlamp, or listen to the wind moving through the trees. A cabin gives you a little more protection, especially in serious winter weather, and sometimes that protection makes all the difference. I never felt like one was better than the other. They were just different tools for different nights.
Some cabins were simple and rough, while others felt almost fancy by backcountry standards. Places like Jim Liberty, Gray Knob, Crag Camp, the Log Cabin, and later Skylight Lodge in Vermont all became part of my mental map of New England. They were places you could aim for when the weather was bad, places where you might meet other hikers, and places where the trip often became more about the evening inside than the summit you climbed during the day.
Knowledge Weighed Nothing
One thing I learned over time is that gear matters, but judgment matters even more. You can buy warmer clothing and better sleeping bags, but you cannot buy experience. You have to earn that by being out there, paying attention, making decisions, sometimes making bad ones, and remembering what happened. Every trip taught us something, even if we did not realize it at the time.
We learned to watch the weather more carefully. We learned to turn around earlier. We learned to keep dry clothes buried deep in the pack and not touch them until camp. We learned to eat before we were completely exhausted. We learned that a hot drink could change your entire attitude. We learned that the person who says, “I just want to sleep for a while,” might be in more trouble than they realize. And we learned that the mountains are not impressed by confidence unless it is backed up by real knowledge.
That was one of the best things the mountains ever taught me: knowledge weighs nothing, but it can save your life.
By the time we started doing more serious trips in the White Mountains, Baxter, the Long Trail, and the Adirondacks, we were still making mistakes, but they were usually better mistakes. We were learning. We were getting stronger. We were becoming more comfortable in bad weather and more respectful of how quickly things could change. The lean-tos and cabins were still part of the fun, but they were also part of the education. They gave us places to recover, compare notes, talk with other hikers, and slowly become the kind of mountain travelers we had once only pretended to be.
Chapter 4: Thirty Days on the Long Trail
Walking Across Vermont
By the time I hiked the Long Trail in Vermont in 1991, I had already spent plenty of nights in lean-tos, cabins, bivy bags, and all kinds of improvised camps. But the Long Trail was different because it gave me an entire month of living that way. It was not just a weekend trip or a few nights in the White Mountains. It was thirty days of waking up outdoors, walking all day, and then finding another shelter, another spring, another fire ring, another group of hikers, or sometimes just another quiet place to spend the night.
The Long Trail was about 300 miles, running the length of Vermont from Massachusetts to Canada, and for a big part of that hike the shelters became the rhythm of the trip. You did not just think in terms of miles. You thought in terms of where the next shelter was, whether there was water nearby, whether the roof looked solid, whether there was room, and whether the weather was likely to hold long enough to push on to the next one. The whole day often came down to one of those decisions: stay here because this place feels right, or keep moving because there is still enough daylight to reach the next shelter.
The Shelter-to-Shelter Rhythm
One funny thing about the Long Trail was that sometimes the shelters were almost too convenient. You might get to one in the middle of the afternoon, take off your pack, sit down for a snack, and suddenly realize that it was a really nice spot. Maybe there was a good spring nearby, maybe the view was better than expected, or maybe the clouds were starting to build and you could hear thunder somewhere over the next ridge. Then came the question that every long-distance hiker knows: do I stop early and enjoy this place, or do I push on because I had planned to do more miles?
When you are hiking for thirty days, those decisions matter more than they would on a weekend trip. On a short trip, you can push hard, get tired, and recover when you get home. But on a long hike, you have to wake up the next morning and do it again, and again, and again. You learn to listen to your body. You learn that a dry shelter during a storm can be worth more than another five miles. You learn that stopping early is not the same as being lazy. Sometimes it is just good judgment.
I met a lot of people that way. Some were hiking the whole trail, some were doing sections, and some were just out for a few nights. You would meet someone at a shelter, hike near them for a day or two, separate when your pace changed, then somehow run into them again three shelters later. That became part of the fun. The shelters were like little temporary villages scattered through the Green Mountains, and every evening a different group of people would gather there with wet boots, sore knees, empty stomachs, and stories from the trail.
