Manchester City Library

A long time ago, my father had a goal that he worked on a few weekends a year. 6 am on Sunday mornings he and my brothers would head north to the White Mountains. His plan was to hike all 48 peaks over 4,000 feet. When I was 10, I was finally allowed to go with them. I think my first ever hike—a warm up, really, was up the Tuckerman Ravine trail to Mt. Washington’s headwall. It must have been May or June, a time when the summit is still packed with snow, because I remember seeing several people pass us carrying heavy skis on their shoulders, intent on skiing over the edge and into the ravine. Their fearlessness made an impression on me. But I had a small victory of my own that day—I got to trudge alongside my brothers and father. And I decided that I was going to be a hiker like them. Decades later, my hiking trips are not as memorable as they once were. Long gone are the almost straight up ascents, 3 or 4 miles to the summit—a place where we’d sit together on flat stretches of rock to admire the endless views and eat my mother’s tuna sandwiches.

That wistful feeling came back to me the other day while reading Tom Ryan’s Following Atticus: 48 High Peaks, One Little Dog and an Extraordinary Friendship. Tom and his miniature schnauzer, Atticus M. Finch, had a goal like my father—only theirs was to hike those 48 mountains not once, but twice in one winter to raise money for charity. Together they experience the mountains in all types of forbidding weather and in varying states of health and spirit. They scramble up windswept, icy trails, reach isolated summits and often sit and contemplate the silent beauty in front of them.

Following Atticus covers a lot of ground and often evokes a range of emotions in the reader. For me, it is ultimately a story about finding your way in the world—generally not the easiest way but always the most rewarding and authentic—as Tom explains: “In the mountains Atticus became more of what he’d always been, and I became less—less frantic, less stressed, less worried, and less harried.” The book reminded me of the sort of peace that I also felt on the high peaks, a long time ago. Thanks Tom and Atticus for inspiring me. Any day now, I’ll be dusting off my old Limmer boots and heading north once again.

Mary O