It sounded good to me, even during the month of July, which is liable to be stifling or stormy. Gary Moore from Bradford said he’d go, too; so I picked him up the Bradford park-and-ride at seven on the dot, and we were off across half of New Hampshire to meet the crew from Durham.

Besides the advertised views, I was looking forward to hiking through a stand of jack pine, a tree that usually grows farther north, but has somehow been stranded on Welch Mountain. Named Pinus banksiana for the famous naturalist Sir Joseph Banks, who as a young man accompanied Captain Cook on his first circumnavigation, it has the unusual feature of shedding fire-resistant seed cones that don’t germinate in the shade created by more competitive northern species like spruce, poplar, and hemlock. But when a fire comes through, killing the competing species, the jack pine’s seeds open like popcorn and germinate. Thus it’s an early reforester of burnt-over land. It never gets to the size of its nobler neighbors, but it sure does hang in there.

Because the hike today probably wouldn’t be the most fascinating adventure in the world, I put together something else to talk about and demonstrate: a lightweight overnight camping outfit. Looking to Rogers’ Rangers for inspiration – they slept out on winter nights with often only a light wool blanket and covered incredible distances through the wilderness on a diet of parched corn and dried venison – I like to leave behind what isn’t essential and camp very simply. So Mother put together a freeze-dried quick-boil dinner and breakfast, and I packed a small cooking pot, a spoon, and a little Whisperlite stove. I wasn’t really going to use them – this was a day hike – but just demonstrate how little I could take if I were staying overnight.

Gary was for many years a member of a search-and-rescue team, so we dissected the pack together for the camera – one-pound sleeping bag, one-pound tarp tent and no-see-um mesh, Bic lighter – and he commented wisely as we went through the stuff. The whole thing weighed about sixteen pounds, more than I like to carry on my many-splintered legs, but I’d already left behind a lightweight Gore-Tex parka and a pair of rain pants. Weather forecasts nowadays are much more reliable than they used to be, and for this day that seemed a safe bet.

Speaking of weather forecasts, the prediction for today was hot (high 80s, and how I hate ‘em!) and humid, with bright sun. But I’ve adopted and adapted Donald Rumsfeld’s famous bit of wisdom, and go on a hike with the weather I’ve got, not the weather I want; so I packed extra water. The trailhead parking lot was surprisingly capacious, but we were the only vehicles in it.

I’ll admit to a tiny bit of anxiety over certain phrases in the guide book: “climbs steeply at times with several short scrambles, over open ledges...drops steeply to a wooded notch...caution, as blazes are near the top of the cliff.” Sounded like a bit of on-all-fours stuff from time to time. I’d left my walking sticks behind, as I’ve often found them unwieldy on scrambles, and instead brought a sturdy rubber-tipped cane that turned out to be ideal.

As we got ready to leave the parking lot – it takes a little extra time to install lapel mikes, get the cameras fired up and running, and fasten the tripod legs together – people began showing up as if a big football game had just gotten out. Family groups, runners with dogs, church camp kids with enthusiastic counselors, young couples. It was going to be a swarm! Off we went.

We played leapfrog for a while with a bunch of Methodist kids, passing them while a very sober-faced junior counselor applied a band-aid to a scraped finger. We were passed by a three-generation group: a local grandmother and enthusiastic peak-bagger, followed by a (shall we say) clearly less motivated daughter visiting from Kalamazoo, and a little guy just about to dig in his heels and holler to go back. And eventually we got to the promised ledges.

Welch Mountain is like most others: It makes you think, as its rocky view opens out, that you’re almost to the top. Then when you get into the open and look up, you see the real top towering impossibly above you. But, hey! Only four-and-a-half miles. Let’s do it!

The guide book suggests not climbing Welch or Dickey in wet, slippery, or icy conditions. Good advice. The ledges drip here and there with water, and a slip in some spots could be serious. Today the coarse-grained granite slabs were gentle with us, though we met hikers shepherding or carrying down dogs that had had enough. Even on top, the heat was just as advertised, with the sun cooking us through a light haze. We were getting seriously dehydrated. I had drunk up one bottle of water, sipped from clear springs running down the rocks, and saved my second bottle to drink with my lunch. But somehow my flask of white gas infected my bologna sandwich. I ate only half of it and burped Coleman fuel all the way down the mountain. Right now a large strawberry shake is calling to me from the Plymouth Burger King. A great trip – to have done!