The Friendships That Form on Long Trails
One of the things I loved most about long-distance hiking was how quickly people became friends. In regular life, people can work together for years and barely know each other. On a trail, you can share a shelter for one rainy night and feel like you know someone better than people you have seen every day for months. It is partly because everyone is stripped down to the basics. You are all carrying your home on your back, eating whatever food you packed, dealing with the same mud, rain, mosquitoes, cold mornings, and sore feet.
There is also a kind of honesty that comes from being tired together. Nobody looks especially good after ten or fifteen miles of hiking in the rain. Nobody smells good. Nobody is pretending to be important. You sit around cooking dinner, comparing blisters, laughing about mistakes, and talking about where you came from and where you are headed next. Some of those people you never see again, but you still remember them because they belonged to a very specific moment in your life.
The shelters made that possible. If everyone had been zipped up alone inside tents, a lot of those conversations never would have happened. But in a lean-to or cabin, people naturally shared space. Someone would be cooking on one side, someone else sorting gear, someone hanging socks, someone reading a guidebook, and someone else trying to figure out whether the next day was going to be miserable or perfect. That shared space was one of the great gifts of the Long Trail.
Skylight Lodge
Of all the shelters along the Long Trail, Skylight Lodge is one that really stayed with me. It was more like a cabin than a simple lean-to, with two stories, a wood stove, and a beautiful setting right on Skylight Pond. After days of walking through Vermont, a place like that felt almost unbelievable. It had views, water, shelter, and enough comfort that it made you question why you would ever leave.
I remember staying there with three or four people I had been hiking around for a while. The next morning they all packed up early and headed out because they had miles to make. I did too, technically. I still had plenty of trail ahead of me. But something about that place made me stop and think, why am I rushing? I had given myself thirty days to hike the trail, and even though 300 miles sounds like a lot, there was no reason every day had to be a march.
So I stayed. I swept out the shelter, did a little maintenance, cut some firewood, wandered around the pond, and spent the day just being there. That may not sound like a big deal, but it was one of those small decisions that changed the way I thought about long trips. I was not hiking the Long Trail just to say I had finished it. I was hiking it because I wanted to live outdoors for a month and experience the Green Mountains day after day. If I hurried past one of the most beautiful shelters on the trail just to keep to some imaginary schedule, what was the point?
Learning Not to Hurry
That day at Skylight Lodge taught me something I have carried into a lot of other parts of my life. Do not be in such a rush to hurry. There is a strange pressure, even in outdoor adventures, to turn everything into an accomplishment. How many miles did you do? How fast did you finish? How many summits did you climb? How many states, countries, trails, or peaks can you check off a list?
I have never been very interested in that kind of travel. I would rather spend extra time in a beautiful place than race through it just to say I completed something. The Long Trail was not important to me because I could check off 300 miles. It was important because I had thirty days of shelters, muddy trails, mountain ponds, wet boots, small towns, new friends, quiet mornings, and long evenings when I had nowhere else I needed to be.
One of the best lessons the Long Trail gave me was simple: there is no prize for finishing before you have really lived the trip.
That is one reason lean-tos and cabins became so important to me. They encouraged that slower way of traveling. They gave me a place to stop, look around, talk with people, watch the weather, and sometimes decide that the best thing I could do was stay exactly where I was for one more night. Those places were not just shelters along the trail. They were invitations to slow down and actually be there.
Chapter 5: The Mountains Became Home
Living for the Weekend
By the late 1980s and early 1990s, spending weekends in mountain shelters had become such a normal part of my life that I almost stopped thinking of it as anything unusual. Looking back now, I realize it probably wasn't normal at all. Most of the people I worked with looked forward to the weekend because they could sleep late, watch television, mow the lawn, or catch up on chores. By Thursday afternoon I was already looking at weather maps and trying to decide which mountain I wanted to wake up on Saturday morning.
