Let us never forget ...

The event started just days after the attacks when a frequent White Mountain hiker who lost a beloved college adviser went to the top of Mt. Liberty in Franconiaia Notch to hoist a stadium-sized flag in tribute. The touching demonstration led to a more formal event the following year with hikers gathering to "adopt" each of the 48 4,000 footers from which flags were flown for two hours.

The first year, I adopted Mt. Lincoln along Franconia Ridge. This year, I wanted to be free of any worries of being above treeline _ and not be held captive by bad weather.

I signed up for Mt. Hale, a sheltered but beautiful summit. It's broad and flat, and its most prominent feature is probably the giant cairn that sets off to one side, and the remnants of a structure at the other end.

A colleague who used to be a Navy Seal was gracious enough to lend me a giant American flag _ 5 feet by 9 feet _ neatly folded into a triangle.

The only dilemma: how to fly a flag that big so it wouldn't touch the ground. But a bit of kismet was in the air, and the night before the hike, I reemaild an email from a hiker I'd never met before who volunteered to bring a 10-foot pole made of four different pieces of PVC piping.

Cantdog "aka Cantdog," Basil "aka Bond," a colleague, Sylvia (no aka) and I all joined up at the Hale Brook Trail near the Zealand campsite around 9:30 a.m. and prepared for the hike up to the top. It's not a strenous hike. I remembered fondly hitting Hale two years earlier and literally running down the trail on the way back down. But I'd forgotten that portions of it are relentlessly steep. Nothing technical, just steep.

We each got into our own comfortable rhythm.

Just before reaching the summit, we ran into Mike (aka Sticks), the fellow who had volunteered to bring the makeshift pole.

We reached the top right around noon, when flags were to be flown from each of the summits.

It was an especially warm September day, and it was boiling on the summit. I shed my shirt and got down to my sports bra -- only to end up with a nice little sunburn by the time the day was over. On top, there were about a dozen hikers, watcing as Cantdog and Bond put the pieces of piping together to form the pole, attached the flag, then a-la Iwo Jima, leaned into the cairn and planted the pole into the center of the rocky base.

Go To Page: 1 2