CHAPTER THREE
El Speed and I were in our room after dinner one evening, in late September, sort of doing classwork, sort of not. I’d been thinking of a specific climb—Mount Madison, five thousand, three hundred and sixty-seven feet above sea level. Definitely a four-thousand-foot qualifier.
I told my roommate, "I think it’s time for a hike. Maybe Columbus Day weekend? Give you an extra day to recover."
He looked sideways at me. "You wanna drag me up another massive mountain?" His tone told me that, as I expected, he was feigning reluctance. With most of our hikes, the dynamic was that I’d suggest, he’d teasingly resist, I’d cajole, and he’d pretend to capitulate—pretend, because he actually liked hiking together.
"Madison is a great climb. Remote, so not a lot of other hikers. No ski s
