Someone casually asked me the other day, “So, where’s home?”  I stood there looking confused for a while until I noticed that she was getting uncomfortable, and then blurted out, “It’s complicated!”  Because it is.  I had been used to thinking of home as a house, or at least a set of people that I’m most familiar with, or even a city where I spend most of my time.  But now, when I have no house, I move from place to place, and I’m only occasionally with people I know, and then not for very long, I’d have to say that I feel more at home than I ever have, anywhere.  And that’s surprising.  Because I expected to miss the security and comfort of a roof over my head, a kitchen to cook in, and companions and coworkers that I saw often.  Three weeks and three thousand miles ago when I drove away from my brother’s house on the first day of my journey, I admit I was nervous about what I’d find and how I’d deal with the stresses and the loneliness of traveling.  But it’s been easy, it’s been fun, and almost everyone I’ve met has been friendly and cheerful.  I haven’t had a moment of loneliness.  Yes, I expect that there may be difficult times ahead, there will be bad days, and I’m certainly more familiar with the eastern states than those farther west, but now I’m confident that I can handle it.  I’ll be okay.  I’ll be more than okay, I’ll be home, whatever that means.

But if I had to pick one place that I would have called home before this journey, it’s the Adirondack Mountains of New York State.  I used to be a licensed guide here, and would take people out on trips — first whitewater rafting, then backpacking, backcountry skiing, and canoeing.  The ‘Dacks have a certain presence, and a certain culture, that’s both rustic and sophisticated.  It’s hard to describe unless you visit here.  I’ve always found it interesting that you can only really see mountains from a distance — once you’re in them they seem to melt around you, and you can only feel them.  They dwarf you and envelop you, and you find that once you reach a mountain, you can no longer perceive it.  Again, hard to describe, and maybe it’s best if I just put it this way:  mountains are magic.  They must be experienced.

After a couple of days of drinking Franz’s beer, sitting on the dock, and just generally being lazy, I decided to do a tour of some of my old haunts.  I first drove north along Lake Champlain to Ausable Chasm, sometimes known as the Grand Canyon of the Adirondacks.  It’s a beautiful gorge on the Ausable River, where you can hike, raft, go tubing, or rock climb.  I did none of those, just for the record, because I just wanted to take a look and then get over to the High Peaks region, but the beautiful waterfall that you can see from the road is worth the drive, even though there are more spectacular sights further up the gorge.

The town of Lake Placid (which is not on the actual lake of Lake Placid, but rather on Mirror Lake) was the home of both the 1932 and 1980 Winter Olympics.  The Olympic Complex is still used for training, the huge ski jumps are still in operation (and difficult to get a picture of, sorry), and skiing Whiteface Mountain and Mount Van Hoevenberg is almost a rite of passage for anyone from Upstate New York.  The town itself is a sporty kind of touristy, with plenty of good cafes and outdoorsy shops.

I was a bit disappointed that one of my favorite hang outs was closed, though.  The Pipe and Book was an eclectic combination of tobacconist and used book shop that I could get lost in for hours, while enjoying the strangely charming scent of flavored tobacco and aging bindings.  It was evocative of a more contemplative, literary, hobbit-like age, and I’ll miss the place.

Recalling my recent trip to Harpers Ferry in West Virginia, one of the places I wanted to see again in the Adirondacks was John Brown’s farm in North Elba, NY.  If you remember, John Brown led the raid on Harpers Ferry to capture the arsenal there, in a failed attempt to start an armed rebellion to free the slaves.  He was hung for treason after he was captured.  Brown first moved to North Elba in 1849, where he build a homestead, and lived with his wife and thirteen children.  Although the house was fairly large for the time, I still find it amazing how such a large family could live comfortably there.

Brown’s purpose in living at North Elba was nominally to teach farming to freedmen at a black settlement in the area, but he was also active in the Underground Railroad, and he and his sons would often bring runaway slaves through Indian Pass to join the free community or move on to Canada.  The picture below shows the farmstead from a distance, with Indian Pass in the background, the deepest notch in the mountains on the right.  I’ve hiked through Indian Pass, and it’s tough going, even with modern equipment.  I left a lot of sky in the picture, because the clouds were magnificent!

John Brown’s body was returned to his home after he was hung, and the tombstone is now in a glass case to preserve it from further erosion by the weather.

Still a controversial figure, considered by some a hero and by others a fanatic, there’s nevertheless an acknowledgement of his contribution to the Underground Railroad and his role in Emancipation in this statue at the farmstead.

I next drove into the High Peaks region of the Adirondacks where I used to do a lot of hiking.  From a distance you can see Avalanche Pass on the left, and Indian Pass on the right.

Getting a bit closer, you can see where recent avalanches have scarred the face of Mount Colden, giving the pass its name.  I’ve hiked and skied though Avalanche Pass many times, and there are several points at which the cliffs fall directly into Avalanche Lake.  These days there are wooden catwalks bolted to the cliff face, but the story goes that, before these existed, a woman hiker named Matilda was being carried on her guide’s shoulder through the water at one of these points, and her sister urged her to “hitch up Matilda” in order to keep her skirts dry.  The catwalks are still called hitch-up-Matildas today.

Driving through the mountains had pretty much convinced me that I needed to get lost in the trees and mountains for a few days as I used to, so I made a stop at The Mountaineer, one of my old favorite outdoor shops, to ask for trail advice.  Friendly and helpful as ever, the man there advised me on a couple of trails that he thought would be almost empty, and had good views.  By the way, The Mountaineer still has the widest range of suspenders I’ve ever seen, so check them out if you’re in the market for some!

I’m feeling the need to disconnect and go off grid for a while, so if you don’t hear from me for a few days, don’t worry, I’ll be back!  And besides, no matter where I am, I’m home.