Where There's Smoke: Chapter Eight
A Father And Daughter On The Trail To NH's Fire Towers
Welcome to Week Nine, Chapter Eight of Where There’s Smoke: On the Trail to New Hampshire’s Fire Towers, a weekly Wednesday publication brought exclusively to subscribers of Day By Day. We hope you enjoy this old is new memoir of a father and daughter’s adventure to all of the Granite State’s active lookouts. And while you all are getting these chapters first and we won’t be sharing across networks, the link is open should you want to share or pass on to someone who you think would be interested in subscribing. Please like and comment and let’s make this run a success!
If you’d like to catch up first, here’s a link to last week’s Introduction and a link to Chapter One, Chapter Two, Chapter Three, Chapter Four, Chapter Five, Chapter Six and Chapter Seven. See you in the tower!
Grasshopper Symphony
#8 Red Hill, Moultonborough
There are not a few grasshoppers, or even many, at the hot, ledge-lined summit of Red Hill.
There are legion.
Uma steps up onto the rocks under the fire tower, gently, like walking in slow motion, and spreads her arms wide – a tiny Moses. And the creatures respond. Dozens of them, hundreds, lift up into the air, miniature, bristling helicopters, their collective wings clack, clacking, drowning out the distant cicadas.
“Daddy-” she whispers, “daddy, daddy…” unable to put her joy into words.
But I can. Watching her drift through this wave of clattering grasshoppers is an epiphany. I hold my breath, like I could fill my lungs with the air of this moment of grace and expel it into a sacred bottle later, magic air of a moment of connection between my daughter and the peculiar nature of a five-year-old conducting a symphony of grasshoppers under the steel beams of a nearly half century old fire tower.
My daughter stands on a 2,000-foot platform in the middle of time. She waves her arms and her orchestra of grasshoppers – one of the oldest living herbivorous insects, dating back 250 million years to the early Triassic – rise up and sing, their tiny yellow, brown and brilliant green wings giving voice to the mountain.
Behind Uma, the glacial Lake Winnipesaukee, which the Abenaki called “Smile of the Great Spirit,” listens like an audience, her water seeming to ripple to the insect music. And before Uma, rising like a balcony, Mount Chocorua’s bald summit looks down on the performance, and I’m brought back to a hike I took up that mountain with my other daughter Janelle, a hike that illustrated Janelle’s strength of purpose and brought her own self into focus.
And I wonder if this hike will be Uma’s power hike, the one that creates the future woman, the moment that sharpens her resolve. The one where she begins to be something more than my daughter. The one where she begins to be Uma.
But now, she just turns to me, lowering her hands as the grasshoppers fall back to the stone and the concert subsides, and all that remains is her wide grin.
Getting here had not been easy, and getting down would be a challenge as well. Unlike most of the fire tower trails, Red Hill was neither a drive up nor a mellow forest walk. At 1.7 miles to the summit, with about a thousand feet of elevation gain, Red Hill acted more like a standard White Mountain trail; rooty, rocky and steep in some places. But the understanding that there was a tower watchman on duty, as well as chocolate, waiting for her at the top, kept her moving, though moving slowly. It took us about two and a half hours to attain the summit.
Red Hill is owned and operated by Moultonborough instead of the state, making it both unique and easier to access. I had made arrangements with watcher Kelley Brown, letting her know we’d be showing up at some point. Today was a public access day for the tower, but my fears of long lines or a crowded summit were unfounded. It appeared that only my five-year-old was deliriously excited about visiting the inside of a tower cab.
And even that excitement was lost in the swarm of grasshoppers, and the joy of Kelley’s well trained and friendly pup, Willa.
I’m stunned by the views, perhaps the best we’ve experienced thus far with Squam and Winnipesaukee lakes splayed out to the south and the full spread of the southern Whites to the north. The day is perfect, the wispy clouds layering the sky and kissing the waters.
I think of Philip Connors’ book-length essay about his time spent as a Fire Tower Lookout in the New Mexico mountains.
“Time spent being a lookout isn’t spent at all,” Connors wrote in Fire Season. “Every day in a lookout is a day not subtracted from the sum of one’s life.”
I’m drawn to the long wide windows and believe I could sit and stare for hours.
But for my daughter, not even that glorious, dream-like vista can overcome a tower cab literally hopping with grasshoppers and a small, furry dog that immediately takes to Uma. Kelley teaches Uma a few basic commands, sit, stay, and gives her a handful of treats to feed Willa, who expertly carries out Uma’s commands.
“I’m afraid nothing can beat Willa,” I say to Kelley.
She laughs. “Willa is pretty special.”
The summit is not busy, and Kelley (and Willa) is patient, so eventually we manage to position Uma in the lookout chair, facing the great lake.
“When I heard you were coming, I thought I’d make a package for you,” Kelley tells Uma and hands her a package of Smokey the Bear stickers and bookmarks, and a Junior Ranger pin for her hat. My daughter straightens up a bit, leans forward and gives that grand view a deep look; a look that echoes with decades, centuries, of intent. Kelley and I stand back a bit, give her some space, allow her to breath in the same sacred air, to be in the same space in the cosmos as thousands of indigenous people, rangers, tourists and the curious have come before.
The same space at the top of a creaky, hot, lookout tower, steeped in memory; a sisterhood, like the AMC Hut Croo, or a Mount Washington Observer, that perhaps someday she’ll join and leave her own invisible, but indelible footprint on.
She sighs and says, “Daddy, I can’t see any grassies from here.”
Later, after lunch, after she’s chased the grassies and explored every corner of the summit, after the sun begins to cast our shadows and we start running low on water, she says, “Daddy, I think I’m ready to go home.”
And so, we do. I carry her on my shoulders for the first half mile down or so, giving her time to rest, time to think.
“Why so quiet, little bug,” I ask at one point, as my back and shoulders begin to ache.
But she just pats the top of my head, and I can feel her smile in the ends of her fingertips, as if to say, just keep walking big guy, I’m good.
And Red Hill gives us easy passage, even the skeeters seem to give us a pass. She’s asleep in the car within minutes, of course, and I can feel the ache in my shoulders slowly turn to pain. She’s no longer a tiny bean, of course, and I suspect tonight will be a Tylenol evening. But gain comes with some sacrifice. My body would heal.
What mattered was that we’d spent the whole day on a mountain, her and I, our first time. And now, we were more than half way to our goal. We were doing it.
Red Hill, Moultonboro (Elevation 2,020 feet)
Location and Directions: The tower can be reached through a number of different trails extending from various locations, some longer than others. The primary Trailhead can be found on Red Hill Road. Head north from Meredith on Route 25 through Center Harbor into Moultonborough. Make a left on Sawmill Way, then a sharp left on Red Hill Road. Trailhead parking in on your right, not to far past Brick Kiln Road. There’s an upper and lower level parking area.
Our Route: We followed the Red Hill Trail up and back. Total mileage (3.4 miles)
If You Go: Check with the town of Moultonborough or fire department to see when the fire tower might be open for visitors. The tower also has a Facebook page. You don’t have to register, but best to start early. There wasn’t a line when we were there, but there would be later in the day or on weekends. This is a classic moderate White Mountain trail with some steeps, be aware to put aside some extra time if you’re bringing little ones.
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"I can feel her smile at the end of her fingertips..." What a wonderful sentiment Dan, well said.