High Heaven Smoke Screen
Halfway up the mountain, us old farts huffed and puffed like the Big Bad Wolf trying to blow down a house of straw. As if he wasn’t carrying a pack at all, our son was whistling a merry tune and outpacing us all. We started to wonder why we had invited him in the first place.
The hike up to our campsite is not an easy one. While the trail is only two and a half miles long, it is not well marked and rises nearly 2,000 feet in elevation. The hike takes over three hours with a rest stop half way up at an old slate rock quarry. The trail follows the roadbed of the old trolley cart that hauled the quarried stone to the nearest stream bed. From there the ascent becomes much steeper as you follow the stream to the top. Since one of our group of family and friends discovered this place, we have been backpacking and camping there every couple of years for the last forty years. One might say it had become a tradition in our family.
During the summers of 1972/73, Rosann a young, pretty community college student and some of her friends from New Jersey volunteered as camp counselors at Camp St. Helene, a summer camp for needy kids from New York City. The camp grounds lie on the outskirts of the town of Palenville on the grounds of a convent for the sisters of the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary. In addition to the camp houses and chapel, a small lake for swimming and a picturesque stone grotto with a Shrine to St. Helene beckon. An enchanting hamlet, Palenville rests in the Catskill Mountains of central New York. Known as “the village of falling waters” it was described in the Legend of Rip Van Winkle, a fictional citizen of the town. Woodstock, the site of the three day rock music festival in 1969, dwells just down the road.
It was the early 70s; whispers of Woodstock were still in the air. Rosann and her friends regretted missing the festival held a few years earlier. Rosann was a bit of a tomboy and usually dressed in blue jean overalls. Her friends, Beth and Mary were not much different in tight blue jeans and tie-dyed tops. Mary was a very good musician and would play her guitar as everyone sang along. They were assigned as counselors to the ten boys in cabin #1. The boys were from New York City, ages ranged from 9 to 12 years old, and came from families that couldn’t afford to send them to camp. Catholic Charities of New York financed Camp St. Helene and paid for the expenses of the counselors and campers. Rosann would read “Uncle Wiggly” to her boys after lights out and take them on cherry picking field trips and find the watermelon hunts.
Most of the resident nuns were in their early thirties and friendly; not at all like the ruler-wielding “penguins” the girls were accustomed to in school growing up. One day, one of the older nuns invited Rosann and a few of her boys on a hike up the side of the mountain to a spot in a beautiful meadow at the edge of a rock ledge overlooking the Hudson River valley that she called “High Heaven.” The nuns used this place as a peaceful retreat when they needed some time for quiet self-reflection.
Unfortunately, Camp St. Helene closed in 1973. Still, those Jersey Girls and their friends traveled up to Palenville every few years to hike up to High Heaven to party and campout overnight. Many years later, that Jersey Girl, my wife Rosie, accompanied by five of our family and friends took our 27 year old son, Chris, on a “rite of passage” backpacking trip to High Heaven. Tradition was that all the campers would meet at our brother-in-law, Earl’s house in Sellersville, PA the night before to prepare for the trip and distribute the food, water, and alcoholic beverages. Earl made sure that these consumables were distributed evenly so no one’s pack was too heavy.
That night while everyone was eating, drinking and generally being merry, I brought up a scene from the movie, “The Eiger Sanction.” In this scene, George Kennedy’s character was training Clint Eastwood’s character to scale the Eiger Mountain in Switzerland. The training site was in the mountains of Arizona. To make sure he would be ready in time, Kennedy pushed Eastwood really hard. When he thought Eastwood was ready, he took him on a “graduation” free climb up an ancient volcanic chimney in the desert. After a hard climb, they finally reached the summit. They sat, dangling their legs over the edge and enjoyed the breath taking view while they recovered.
Kennedy turns to Eastwood, “How about a beer?”
Eastwood replies, “If you brought beer up here, you’re even crazier than I thought!”
Reaching into Eastwood’s pack, Kennedy states, “I may be crazy, but I’m not stupid. I didn’t carry it, you did. It’s in your pack!”
Since he was young and fit, Chris sensed that we were planning on pulling this gag on him as a form of hazing for his inaugural trip to High Heaven. Of course, after Earl finished loading all the backpacks, he secreted a six pack of beer in the top of Chris’ pack. We all got up early the next morning, loaded two cars with our gear and drove the three hours up to Palenville; all the women in one car, the men in the other. After we parked, we put on our backpacks and took a group picture of our motley crew. The leader of our group, Earl, looked like a typical aging hippie in faded blue jeans and an old shirt. Everyone in our group of hikers was middle-aged except for our Chris. Chris wore cargo shorts, t-shirt, and a bandana. Before we started our hike, Rosie gave everyone a tour around the grounds of the former Camp St. Helene.
Most everyone was exhausted when we finally reached the meadow at the end of our hike. Dropping our backpacks and plopping on the ground, we sat on an outcropping of rocks at the edge of a small clearing and rocky ledge admiring the colorful foliage and inhaling the pungent aroma of the pine trees. The clearing offered an awe inspiring view of the Hudson River valley for miles in any direction. Basking in the midday sun of a beautiful fall day, we enjoyed the quiet and stillness of the moment.
After a while, Earl smiled and broke the silence, “Boy a can of beer would really taste good about now.”
Chris laughed, reached into the top and his pack and proudly pulled out a six pack of beer, “After the story Dad told last night, I knew that you were going to trick me into carrying the beer up here.”
Earl walked over and dug deep into the bottom of Chris’ pack, pulling out a cast iron frying pan, “Yeah, but you didn’t know that you were also carrying this!”
Chris stared slack-jawed at the heavy skillet Earl held up for all to see, “I can’t believe I hiked all the way up here with that in my backpack!”
We all enjoyed a good laugh as we drank our beer. His High Heaven initiation complete, Chris was rewarded with the first stack of pancakes the next morning. Before we hiked down, we buried the skillet where no other hikers would find it. We still use it when we hike up to High Heaven.
