In the Whites, the rocky trails go straight up the fall line, so stretches are sometimes essentially brooks. [For a good laugh, read this letter from an Alabama hiker to the Concord (New Hampshire) Monitor.] But on Cabot yesterday, the whole walk felt like wading. Or mudlarking.

This gets tiresome after a while. I’d have to say this was one of the least enjoyable walks I’ve had among the 4,000-footers. Except—and this is a major point—that I was with two of my favorite people.

H and A are escorting me through my late-life surge to top all 48 of these big (by New England standards) mountains. I wandered up Mt. Lafayette—my first 4,000 in 1966, so you can see I haven’t exactly been in a hurry to check off the list. (I kept going back to the ones I liked.) But now I’m focused on completion, and Cabot was Number 40. Three of the remaining eight are a cluster, and we’ll do those as an overnight. Three more are a natural single long day for a strong walker, but for me it will be two days with a good sleep in between. That leaves two, one of which—Mt. Isolation—actually scares my elderly self a bit. But there’s a decent chance that by fall we’ll have ‘em all.

Party on Mt. Carrigain. You’ll all be invited.