An oft-returning guest and friend of Redline Guiding finished his 48 4000-footers on Mt Adams at the tender age of 75. With him was one of his daughters. He stayed at the AMC’s Madison Spring Hut to better the odds since this wasn’t his first attempt. This feat he did with the help of Redline Guide Mike Maciel. And Mike was there for him every step of the way during this multi-year, once-in-a-lifetime quest, as a guide and also as a friend. With that we are going to shift the spotlight to Mike letting him share the details and a number of lovely photos.
Go Dogs, Go!
It’s not required by any means, but when you spend your life doing hard things for “fun”, it can help to have a mantra.
My personal mantra is, ‘Thank you Mountain Goddess for making me stronger.’ Every posthole, every slip, every sore muscle or drop of sweat in my face. The things that try to kick you when you’re down. Instead of quitting, swearing, or whining about it, I try to smile through the suck. And then I quietly thank the mountains for making me stronger.
Our longtime guest has a personal mantra that over the years has turned into a family mantra: Go Dogs, Go! He found the cadence worked well for cycling (one of his favorite pastimes). He also always had an interest in sled dogs, and although the real command is only ‘Go!,’ he got to use it a few times on sled dog trips to Gates of the Arctic National Park in Alaska.
Last year, ‘The Year of the DNF,’ as he coined it, was a year of personal setbacks. We bailed mid-Pemi Loop. He had to bail out of his annual Malibu Triathlon attempt. His personal nemesis, Mount Adams, turned him back for the third time. He thought it was over. He thought it might be time to do the unthinkable… to quit. His family was’t going to let the story end like that. Heroes don’t quit. They get up off the mat and dust themselves off. They regroup. They come back stronger.
2024 started with a plan: refocusing on fitness and nutrition with one goal in mind, to finish the final 7 peaks of his NH 48. All hands on deck: his children flying in from all over the country to join, his lovely current wife spending her vacations on hiking trips to NH, his employer getting told that planned days off were non-negotiable, and a year off from the annual triathlon.
One by one, we checked the boxes. A beautiful day on Franconia Ridge. A grind it out day on Liberty and Flume. A pair of SKTs (Slowest Known Times) on Owls Head and Carrigain. Eventually there was only one thing left standing between our guest and his goal. Would it be a good story if it was anything but his personal nemesis, the peak that had already turned him back three times prior? Adams awaits.
We stacked the deck with a night at Madison Spring Hut, with middle daughter flying in to hike and play support team on her birthday and a perfect weather window. No turning back, it was time to do the damn thing: Go Dogs, Go!
At 75 years old, on September 5th, after nearly 9 hours of putting one foot in front of the other and quietly repeating his mantra, our guest finally stood atop the mighty 5797-foot Mount Adams. You cannot beat the person that just won’t quit. Congrats on your 48, my friend 👊🏻👊🏻 —Mike M.