One of the biggest gifts I ever had was my work schedule. For several years I worked three twelve-hour days each week. Because of overtime I was paid for forty-two hours, but more importantly it gave me four straight days off every week. Instead of treating those days like time to relax around the house, I treated them like miniature expeditions. Sometimes I would leave work, throw my backpack in the truck, and be driving north before sunset. A few hours later I'd be hiking the last mile or two by headlamp toward a lean-to or mountain cabin, listening to the forest settle in for the night while everyone else was settling into their living rooms.
I never felt like I was escaping life. I always felt like I was heading toward it.
Hermit Lake
Hermit Lake at the base of Tuckerman Ravine became one of my favorite destinations. The shelter area felt like a tiny mountain village tucked beneath Mount Washington. There were a dozen or so shelters scattered around the trees, and almost every weekend there were climbers, skiers, backpackers, and mountaineers swapping stories about routes, weather, and adventures. If the spring skiing season was underway, there was an excitement in camp that was hard to describe. Everyone had a plan for the next morning, and the conversations around dinner usually revolved around snow conditions, avalanche danger, and who was climbing which route.
I stayed there many times over the years, often arriving late at night and leaving before sunrise. It was one of those places that always felt familiar, no matter how many months had passed since the previous visit.
Gray Knob and the Randolph Mountain Club
On the northern side of Mount Washington, Gray Knob, Crag Camp, the Perch, the Log Cabin, and the other Randolph Mountain Club shelters became regular destinations. Gray Knob was probably my favorite. After spending a cold day out in the snow, there was nothing better than opening the door and feeling the warmth from the wood stove. Wet mittens, socks, and hats would be hanging everywhere, boots lined up by the stove, and somebody always seemed to have a pot of water heating for coffee or soup.
I still remember one weekend when everyone else in the shelter was from Quebec. Only one person spoke enough English to translate our conversations. Every time I told a story, he'd repeat it in French, everyone would burst out laughing, and then someone would pass around another bottle of Canadian whiskey. Whatever they were smoking also made the rounds that evening, and before long we all forgot that we had only met a few hours earlier. That's one of the magical things about mountain shelters. Complete strangers can become friends by the time breakfast is over.
Baxter State Park
Baxter became another second home. We stayed many nights at Roaring Brook and Chimney Pond, usually arriving Thursday night after work so we could start climbing first thing Friday morning. We always talked about spending a night up on the Knife Edge somewhere near Chimney Peak, and we even knew of a little flat spot that looked perfect for a bivouac. We never actually did it because the rangers kept a pretty close eye on that area, but dreaming about those adventures was part of the fun. Every trip seemed to include another idea for the next one.
The Real Luxury
Looking back, I probably spent more weekends sleeping in lean-tos and mountain cabins than I ever spent in hotels. None of those places had fancy furniture, televisions, room service, or soft mattresses. Most of them barely had a roof, and many had mice that were just as interested in my food as I was.
Yet I would choose one of those shelters over a luxury hotel almost every time. When I woke up in the morning I didn't have to drive anywhere to begin the adventure. I was already there. I could make a cup of coffee, shoulder my pack, and step directly into the mountains. That, to me, was real luxury.
One of the greatest lessons those years taught me is that you don't have to wait until retirement to start living. If you build adventure into ordinary life, ordinary life becomes extraordinary.
Chapter 6: The People I Met Along the Way
The Best Part Was Never the Shelter
When most people think back about hiking trips, they remember the mountains, the views, or maybe the weather. I remember those things too, but when I look back over forty years of sleeping in lean-tos and mountain cabins, what comes back to me first are the people. The shelters were really just excuses for our paths to cross. If everyone had stayed in separate tents, zipped up as soon as dinner was over, I probably would have missed out on dozens of friendships that shaped the rest of my life.
One thing I learned very early was that the outdoors has a way of stripping away the things that usually separate people. Nobody cares what kind of job you have, how much money you make, or what kind of car you drove to the trailhead. By the time everyone has hiked ten miles in the rain, you're all pretty much equal. You're tired, hungry, maybe a little sore, and very happy to have a dry place to sit down. Somehow that makes conversations easier and friendships happen faster.
