Dartmouth Digital Commons (Dartmouth College)

Gentrification transforms neighborhoods and erodes intimacies, creating spaces of displacement and exclusivity. Where, then, is justice in a gentrifying city? In this article, I argue that sound offers an opening into a fleeting—“ephethereal”—justice; that is, a portmanteau of ephemeral and ethereal. This is a justice that is short lived and ephemeral, and yet offers an impression of something not of this world, something ethereal. Drawing on my work on listening to gentrification in Washington, DC, I consider how sound invokes this ephethereal justice and offers us the tools to explore the temporal and spatial contours of liberation

Martin, Allie

Sound, Gentrification, and Ephethereal Justice

Mackinnon, Scot

Appalachia 
Volume 60 
Number 2 Summer/Fall 2009: Our Carbon 
Footprint 
Article 5 
2009 
Leaving the Car at Home: A Connecticut Couple Travels by Rail 
and Bus to Hike in New Haven 
Scot Mackinnon 
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 Part of the Nonfiction Commons 
Recommended Citation 
Mackinnon, Scot (2009) "Leaving the Car at Home: A Connecticut Couple Travels by Rail and Bus to Hike 
in New Haven," Appalachia: Vol. 60: No. 2, Article 5. 
Available at: https://digitalcommons.dartmouth.edu/appalachia/vol60/iss2/5 
This In This Issue is brought to you for free and open access by Dartmouth Digital Commons. It has been accepted 
for inclusion in Appalachia by an authorized editor of Dartmouth Digital Commons. For more information, please 
contact dartmouthdigitalcommons@groups.dartmouth.edu. 
28   appalachia
Leaving the Car at Home 
A Connecticut couple travels by  
rail and bus to hike in New Haven
Scot Mackinnon
From the time he had gotten down off the train and the baggage man had 
thrown his pack out of the open car door things had been different. seney was 
burned, the country was burned over and changed, but it did not matter. it 
could not all be burned. He hiked along the road, sweating in the sun, climb-
ing to cross the range of hills that separated the railway from the pine plains.
—Ernest Hemingway, in “Big Two-Hearted River”
suMMer/Fall 2009   29
in this era oF liMited resources and environMental challenges, my family and i have done our best to limit car trips for all activities, 
including woodland expeditions, but if we wanted to reach the real Two 
Hearted River in Hemingway’s story now, public transportation would not 
be an option. The famous trout stream is still deep in the wilds of northern 
Michigan, but the railroad does not stop there anymore. The same is true for 
similar sojourns in my home state of Connecticut. The irony of burning auto 
fuel and creating more pollution for a little fresh air and exercise is obvious. 
still, Connecticut’s long-established public transportation system provides 
plenty of accessibility to some surprisingly rugged and adventurous hiking 
without the associated smoggy guilt.
 i chose new Haven’s immaculately maintained Regicides (Latin for “king 
killers”) Trail, at West Rock state Park in the city’s north end, because i was 
intrigued by the tales i had heard about the three renegade English judges 
who lay low there three centuries ago in a successful attempt to avoid the long 
reach of their victim’s son, Charles ii.
 Reaching the start of the Regicides Trail via public transportation promised 
to be exhausting, informative, and—because i had never used the new Haven 
bus system before—confusing. Happily, my wife nancy agreed to accompany 
me as navigator and field biologist. But first we had to reach new Haven. 
 Though centrally isolated, our hometown, East Haddam, is not com-
pletely without connections to the outside world. A shuttle bus service to 
the old saybrook railroad station is available one town over in Chester. We 
were running behind, so we hitched a car ride with our daughter, Kat, who 
was heading to old saybrook anyway. This was a sensible decision, as the 
9:14 a.M. The shore Line East train for new Haven was about to pull out on 
schedule as we pulled into the parking lot. nothing like a bracing sprint up 
and down stairs to the far platform to get the blood pumping for the day’s 
activities. Fortunately, an indulgent conductor waited patiently as we scurried 
aboard. so far so good. no need for deep knee bends at the trailhead.
 As the train trundled along making stops in Westbrook, Clinton, Madi-
son, Guilford, and Branford, commuters boarded, taking their accustomed 
seats to chat with friends or read the paper. some adventurous types brought 
bicycles on board to finish their journey when the train reached new Haven. 
now there’s a concept.
Nancy waits with her latte for the first bus while a lost traveler questions a 
transportation official in the SUV. SCOT MACKINNON
30   appalachia
 it turns out that the city buses are dead simple to use. You pretty much 
have to try to mess up to miss a connection. nevertheless, we managed to 
miss the B3 Whalley Avenue bus that would have dropped us practically at 
the entrance to the Regicides Trail. Undaunted, we chased that bus for six 
stops, almost catching it only to see it pull away each time we drew close. Just 
as in the movies.
 Connecticut Transit posts sUVs at strategic positions around the city with 
supervisors on board ready to intervene if a bus has a mechanical failure or 
some other crisis arises. The supervisors suffer fools gladly, which helps those 
of us who do not completely get it. standing in line behind us at the Union 
station bus stop was a guy who i will call Albert, a Dungeons and Dragons 
designer from Philadelphia who was on his way to a “Fur and Fright Con-
vention” in Waterbury. Albert, dressed in black raincoat and long dark hair, 
was not only clueless about public transportation, he seemed to be a little 
