THE MIDDLEBURY FIRESIDE The Middlebury Fireside Kindling Stories & Igniting Inspiration in Middlebury’s Outdoor Community Vol. I Fall 2015 We believe in the creed of the campfire, the religion of rock, the pilgrimage of the trail and the meditation of the mountaintop. We are the essence of stories and want yours to come alive in firelight. Contents I. Up Liberty, Jordan Collins II. Crude, Ben Harris III. No wonder they call it the great one, Emma Erwin IV. Constants, Cooper Couch V. Tchotchkes, Hannah Habermann VI. Calculating Beauty, Mara Gans VII. Augusta, Hannah Habermann VIII. On Earth, For Earth, Jenny Moffett IX. In Search of Paradise, Meena Fernald X. Algonquin: Power, Peace, and Metempsychosis, Kent Ratliff XI. The desert, Mara Gans XII. Faces of the Ice, Ryan McElroy XIII. Teton Dreams, Morgan McGlashon a note from the editor As I approach the end of my time at Middlebury, I find myself reflecting on the ‘good old days’ of being here. Those days when I was younger, the college was newer, and a different party graced the plush seats of the Proctor lounge. Yet, while faces change, and I feel my own four years ebb towards their end, there’s a steady cycle to the culture here. For every fading senior there is a passionate freshman ready to pick up the pack and shape their new home. And so, just as we all pass along Painter’s cane at convocation, as students here, we all pass along the memories and stories that shape our collective identity. Here, bound between the Greens and Adirondacks, guided by our shared culture, we become as resilient as the mountains themselves. As Laurie Patton put it when she joined our community, “These moun- tains call all of us to be bigger in our aspirations and yet also to be small- er and linked to a larger purpose. Middlebury’s mountains give us a sense of place that is also a sense of community. They help us find our place in the world, and even if we don’t find it immediately, we have a deep and abiding trust that we will. This is the strength of the hills.” We hope to share that strength with you, just as many before us have shared it, with stories and tales told in the glow of the fireside. - Mara Gans ’15.5, President Cover photo by Mara Gans ’15.5; Mission statement photo by Sofi Hecht ’18; Logo by Evan Gallagher ’15. 6 Fremont Peak, Wind River Range. Ben Harris ’16. Undisclosed location. Ben Harris ’16. 7 Up Liberty Jordan Collins ’15.5 We talked about how last night was like a birth canal the two of us starting our ascent without expectation, knowing only that the sun sets and sight fails, and realizing what it means to travel as if motionless through a vortex. To arrive out of such black silence, pierced only by our dim sphere of perception: that miracle headlamp glow, beyond it noise resounding in the imagination. What surrounded seemed empty, might not be. Moving like this changed our bodies, tricked them into strength outside of time and space, the night becoming an escape from intellect— consciousness pushed to the surface like sweat, senses carrying us forth as they would on scrambled legs. We were born, this morning, naked on a mountain, its cliffs conducting a symphony of orange. Our first wail was a melody from lives past, our singing caught by the winds that curve around this world in currents, the precious sting of those high breezes on our bare bodies bliss, coursing through new veins. 8 Crude Ben Harris ’16 Only rainbows she ever sees are in gasoline so she prays for a spill in the morning paper. Please no. No, not petrichor—petroleum, because the ugliest thing in the world is a bird so slick and black it cannot breathe. She watches the ship way out there keel over then she says seems like seems like the water just all of a sudden decided it don’t care to carry around any more dead weight. He laughs and grabs the camera, starts shooting as a thousand rotting octopi wash ashore one by one. When the octopus is faced with a predator it shoots black ink and swims quickly away. He films as the bird wades back into the bruising sea beak bowed before the breaking waves, the bleeding plume. Accompanying photo by Michael O’Hara ‘17 9 No wonder they call it the great one Emma Erwin ’15.5 Foreword by Mara Gans ’15.5: hopefully it’ll be fine. This is hard work So often when we talk of mountains, we for sure—a marathon like no other. get caught in the endless edits, reflections, and missed details of stories long since June 19 past. This watering down, mixing around So tired again and my feet have disinte- and cleaning up of those tales is certainly grated. The inside arches, heels, and toes valuable as we incorporate them into the are all rubbed completely raw. They’re rest of our lives—but there’s something to pretty grumpy. Another big night, but be said for the in-the-moment, unabridged not too terribly long. Snow/ice conditions rush of those same tales. This series of jour- were pretty stellar so it’s much less sketchy nal entries by Emma Erwin ’15.5 gives you than yesterday. The hill of cracks lives up the raw play-by-play of her daily life on to its name: a solid running jump to cata- Denali. It brings with it the fear, joy, awe pult your body over is required to get past and occasionally poor sentence structure of atleast a dozen of the crevasses. Not too someone who’s really writing at 17,000 feet. bad with solid snow, but I’m guessing it gets pretty sketchy when the snow soft- June 18 ens up (which usually happens around Night hiking is awesome but I’m exhaust- 7am)—luckily we made it through just ed. Hiking for twelve straight hours is before then. It’s awesome hiking at night the norm now and the lower icefall was though—better snow, cooler tempera- gnarly. I took a big fall when an ice block tures, no need to worry about sunburns, fell out from under me as I was crossing and the sky is in a constant state of sunset/ a crevasse. Definitely shaky after that, but sunrise. It looks that there’s been a pretty a snickers bar helped. I’m a little nervous big forest fire way off in the distance, so it about going back through the icefall to- smells like smoke and the horizon is hazy. night to get the cache and bring it up. Happy to have made it back to camp in Hopefully it won’t be too bad, just anoth- under twelve hours and I’m so, so glad to er big push. My feet are starting to feel it get to sleep. and show it—long days in plastic boots make some pretty raw soles. So exhaust- June 24 ed and glad to be able to get some rest. Feels like Denali weather now. It was Real nervous about the move tonight but cloudy at 3 am when we woke up, and 10 now it’s pretty much a whiteout with a fall we’re all dead! decent amount of snowfall and winds. Getting back down the ridge to pick up The way up was quite a beat down— the cache was actually pretty fun. Going luckily we got stellar weather. I definite- back up along the ridge was pretty gnarly ly freaked out a bit on the home stretch. though. Plenty of fresh powder renders Coming off a big ridge I had to monkey crampons useless, if that wasn’t enough, over a huge crevasse with horrible footing add in high winds and next to zero visibil- and no solid ice axe placement. But, like ity—plus you can’t hear anything. most things, I just took a big leap and it was A-Okay. Jackson struggled over that June 25 part and took a pretty big fall. But, every- Today was quite a day. We ferried a load one self-arrested and that kept us all from up to Browne’s Tower and back—it was by falling too far. far the toughest day so far and completely exhausting. Up by 4 am and out by 6; it The altitude is starting to get to everyone took us a solid 6 hours to get up and we now. Little tougher to breathe up here. didn’t make it back to camp until just be- fore 6 pm. A long haul for sure with a lot July 1 of ups, lots of rappels, and all kinds of rid- Welp, yesterday got a little crazy. We left geline walking. You have to be completely Browne’s tower fairly early and made it focused and on your A-game every single to the cache in pretty good time. It was step. ’Cause if you take a misstep and a big getting pretty windy so we pushed up to 11 the ridge to check out the conditions and July 3: Summit Day try to scout camping at 18,000 ft. But at We made it! The view from on top was the top winds were so insane we decided unreal and almost everyone shed some to head back to the cache and hide be- tears coming around the last ridge.