Dann
If there's one person who appears over and over throughout these stories, it's Dann. We learned together, made mistakes together, laughed together, and pushed each other to try things we probably never would have attempted alone. We also managed to get ourselves into enough questionable situations that it's amazing we both came home every time.
People often ask what makes a good hiking partner. It's not necessarily the strongest person or the fastest one. A good partner is someone who notices when you're not thinking clearly. Someone who isn't afraid to tell you you're making a mistake. Someone who refuses to let you crawl into your sleeping bag when what you really need is hot food and a campfire. I owe Dann more than I can ever repay for those lessons.
He also snored louder than anyone I've ever met.
That may be why I eventually became such a fan of bivy bags. If the weather was decent, I'd often sleep outside while Dann happily rattled the rafters inside the shelter. Looking back now, even the snoring makes me smile.
Complete Strangers
Some of the people I remember most are the ones whose last names I never knew. We'd share a shelter for one night, swap stories over dinner, laugh around the fire, and then head off in different directions the next morning. We never exchanged phone numbers because there weren't any cell phones. We didn't become Facebook friends because Facebook wouldn't exist for another twenty years. We simply shared a memorable evening together and carried those memories home.
I still remember that weekend at Gray Knob when everyone else in the cabin was from Quebec. One fellow spoke enough English to translate everything I said. Every story would go through him first, then the whole cabin would erupt in laughter. Before long there was Canadian whiskey making the rounds, somebody passed around whatever they happened to be smoking, and for one snowy evening we were all simply mountain people enjoying one another's company. Language really wasn't much of a barrier after all.
The Unwritten Rules
There was an unwritten code in mountain shelters. If someone came in soaked to the skin, you made room. If someone needed hot water, you shared your stove. If somebody forgot matches, somebody else always seemed to have some. We shared firewood, maps, weather reports, and trail advice without ever thinking twice about it. Those little acts of generosity happened so often that they just became part of mountain culture.
I think that's one reason I kept going back. The mountains restored my faith in people almost as much as they restored my spirit.
The Real Souvenirs
People sometimes ask me what I brought home from all those trips. The truth is, not very much. A few photographs. A few guidebooks. Some worn-out boots and backpacks. But the real souvenirs were the stories and the people. They're still with me all these years later.
When I think about lean-tos today, I don't picture the wooden walls first. I picture the faces gathered around the fire.
That's probably the greatest gift those shelters ever gave me. They reminded me that adventure is rarely something you experience entirely alone. Even when you start the hike by yourself, before long someone usually walks into camp, sits down beside the fire, and becomes part of the story.
Chapter 7: What the Mountains Taught Me
Looking Back
When I first started hiking, I thought the goal was to climb mountains. Then I thought the goal was to see beautiful places. Somewhere along the way I realized neither one was really true. The mountains weren't keeping score, and they certainly didn't care how many summits I stood on. What they quietly did, year after year, was teach me lessons that I never would have learned any other way.
I didn't realize those lessons were happening at the time. They accumulated slowly, one rainy weekend, one lean-to, one campfire, one wrong decision, and one unforgettable sunrise at a time. Looking back after forty years, I can see that those weekends shaped me every bit as much as college, work, or anything else I ever did.
Nature Doesn't Care About Your Ego
The first lesson came early. The mountains don't care how strong you think you are or how many books you've read. If you ignore the weather, wear the wrong clothing, or make poor decisions, they'll remind you in a hurry. My two bouts with hypothermia in 1985 taught me that lesson far better than any classroom ever could. They also taught me that there is no shame in turning around, changing your plans, or admitting you don't know enough yet.
Oddly enough, that realization gave me confidence instead of taking it away. Once I stopped trying to prove something, I started paying attention. That's when I really began learning.
Experiences Are Worth More Than Things
I never made a fortune, and I never really wanted one. What I wanted was time. Time to head north after work on Thursday. Time to sleep beside mountain ponds, watch the moon rise over a frozen lake, or spend an entire day sitting outside a shelter because it simply felt like the right place to be. Looking back, those experiences have stayed with me far longer than anything I could have bought with the same money.