confused about the whole space/time continuum thing. When his turn came 
to stick his head inside the shift supervisor’s sUV and ask his question, the 
supervisor nodded patiently. “Which bus will take me to Waterbury?” (He 
had arrived by train.)
 supervisor: “This is new Haven.”
 Albert: “But, which bus will take me to Waterbury?”
 supervisor: “These buses only serve . . . new Haven.”
 Albert: “But, i still don’t . . .”
 supervisor: “We like to say it’s because this is new Haven as opposed to 
say Hartford or . . . Waterbury. Waterbury has its own buses but you would 
have to go there first in order to use them.” He wasn’t finished with Albert, but 
when we realized we were not going to find the B3 bus, we changed course. 
We had wanted a hike—and we got one, on Whalley Avenue, which, in a 
way is the approach trail to the Regicides anyway, since Whalley Avenue is 
named after one of the judges. in fact, all three judges who hid out in Judges’ 
Cave—Whalley and Goffe who had become fugitives after they signed the 
death warrant of King Charles i, and a third who lived under an assumed 
name, John Dixwell—all have roads that meet near the old Yale Coop named 
after them. Go figure. 
 so we walked the two miles from the new Haven Green to West Rock 
state Park. We encountered helpful, talkative people everywhere. When we 
stopped to ask a police officer how to find a cross street near West Rock state 
Park, he helpfully advised us to try another route because of the risk of bodily 
injury in that neighborhood. But no matter whom we asked for directions to 
suMMer/Fall 2009   31
West Rock state Park and the Regicides 
Trail, we were met with looks of baffle-
ment. Even the chivalrous shift supervi-
sor was undone by the question.
 supervisor: “i can tell you what bus 
to take to get to East Rock Park but i 
have no idea how you would get to West 
Rock.”
 We discovered that the city folks are 
rather spoiled by their public transit sys-
tem. We conjectured about what new 
Havenites do if their neighborhood bus 
does not drop them off in their front 
hallway. When we took a hard look at 
the detailed bus schedule, we found that 
both the B1 and B3 buses make stops 
within a few hundred yards of the park, 
but local folks acted as though we were 
talking about some obscure corner of Yel-
lowstone. Local expectations for buses are high. i got the feeling that maybe 
the buses are telling the passengers what to do but not exactly where to go.
 Distances in the city take on interstellar dimensions for the locals. Capering 
about via ankle express for more than a block takes on aspects of The Iliad. Talk-
ing to car-bound visitors to the overlook on top of West Rock, i let slip that hav-
ing missed our bus we had walked (and run) the two miles to the park from 
the Green. Conversations around us stopped.
 Visitor: “You walked from The Green?”
 nancy: “Yesss.”
i started to blurt out that furthermore we intended to hike the 7-mile-long 
trail that started behind them—but i thought better of it.
 The park and its various trails, including the Regicides, is a delight. You 
can even mountain bike on the trails if you wish, though i would steer clear 
of the cliffside Regicides. Wandering around the east side base of West Rock, 
near the recently closed Brookside public housing complex, we stumbled on 
the Common Ground school. it’s a charter school with its own trail system 
that ties into West Rock. The kids were going to set off on a hike on West 
Rock the next morning. Common Ground’s director, oliver Barton, showed 
us around and outlined the school’s mission as a “center for environmental 
The hike ends with a chase across 
the New Haven green. NANCy BAlleK 
MACKINNON
32   appalachia
learning and leadership.” in addition to 20 acres of forest that adjoin West 
Rock, the school hosts an organic farm. These new Haven kids can definitely 
find The Park.
 We spent so much time at the school that we did not get in as much hik-
ing as we had hoped. But we did see plenty anyway. The Judges Cave, the 
weird cairns on the Green Trail, the magnificent views north to the contigu-
ous Quinnipiac Trail as well as sleeping Giant state Park. We also managed 
to reach the gigantic stone ventilation shaft for the West Rock Tunnel on the 
Wilbur Cross Parkway that the Regicides crosses. The ventilator is kind of 
spooky looking, like Jabba’s Palace in Return of The Jedi.
 For trivia fans, about the only thing not mentioned in the indispensable 
Connecticut Walk Book on the subject of the Regicides and West Rock is that 
the tunnel is featured in the 1958 Doris Day classic, The Tunnel of Love. in 
watching a clip from the movie, i noticed that the trees on the ridgeline above 
the tunnel are a lot taller now.
Nancy avoids the edge of a cliff, proving that urban hiking is not tame. SCOT MACKINNON
suMMer/Fall 2009   33
 Heading back into town, we easily found the right bus, which went right 
past Claire’s Cornercopia, a veggie restaurant where we stopped before finish-
ing the route to the train station. Waiting for the B3 in the Westville section 
a few hundred yards from the trail, we felt confident enough to answer a 
stranger’s question about the bus schedule. We were old pros now. Boarding 
the bus, we could look out the window to the northeast and see the sheer cliffs 
of West Rock glowing red in the sunset high over town. We must go back 
again, maybe continuing on to the Quinnipiac Trail next time.
scot MacKinnon—former Appalachian Trail thru-hiker, plant experimenter, for-
mer town selectman, and family man—lives in East Haddam. A version of this article 
appeared earlier in Connecticut Woodlands magazine.
The Regicides Trail follows a basalt wall built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 
1930s. NANCy BAlleK MACKINNON



