Snow lay falling, snow on snow, snow on snow on snow; in the deep mid-winter, long, long ago. —Anonymous ONE DARK DAY IN JANUARY, Kit noticed an oversight in my character molding. I had not yet “volunteered” to take advantage of the opportunity to participate in any of the overnight camping trips.1 She informed me that if I didn’t participate in the very next trip, I would not graduate. It was a three-day hike, midwinter, up Mt. Marcy, the highest peak in the Adirondacks, wearing regular stiff, heavy, 1969, downhill ski boots and regular heavy, downhill skis that had sealskins strapped to the bottom of them for traction, which of course broke or slipped loose every half hour or so, necessitating bare-fingered adjustments that would have tested the patience of a watchmaker. I was deeply scared because, past a certain altitude, I can’t breathe. I had discovered this at Camp Billings and had been reminded of it again the summer before Cross Mountain at the ski camp on a glacier.