I don't remember every paycheck I earned, but I remember the smell of wood smoke drifting through Gray Knob, waking up at Hermit Lake before daylight, and sharing a lean-to with complete strangers who felt like old friends by breakfast.
Slow Down
The Long Trail probably taught me this lesson better than anywhere else. One morning at Skylight Lodge I watched several hikers pack up and head down the trail while I stayed behind. I swept the shelter, cut a little firewood, wandered around the pond, and spent the day doing almost nothing at all. At first it felt like I was wasting time. Then it dawned on me that I was doing exactly what I'd come there to do.
Ever since then I've tried to remember that there isn't much value in rushing through beautiful places. Sometimes the best decision is to stay one more day, watch one more sunset, or sit quietly long enough to notice things most people hurry right past.
The Best Adventures Are Shared
I often enjoy traveling alone, but when I look back at my favorite memories, there are almost always other people in them. Dann refusing to let me fall asleep when I was hypothermic. Friends laughing around a campfire at Muddy Pond. The French Canadians at Gray Knob. Complete strangers who shared food, stories, or a place to sleep. Those friendships didn't distract from the mountains. They made the mountains richer.
I think that's one reason I've always enjoyed leading hikes and paddling trips. It's fun to see beautiful places yourself, but it's even more rewarding to watch someone else experience them for the first time.
The Real Gift
People sometimes ask me why I kept going back. Why spend so many weekends in the rain, the snow, the cold, carrying a heavy backpack when I could have been relaxing somewhere more comfortable?
The answer is simple.
The mountains never promised comfort.
They promised life.
Every trip left me feeling healthier, calmer, more grateful, and more connected to the natural world than when I started. They reminded me that we are part of nature, not separate from it. As a pantheist, that feeling has only grown stronger over the years. Whether I was sitting quietly outside a lean-to, watching fog drift through spruce trees, or listening to loons on a mountain pond, I always felt like I was exactly where I belonged.
Life is short. Mountains, rivers, forests, and wild places have given me far more than exercise or adventure. They gave me friendships, confidence, humility, purpose, and a lifetime of unforgettable memories. If these stories encourage even one person to spend a little more time outdoors, slow down a little, and discover their own favorite wild place, then every one of these adventures has been worth sharing.
From Lean-tos to Hostels
Looking back now, I think it's amazing that all of those years of staying in lean-tos and mountain cabins happened before I ever discovered youth hostels. It wasn't until around 1990, during my first trip to the Canadian Rockies, that I stayed in my very first hostel. Before that, almost every shared sleeping experience I'd ever had was in a lean-to, an Appalachian Mountain Club cabin, or one of the mountain shelters scattered throughout New England.
I never really thought about it at the time, but those shelters had already taught me how to share space with complete strangers. We cooked together, shared firewood, swapped stories, compared maps, laughed about our mistakes, and by the next morning it often felt like we'd known each other for years. Sleeping under the same roof somehow removed many of the barriers that usually exist between people.
By the time I discovered hostels, sharing space with strangers already felt completely natural. Instead of feeling awkward, it felt comfortable. Looking back, I think those years in lean-tos slowly changed me from someone who was naturally more of an introvert into someone who genuinely enjoyed meeting new people from all walks of life.
Beginning with that first hostel in the Canadian Rockies in 1990, and especially on my longer trips after 1994, I started staying almost exclusively in hostels and other shared accommodations instead of private hotel rooms. It wasn't just because they were inexpensive. It was because I realized that the people I met there often became just as memorable as the places I had traveled to see.
Even today, when Kim and I travel together, we rarely look for the fanciest hotel room with king-size beds, giant televisions, or luxury amenities. Those things are nice, but they aren't what we remember years later. We look for places with shared kitchens, outdoor patios, community tables, fire pits, and common areas where travelers naturally gather. Those are the places where conversations begin, friendships form, and you get to know both the local culture and people from all over the world.
I don't think that happened by accident. Looking back, I think it all started years earlier in those simple three-sided lean-tos in the forests of New England. Without realizing it, they were preparing me for a lifetime of meeting people from around the world.