English

Leaving the Car at Home: A Connecticut Couple Travels by Rail and Bus to Hike in New Haven

Woodside, Christine

Appalachia 
Volume 60 
Number 2 Summer/Fall 2009: Our Carbon 
Footprint 
Article 20 
2009 
A Peak Ahead 
Christine Woodside 
Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.dartmouth.edu/appalachia 
 Part of the Nonfiction Commons 
Recommended Citation 
Woodside, Christine (2009) "A Peak Ahead," Appalachia: Vol. 60: No. 2, Article 20. 
Available at: https://digitalcommons.dartmouth.edu/appalachia/vol60/iss2/20 
This In Every Issue is brought to you for free and open access by Dartmouth Digital Commons. It has been 
accepted for inclusion in Appalachia by an authorized editor of Dartmouth Digital Commons. For more information, 
please contact dartmouthdigitalcommons@groups.dartmouth.edu. 
160   appalachia
A Peak Ahead
A Twist on Going South  
for the Winter
Last year in a coFFee shop in gorhaM, neW haMpshire, i Was introduced to a young woman who was working in New Hampshire in 
the spring and summer and, when the cold set in, she headed south—to 
Antarctica. She is part of a new community of adventurous seasonal workers. 
Thousands of Americans hold seasonal jobs during the South Pole summer, 
from October through February. 
 The next issue of Appalachia will identify and explore this class of seasonal 
workers who migrate from the forests and parks of the United States to the 
South Pole. 
 Our focus will mostly be on Americans, many of whom work for Raytheon 
Polar Services Company, the firm under contract to the National Science 
Foundation to staff the three research stations of the United States Antarctic 
Program. One article will lay out this new economic scene.
 Sally Manikian, whom readers met through her essay on winter caretaking 
in Winter/Spring 2009, is working on an article about the current generation 
of  “polies” who work spring and summer for the Appalachian Mountain Club 
in New Hampshire, and from October through February in Antarctica. 
 Laura Waterman will write a setting for an unusual set of letters she 
received from her husband, Guy Waterman, during many solo winter hiking 
trips in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. 
 John Manuel will write about a new hiking trail volunteers are blazing 
from the mountains of North Carolina to the coast. And a rabbi will share 
his theories of why hiking in clouds is a deeply spiritual journey. We will also 
publish the winning essay in the second annual Waterman Fund contest. (For 
more, see page 159.)
—Christine Woodside 
Christine.woodside@gmail.com
Appalachia_SF09_v8   160 4/2/09   12:06:48 PM



