Where There's Smoke: Chapter Seven
A Father And Daughter On The Trail To NH's Fire Towers
Welcome to Week Eight, Chapter Seven 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 and Chapter Six. See you in the tower!
The World is Bugs
#7 Pitcher Mountain, Stoddard
For the effort, few fire tower hikes provide more payoff from the top than Pitcher Mountain. While the summit is 2,163 feet, the trail begins close to the top – only .4 or .6 miles to the summit, depending on which of the two trails a hiker selects.
Uma picks the shorter, but steeper route up, a trail filled with spiders and caterpillars and ants, oh my! A half mile to a child who loves bugs can be an all-morning experience. The easy trail – filled with monstrous daddy-long legs, delicate beetles and flitting dragonflies – is a typical source of wonder for my insect-loving kid. Every few steps seem to involve ten minutes of field study.
And that’s fine. My wife and I have worked hard since having Uma to allow nature to play an everyday role in our daughter’s life. Hikes like these should be normal and frequent, as opposed to something special. Access to the outdoors is something she expects, rather than is surprised by.
Little did we expect, however, that nature would manifest itself in her in the form of a love of (almost) all things creepy and crawly, but the day is clear and our legs strong so we have time to explore.
I watch my child, in her new boots, her light blue unicorn poking out of a backpack pocket, first run, then walk, then run up the trail.
Pacing is not yet a concept for her.
Near the top, the woods tighten on the trail, the birch and pine giving way to ferns and then to enormous, bushy blueberry bushes. Sweat bees and bumblebees flicker and dash across the trail. In some stretches, the bushes tower two or three feet above Uma’s head until it gets to be too much for her, too many bees, too many leaves.
“Daddy…” She hesitates.
“We’re almost there,” I say. “Let me go first and you stay close behind, k?”
She tucks in behind, gripping my pinky like she used to as a baby. Soon we break free of the bushes and the fire tower glints in the sun before us.
We lounge near the tower base, eating cookies and cucumbers, as a light southern wind flicks at my daughter’s hair, cooling my sweat, giving us relief from the endless heat. The blueberries are everywhere, and soon Uma drops boldly down into a space between a boulder and bush and begins stripping handfuls of tiny, ripe berries. I try to catch as many as I can in a small container but most go straight into her mouth.
At one, point, she looks up at me and grins – my daughter of the earth – her lips and teeth deep purple, her hands streaked with juice and I think, when have I been that happy? When has eternity given me such contentment.
“What daddy?” she asks. “Why are you laughing?”
“Because you make me happy, baby.”
She shrugs, and I close my eyes for a moment, letting the mountain and the wind and the berries and my crazy powerful five-year-old wash over me. She’s my contentment. She’s my happy.
“I think I’m done, daddy,” she says.
We pick a few more berries to take home to her mother, pack our bags and leave the tower in search of more insects.
Before long, we realize we are being followed. Uma stops in her tracks and points.
“Daddy, look!”
There, fluttering down the trail toward us, its deep blue wings flickering in the noon-day sun, is the amusingly named butterfly, a Red-spotted Purple. We’d seen this fellow earlier near a turn in the trail, but now it appears to be following us. Uma watches the little guy drop to eye level and land nearly at her feet.
“Daddy, it’s like it wants to tell us something!”
And I want to say to her, everything, baby, everything. Like the poet William Blake seeing Heaven in a wild flower, this tiny, fragile life can teach you everything. Just one minute with the butterfly, one moment, could be enough to awaken you to the cosmos, to the brilliant stardust that I see burning inside you every day. Your thread-like connection to that tenuous life that appears to have selected you of all the passing humans is literally why you’re here, the reason for all of this – your mother and the trail and the Sun that makes you glow, and of my love for you.
All of it, and more, in the reflection of a deep blue butterfly in your curious eyes.
She slowly reaches down to the butterfly, extending a finger, holding her breath. I can see that every ounce of energy is being directed toward somehow convincing the butterfly to alight on her finger, to give her that moment of connection.
But it’s not to be.
The creature lifts up and flutters down the trail. We catch up, and Uma tries again. And again. And again. The butterfly leads her and she follows. They play a game of tag, two delicate children of an endless cosmos, intersecting for a bright, joyful moment, and then parting.
The butterfly eventually floats off into the forest and Uma sighs deeply, watching it go.
“Daddy, look,” she says suddenly. “It’s an inch worm!”
The universe takes, the universe gives, and we two wanderers keep on walking.
Pitcher Mountain, Stoddard (Elevation 2,163 feet)
Location and Direction: The primary trailhead is found along Route 123, about 5 miles north of the Route 9 junction. The parking area fits about 6-8 cars. There are two main trails for ascent, the Blue Trail (.4) and the White Trail (.6). The White Trail is part of the Monadnock-Sunapee Trail corridor.
Our Route: The Blue Trail up to the White Trail down. Total mileage (.8)
If You Go: If you go in late July or early August, he sure to bring a container or bucket for blueberries or raspberries. Take a moment along Route 123 to see if you can catch a glimpse of the fire tower as you approach the parking lot. On the White Trail, check out the amazing views from the hay field!
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Lovely in every way! Would be fun to do the boulder hike in addition.
Beautifully done!