on Bear Mountain

On Bear Mountain, we started on the ground – an hour’s drive up the silent snake of the Palisades Parkway, memories of Paterson lingering on the edge of New Jersey before we slip into New York State. Its mountainous otherness. We live in this state and never go to it. Strange.

But after finding a crappy map and taking a chance, the whole family set out – two people, two dogs – to climb a mountain under a coldish March sky, on a clear almost-spring day, to get a little closer.

A ring around the lake by the deserted inn, literally, with boards on the doors and windows. Nothing around in the huge field surrounding it but goose shit and brown grass. Strange children out of school in the middle of a Tuesday with even stranger adults. Fishing lures dangling in the bare tree branches. Here we go again, said one child. Tiny cold waves coming from somewhere. Dirty dog paws.

Then the ascent. Sharp turns and lookouts for the blazes. Scrabbling over huge rocks and up mountain goat-like paths. The same feeling as skiing down a mountain: Look a few feet ahead, make tiny plans as the route unfolds. Dream about it later, fall up or downhill, depending. I’ll have the dream tonight, you said, of falling over tree roots again. We approached the lookout tower, deserted in its warlike glory, the Hudson Valley streaming below us. Turkey vultures glided over us, so close their red heads were wounds in the sky. They looked down at us. Doxy looked up at them.

The top of every mountain is the same: The world in miniature, the vantage point that attracted the vista-wish to see it all at once, all of it, and the promise to appreciate the nooks and crannies, the ice still molded to the boulders below, the tiny creatures rustling in the leaves – more, or at least differently, once you’re back down on planet Earth.