A Peak Ahead

Davis, Todd

Appalachia 
Volume 60 
Number 2 Summer/Fall 2009: Our Carbon 
Footprint 
Article 22 
2009 
The Saints of April 
Todd Davis 
Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.dartmouth.edu/appalachia 
 Part of the Poetry Commons 
Recommended Citation 
Davis, Todd (2009) "The Saints of April," Appalachia: Vol. 60: No. 2, Article 22. 
Available at: https://digitalcommons.dartmouth.edu/appalachia/vol60/iss2/22 
This Poetry is brought to you for free and open access by Dartmouth Digital Commons. It has been accepted for 
inclusion in Appalachia by an authorized editor of Dartmouth Digital Commons. For more information, please 
contact dartmouthdigitalcommons@groups.dartmouth.edu. 
suMMer/Fall 2009   41
The Saints of April
For Jack Ridl
Coltsfoot gives way to dandelion,
plum to apple blossom. Cherry fills
our woods, white petals melting
like the last late snow. Dogwood’s
stigmata shines with the blood
of this season. How holy
forsythia and redbud are
as they consume their own
flowers, green leaves running
down their crowns. Here is
the shapeliness of bodies
newly formed, the rich cloth
that covers frail bones and hides
roots that hold fervently
to this dark earth.
Todd Davis
Todd Davis is the author of two volumes of poetry, Ripe (Bottom Dog Press, 2002) 
and Some Heaven (Michigan state University Press, 2007). His recent poems appeared 
in The Iowa Review, The Gettysburg Review, Indiana Review, and Orion. He is a fre-
quent contributor to Appalachia.



The Saints of April

Fair, Jeff

Grizzly Fear: There Is a Difference Between Ignorance and Wary Respect for a Creature of Several Reputations

