Child of Adirondacks returns to high peaks, becomes 46er, pens book on range's history

ALBANY — He climbed his first mountain at the age of just 6. His grandfather had a camp on Third Lake in the Adirondacks in upstate New York, "an easy walk from" Bald Mountain's trailhead.

Five-year-olds were deemed too small to take part in his family's yearly climb, but the summer he turned 6 his parents and grandparents decided he was ready because "it will get him out of the house." The way he remembers it, he scampered all over the mountain, running "back down the 'challenging' parts so I could climb them again."

It would be another two decades before author Tim Rowland climbed again. "I was always out in the woods as a kid," he says, "but never really got into the formal trails and the hiking as a destination."

Instead he got into other "little boy stuff, like motorboats and for a very brief period lawnmowers — anything that made a noise." He biked across the country when he was just 15, as part of the national "Bikecentennial" program in 1976.

Today he has climbed all 46 of the High Peaks of the Adirondacks and many other mountains around the world; he also remains an avid cyclist.

In "High Peaks," Rowland describes the many efforts that have been made over the last couple of centuries to "tame the wilderness" and, of course, turn a profit doing it.

If early industrialists didn't "tame" the Adirondack mountain range area by clear-cutting trees for lumber and establishing settlements on the hillsides, it wasn't for lack of trying. It was the result instead of insufficient equipment and an unforgiving, infertile terrain.

As Rowland notes, "Had Henderson (an early developer) access to a modern front-end loader, there might not be a single high peak standing today."

In the 19th century the woods were visited mainly by hunters and fishermen (there were no limits on catches until the 20th century), artists, loggers, the first intrepid hiking clubs, and robber barons building lavish summer homes. It wasn't until the 20th century that the Adirondacks became the widely popular hiking destination that it is today.

Rowland lives in Boonsboro, Md., and writes a humor column for the Herald-Mail in Hagerstown, which is in the Appalachian Valley, northwest of the Washington, D.C., area. He and his wife run a small-scale working farm, where they raise, among other animals, heifers, alpacas, goats, horses and chickens.

During a recent phone interview, Rowland answered some questions about his new book.

You describe your first hike in detail. Does the vivid description come from your own memory, or does it comes morefrom photos and family lore? Or do you actually remember it yourself?

Yes, it made a pretty severe impression. There were certain things that you were not allowed to do when you were "too little" — whether it's play on the pool table or climb Bald Mountain. And when they figured out that I was old enough to climb Bald Mountain, as much as the hike itself, at 6 years old you think to yourself, "Now I am a man." Because it was such a formative event, you know, coming of age at age 6, it really stuck in my mind.

You've climbed mountains around the world. What were some of your favorites, and how do the Adirondacks compare?

The Rockies and the Himalayas and the Alps are the traditional snow-capped peaks and all, but the Adirondacks are a lot greener, and there's a lot more water. They're not as high and they may not be as dramatic, but to my way of thinking the Adirondacks are actually prettier because of the foliage and the water.

After your first climb, a couple of decades went by before you did another one. How did the second climb come about?

It was my brother that got me back into it, back in the mid-80s or so, by telling me about the 46er Club — people who had climbed all 46 of the High Peaks. We laughed about it because it seemed like such an impossibility. And then I decided that I was going to do it, so I started climbing mountains that I had no idea were not part of the High Peaks. I didn't stop to look at the rules, so I thought, 'Bald Mountain, OK, I've got one, then I climbed Blue Mountain, that's two, and Snowy Mountain, three' — none of which of course are over 4,000 feet — so I had probably climbed 10 mountains before I realized that I hadn't even gotten one under my belt.

Was writing this book a kind of departure for you? You're usually a humor writer. This book had a lot of funny stories, but it's not a humor book.

Yes, this was my first foray into history. It was kind of a happy mix, because of course the humor kept creeping into the history, and the Adirondacks are so rich in funny stories. You're never quite sure what to believe, because they have the long winters, and they can just sit around embellishing. Just about every character that you come across is interesting. And I think you'd have to be, to settle in a climate and a topography like that.

Elizabeth Floyd Mair is a freelance writer living in Guilderland.