Hitting The Links: 10/13/24
Catskills Fire Tower Challenge: Complete! Plus thoughts on atonement vs. communion, a bunch of great links, the benefits of zero exercise, and more
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Hunter Killer
We did it. In May, my oldest friend pitched me on the Catskills Fire Tower Challenge, and I said, “Why not?”. Yesterday we finished the last of our 5 hikes*, getting to the top of Hunter Mountain.
He saved this one for last, and had planned on adding a loop-trail that would’ve been epic, but we’re both suffering from head colds and decided discretion was the better part of valor; we’ll save the mega-hike for next spring sometime. Plus, he knew I’d just finished a 7+-week sprint of hectic work & work-travel, literally getting off an 8+-hour flight from Milan the day before this hike, so maybe epic wouldn’t have been the best move.
And discretion still meant 3.5 miles to the top via Spruceton trail, with 1,980’ of uphills, including a stretch of mile 3 that was a ~25% incline (!). At one point, after we passed a group of young hipsters who were posing for a group photo and then tried to match us uphill before surrendering, I joked, “Don’t they understand that we’re a couple of middle-aged white men with families? All we know how to do is keep powering through things.”
The tower itself was a little anticlimactic; it was crowded at the top, people were waiting to get in, and the windows were closed because the wind was up, so we couldn’t get great pix of the views. BUT WE MADE IT.
We talked throughout the day (except during those crazy uphills) about family, politics, how overdressed the other hikers were, my work/travels and this 50+-day sprint I’ve been on, the stone-pines of Rome, the things we wished we did when we were younger.
I told him about how it was Yom Kippur that day and how, for my past 3 years of dying-but-not-dying, I’d spent each holiday fasting, meditating, walking in the woods, and reading books by people who were dying when they wrote them, like Hitchens’ Mortality, Brodkey’s This Wild Darkness, Sacks’ Gratitude, Broyard’s Intoxicated By My Illness. I told him I’d tapped out that practice in 2023, and when it turned out this would be the only day we could finish the Challenge, I said, “Why not?”
Amy wondered if I was still going to fast for the holiday, but a hike like this without water, caffeine, or food would’ve been a (non-)recipe for disaster. So I threw out all the affliction — except those uphills — and spent the day with a friend, hiking until everything was cool and quiet, and instead of atoning for sins I can’t even define, I communed: with nature, with a friend, with what it means to live in time. And when we’d reached the top, I even let myself smile and enjoy the day. I’m still smiling.
After, we had to drive a while to recharge his car and get a meal. I was getting hungry, but nothing like a Yom Kippur fast, so I didn’t go for my remaining pack of trail mix. (As I’ve demonstrated in recent months, a little hunger’s good for me.)
In New Paltz, NY, we wound up in an Italian restaurant and I broke out a surprise for my pal: my first beer in 12 years.
He would always have one after these hikes, and I figured I’d share one with him to celebrate finishing the last fire tower. (I quit drinking in 2012 because of urologist advice, not any exciting/depressing addiction issues.) We had a meal, downed our beers, kept gabbing, and as evening descended, he talked about other trails we could hike in 2025. In my hike-tired, head cold-addled, jet-lagged, beer-buzzed state of mind, I said, “Why not?”
* There are 6 towers in the Challenge, but one is just a short walk from the Catskills Visitor Center. In order, we did Overlook, Balsam Lake, Tremper, Red Hill & Upper Esopus (same day), then Hunter.
*
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And now, let’s hit the links!
Links & Such
Recent Virtual Memories Show podcasts: Christopher Brown • Dmitry Samarov • Stephen B. Shepard • Benjamin Dreyer • Nicholas Delbanco • Dash Shaw • Jess Ruliffson
RIP Robert Coover . . . RIP Lore Segal . . . RIP Ratan Tata . . . RIP Ethel Kennedy . . .
The joke has been made elsewhere, but future/alien archeologists are going to be puzzled af by all those 12’ skeletons.
Beautiful piece by Sebastian Smee about Dario Robleto’s documentary-meditation on the Voyager missions and the Golden Record, “Ancient Beacons Long for Notice.”
Here’s another wonderful process piece from Mark Ulriksen for a painting with special meaning (also, about a spot in Rome that we didn’t get out to see this time).
Matt Zoller-Seitz writes on why it’s great when a filmmaker burns a giant pile of money (preferably the studio’s $).
Speaking of, Warren Ellis wrote about his experience watching Coppola’s Megalopolis.
Speaking of Ellis, I listened to & enjoyed his new 6-part audio drama podcast, The Department of Midnight, during the flight home on Friday.
Current/Recent Reading
Roadside Picnic - Los Bros. Strugatsky
Born With A Tail: The Devilish Life and Wicked Times of Anton Szandor Lavey, Founder of the Church of Satan - Doug Brod
Sound Body, Fractured Mind
I got zero exercise during the week in Italy, not even my morning 15-minute routine, because hotel floors sans yoga mat? No, thanks. The Milan hotel’s fitness center looked fine, but it only had hours that wouldn’t work with my trade show schedule, so all I did was lots of walking from stand to stand and hall to hall at the Fiera, Tue-Thu. I did my 45-minute yoga workout after I got home on Friday from the 8+-hour flight, to get my body stretching again and ready for yesterday’s hike. I’ll get to weights later today, for the first time in 17 days (!), but on the plus side, I weighed in this morning — despite last night’s post-hike dinner — at the lightest I’ve been in ~4 years.
Until Next Time
Thanks for reading this far! I’ll be back on Wednesday with a new episode, maybe some art, but no Instax pix, and on Sunday with links, books, & workout craziness, & maybe a little profundity or something.
Oh, I just don’t know where to begin,