Buni, Catherine

Appalachia 
Volume 60 
Number 1 Winter/Spring 2009: What Are We 
Afraid Of? 
Article 6 
2009 
Fear of Falling: Who's Afraid of the Big Haute Route? 
Catherine Buni 
Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.dartmouth.edu/appalachia 
 Part of the Nonfiction Commons 
Recommended Citation 
Buni, Catherine (2009) "Fear of Falling: Who's Afraid of the Big Haute Route?," Appalachia: Vol. 60: No. 1, 
Article 6. 
Available at: https://digitalcommons.dartmouth.edu/appalachia/vol60/iss1/6 
This In This Issue is brought to you for free and open access by Dartmouth Digital Commons. It has been accepted 
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contact dartmouthdigitalcommons@groups.dartmouth.edu. 
36   appalachia
Fear of Falling 
Who’s afraid of the Big Haute Route?
Catherine Buni
Appalachia_WS09_v6.indd   36 11/13/08   1:01:56 PM
Winter/Spring 2009   37
We’ve climBeD anD SKieD almoSt 3,000 vertical Feet in Soul-warming sierra sun. Andy, our guide, lifts a ski pole and points to the 
sky. Above us curls a cornice of snow, ethereal, angelic even, with a halo of 
sun and snow spinning around its luminescent crown. Andy insists the vision 
is rather more sinister. 
 He describes the fracture line, wind direction, weather history, and our 
safest ski routes. An avalanche, about 100 tons of snow, hit here a week ago. 
Andy promises we are in the clear. Even so, it’s hard to avoid the cornice’s pen-
umbral gaze. i can’t keep my eyes off the massive crumpled trees around me, 
felled and broken, says Andy, “like matchsticks.” This place, for a moment, 
for a novice skier who conceivably could have found her way here last week, 
feels, well . . . a bit like hell finally frozen over. 
 A civil engineer by training, laconic by nature, Andy is originally from 
Vermont. in his 20-plus years of skiing and guiding, he has helped dig out 
from the wreckage his share of skiers like me. He’s also crashed through and 
out of a couple avalanches himself. Riding flashy silver skis, Andy shoots 
down couloirs 10 feet wide, 45 degrees steep sometimes seven days a week. 
“High-angle, technical descents,” he calls them. “There’s such a vast amount 
of skiing here, it’s just insane,” he says. 
 We don’t have a lot in common. Clipped into rented skis, i only barely cling 
to middle ground. i work at a computer and have two kids. i overeat at holidays 
and parties, take naps, and regularly forego rigorous exercise to read books. 
 Just like Andy, though, i love backcountry skiing, and have come to 
California’s sunny spring slopes to see if i can haul myself to loftier heights. 
since starting to ski the woods and hills of my new England home more 
than ten years ago, i’ve fantasized about un tour du ski on Europe’s Haute 
Route. it is perhaps the most famous of backcountry ski tours—a week or 
more of hut-to-hut skiing across the Alps’ steep and stormy glaciated sum-
mits. standing now among the cracked corpses of ponderosa pine, staring 
up at hundreds of tons of ice and snow, it’s clear i’ve got a lot to learn before 
i reach my elevated dream.
 Despite the evidence, i am hopeful. Packed with glossy shots of skiers 
jumping off cliffs and cruising ridgelines, the Alpine skills international cata-
log i’d received by mail promised to teach me “uphill and touring techniques, 
as well as great descents.” indeed the backcountry ski and mountaineering 
Catherine Buni, right, gathers her courage before a run with her guide and another 
student. KARI BODNARCHUK
Appalachia_WS09_v6.indd   37 11/13/08   1:01:57 PM
38   appalachia
workshop i’ve signed up for is “to prepare for tours like the Chamonix to 
Zermatt Haute Route.” Perfect. it is also, i read, “for strong intermediate and 
Advanced skiers in Very Good physical condition.” oh, dear. 
 A young woman named sabrina returned my call immediately. she said 
i’d be just fine. Really. 
 now, sitting at a small table next to a wood-burning stove the first morning 
of the workshop, i’m not so sure. Five of us have turned out—my friend Kari 
and i, and three men, all from the sunshine state and looking the part. i can’t 
imagine it’s anything but obvious that Kari and i, coffee-fueled and pale as 
the gloomy March morning we’d left behind in Manchester, new Hampshire, 
have come from another, darker place. We’d downed a few anticipatory cups 
before landing in Reno, nevada, where we picked up a red Mustang rental 
and checked into a casino named Harrah’s for the night. squinting against an 
extravagantly bright rising sun, we headed west the next morning, following 
i-80 35 miles to Truckee and then on up to the Donner spitz Hutte, roadside 
on Donner Pass, some 7,000 feet high in the mountains above Lake Tahoe. 
 But during our introductory meeting, i realize there’s more than elevation 
and jet lag competing for breath. “Your bindings Do noT release,” Andy 
keeps repeating. “We will be skiing on bullet-proof ice, beautiful corn snow, 
and knee-deep glop. our first run will be off the ridge, probably in corn snow. 
Watch out for obvious hazards there: boulders, trees. Tomorrow, we could ski 
down to Donner, but the last slope is pretty involved.”
 involved? With a dramatic sweep of a thick, scarred hand, Andy points 
straight down to the floorboards, fittingly littered with splintered kindling.
 oK, so i’m scared. Big deal. Fear has long been a regular guest on my back-
country ski trips. it’s one of the reasons why i’m here. Fear, we all know, is a 
healthy, self-protective response to situations that could cause harm. My goal is 
to reduce the likelihood of those situations—skiing the steeps and traveling in 
avalanche terrain, in particular—by learning how to manage them responsibly. 
When i FirSt trieD BacKcountry SKiing, i WaS DelighteD to 
discover that i could marry the solitude of hiking and cross-country skiing 
with the thrill of downhill skiing. Backcountry skiing feeds my year-round 
craving for adventure. one of the things i like about telemark skis is that they 
use a free-heel binding system that attaches the toe of the boot to the ski, 
leaving the heel free to lift off the ski. This way, you can move over flat and 
uphill terrain with relative ease. Like downhill skis, telemark skis have metal 
Appalachia_WS09_v6.indd   38 11/13/08   1:01:58 PM
Winter/Spring 2009   39
edges, essential for carving turns that slow you down before you crash into 
that lovely birch you’d so admired on the way up. 
 The focus of my early backcountry outings fell heavily on the side of soli-
tude. i was, after all, an intermediate downhill skier who had never entered 
the winter wilds on anything other than snowshoes. A small band of ski bud-
dies and i reveled in our escape from lift lines, snow guns, and shuttle buses. 
After a few years, our tours grew in length and difficulty, from day trips along 
