Closing Galehead Hut, 1986

In 1986, I was at Galehead Hut on the Appalachian Trail in the White Mountains of New Hampshire when it closed for the season. That year Columbus Day fell on Monday, October 13, and the hut was scheduled to close that day, weather permitting. I made that outing into a three-day adventure, staying at the hut for the last two nights it was open. Late in the afternoon of Sunday, October 12, I returned from a memorable day of hiking up on North Twin and South Twin Mountains to find a group of people, along with the hut master, listening to a baseball game on a small radio that was set by a window in the kitchen of the hut, the only place where the radio could receive that channel. It was the Red Sox and Angels as they met in Game 5 of the ALCS playoffs. Losing to the Angels, and down to their final strike, the Red Sox rallied as Dave Henderson hit a dramatic home run to put the Bosox ahead in the top of the ninth. In a flash, a variety of liquors and wines, cheeses and appetizers appeared on the kitchen counter, a veritable bounty pulled from the backpacks of the assembled guests. Incredibly, the Angels tied it in the bottom of the ninth, and the game went into extra innings. There were no scout groups with kids present, no families with fussy children to contend with or cater to, just the right group of adults thrown together at the right time. Although we were in a high hut in the White Mountains, for a brief while, we were as loud and raucous (men and women alike) as any sports bar in the city of Boston, and that mood continued into the night after Boston finally sealed the victory.

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