Laura Waterman was my first editor of Backpacker magazine. One February she, her husband Guy and headed out to climb two of New Hampshire's higher peaks. We climbed one, then camped in Isolation Shelter for the night. Laura was completing her first winter round of all forty-eight 4000-footers and had just one more to go.
I was so bone-weary after that first peak, I couldn't do her last one with them. I stayed at the shelter and slept the entire day. Laura and Guy did Isolation Mountain and that evening we toasted her feat.
Laura has since climbed all forty-eight of the 4000-footers six times, and three times in winter. This was only her first round.
We camped another night and were out the next day. My weariness did not get any better. In fact, it got worse. It was so bad when I got home I went to the doctor who pointed out I had "walking pneumonia" and a collapsed lung. I hate to think what it might have been like without my two stout friends. For, to be honest, they did carry a lot of my pack load on the way out.
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