friendly hillsides and riverbanks to overnights in the White Mountains, the 
Adirondacks, Gaspé. The scales tipped toward thrill. And then, perhaps inevi-
tably, toward fear. 
 Meeting up with breakable crust, i’d faceplant—and how—40-pound 
pack along for the ride. i followed the news when two young skiers were killed 
in an avalanche on Mount Washington’s Gulf of slides, one of our favorite 
spots. steep slopes unnerved me, and i quickly learned to embrace long tra-
verses and side-slipping. i leaned on the wisdom of new England backcoun-
try ski guru and author David Goodman: “When you climb a mountain 
under your own steam, you have earned the right to descend in whatever 
manner you find most aesthetic and pleasurable, provided it does not hurt 
the mountain environment.” My skis and i had certainly never wronged the 
natural world. it was my neck i was worried about. 
FireSiDe introDuctionS maDe, i Sign the Form relieving aSi oF 
any responsibility for my death or paralysis. 
 Thankfully, our first morning’s uphill march requires little more discom-
fort than heavy breathing and the occasional stinging drip of sunscreen into 
wide eyes. During our 1,200-foot ascent to the top of Mount Judah, an 8,243-
foot peak with views of the million-acre Tahoe national Forest, Andy dem-
onstrates climbing skills. We practice kick-turns on steep slopes. We strap on 
and pull off our climbing skins—one-directional strips of synthetic or real 
mohair fur that adhere to ski bottoms to keep the skis from slipping backward 
while still allowing forward glide. on the steepest terrain, we flip up heel 
elevators attached to the backs of our bindings and continue to climb, feet 
flat, despite the precipitous slope. 
 our half-hour lunch break over, we drop off Mount Judah’s summit ridge. 
As promised, the snow has metamorphosed from the morning’s icy coat to 
silken corn. Remembering Andy’s advice to watch for such “obvious hazards” 
as boulders and trees, i choose to parallel my first few turns of the day, and 
Appalachia_WS09_v6.indd   39 11/13/08   1:01:58 PM
40   appalachia
then dip into the telemark. one, two, three, four turns, splat. i’m face down 
in the snow, which, suddenly, at this lower elevation, has melted into the 
aforementioned glop. Everybody’s grinning.
 Let’s do it again, says Andy. More smiling. A few of us cackle, and we start 
climbing back up the mountain.
 The second run is better than the first, and we’re still jabbering instant 
replays when we glide into a grove of ponderosa pine dripping with lichen the 
color of Gatorade. The place is still and quiet and my attention downshifts 
from rushing descents to the sweetness of sun-warmed evergreens. We edge 
our skis into the side of the mountain, threading through the trees and duck-
ing under their fragrant, sturdy boughs.
. . . The average powder avalanche, some 160,000 tons, packs 
2,857 times the horsepower of an Amtrak locomotive. 
 Then, just ahead, the lovely forest lays flat, those sturdy boughs jutting out 
of ice heaps like so many Popsicle sticks. “it’s important,” says Andy, lowering 
his shades, “not to get lulled into complacency. i see a lot of people down here 
who are clueless.” 
 The average avalanche carries enough force to take out entire alpine vil-
lages, fondue pots and all, let alone these postcard-perfect pine groves or a 
scrawny skier. in The White Death (Random House, 2000), McKay Jenkins 
writes that the average powder avalanche, some 160,000 tons, packs 2,857 
times the horsepower of an Amtrak locomotive. of the 140 people trapped in 
avalanches found by rescuers in America since 1950, reports Jenkins, “121 were 
already dead.”
 Andy pauses amid the wreckage. “The backcountry is booming. We’ve got 
more skiers, more snowboarders, more snowmobilers.” And, it follows, more 
clueless people and more avalanche fatalities. stats collected by the Ameri-
can Avalanche Association (AAA) show that between 1950 and 1975, roughly 
six people a year died in avalanches in the United states. Between 1994 and 
1999, that average rose to roughly 30. Winter 2001 was the deadliest ever, 
with 34 killed. over the last ten winters in the United states, an average of 25 
people died in avalanches every year. The typical victim, reports AAA Execu-
tive Director Mark Mueller, “almost invariably lags behind in their avalanche 
skills by a wide margin.”
Appalachia_WS09_v6.indd   40 11/13/08   1:01:59 PM
Winter/Spring 2009   41
 Who, moi?
 We spend the better part of the next day practicing avalanche skills. We 
test beacons and poke around with probes. We dig avalanche pits, study snow 
pack, and forecast avalanche conditions. Taking turns as victim, we role-play 
rescues. in every one, someone suffocates and we’re left standing around on a 
big mountain under shifting gray skies feeling humble and damnably cold.
 sunday evening, our gear packed and ready to go, i corner Andy in the 
lodge. Do you have a minute? Uh, well, a buddy just invited him to help 
drive his parents’ Winnebago to Utah. it’s dumping. They leave in an hour. 
“it’s hard to pass up,” Andy says. “That kind of powder we haven’t seen all 
year.” He’s got a date with his girlfriend. “i don’t want to blow her off,” he 
says, “but i think i’m gonna have to.”
 Quickly then. The Haute Route? What are my chances? Andy pulls up a 
chair, beer in hand. The Haute Route. He pauses. Takes a sip. i wait, assum-
ing we’re both replaying yesterday’s final run, an “involved” slope, you might 
say, with cliffs below and two skiers stuck on more cliffs above. it was when 
one of the guys above lost a ski, which proceeded to rocket toward me with 
missilelike aim, that i went over the edge. i croaked something unpublishable 
and then disintegrated into the skier’s equivalent of the fetal position. 
 Frozen in my tracks, knees bent—No exit, i thought. I can will nothing 
unless I first understand I can count on no one but myself. sartre. or was it 
Camus? Far below, i glimpsed the runout that would deliver me to woodstove 
and hot tea. i took a deep breath. And then i side-slipped all the way down.
 “spend as much time as humanly possible on your skis,” Andy says finally. 
“At ski resorts, start on hard stuff.” stretch. Do resistance training. And maybe 
find a coach. Knowledge, he says, is no replacement for experience. Beyond 
that, Andy won’t commit. But i think i’m going to have to.
CATHERinE BUni is a writer from Montpelier, Vermont, a member of the Appa-
lachia Committee, and the former publisher of AMC Outdoors. she has written for 
Outside magazine, Time-Life, and two anthologies —Outside Story: Local Writers 
Explore the Nature of New Hampshire and Vermont, and Soul of the Sky: Exploring the 
Human Side of Weather.
Appalachia_WS09_v6.indd   41 11/13/08   1:01:59 PM



Fear of Falling: Who\u27s Afraid of the Big Haute Route?

Accidents

Appalachia 
Volume 60 
Number 1 Winter/Spring 2009: What Are We 
Afraid Of? 
Article 17 
2009 
A Peak Ahead: The Carbon Footprint, Then and Now 
Christine Woodside 
Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.dartmouth.edu/appalachia 
 Part of the Nonfiction Commons 
Recommended Citation 
Woodside, Christine (2009) "A Peak Ahead: The Carbon Footprint, Then and Now," Appalachia: Vol. 60: No. 
1, Article 17. 
Available at: https://digitalcommons.dartmouth.edu/appalachia/vol60/iss1/17 
This In Every Issue is brought to you for free and open access by Dartmouth Digital Commons. It has been 
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160   appalachia
A Peak Ahead
The Carbon Footprint,  
Then and Now
HoW they travel to the mountainS haS alWayS aFFecteD hoW hikers, climbers, and skiers experience them. in the old days, moun-
tain visitors used carriage roads and railroads and stayed for a month. Car 
shuttles have dominated the last 75 years, shortening vacations and speeding 
up expectations. now the price of gas and the warming climate suggest a 
reckoning. Are mountain people wasting fuel unnecessarily? The next issue of 
Appalachia will explore old and new pathways to the mountains and across 
them—horses, trains, roads, hiker shuttles. 
 We will look at railroads in the White Mountains, the new patterns of 
behavior the automobile wrought, and Lisa Densmore will tell about trekking 
along a pre-incan path used to transport goods at 12,000 feet in the Cordillera 
Blanca region of Peru. 
 To mark the 75th anniversary of Cardigan Lodge in new Hampshire, which 
the Appalachian Mountain Club first opened as a ski lodge in the 1930s, we 
will reprint old photographs and tell some of the history.
 For the writer, teacher, and former Appalachia editor sandy stott, Cardi-
gan Mountain was where his lifelong love of solo hiking began. in a wonder-
ful essay, stott will describe how mountains have shaped his life.
 The next issue will also include two research articles on the impacts of cli-
mate change in the White Mountain region of new Hampshire and a newly 
discovered eyewitness account of a death in Tuckerman Ravine in the 1930s.
 i look forward to continuing the backcountry-inspired dialogue in the 
next issue when it comes out in June 2009. 
—Christine Woodside
Christine.woodside@gmail.com
Appalachia_WS09_v6.indd   160 11/13/08   1:03:51 PM



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