McKinley called for volunteers, then I got my gun,
First Spaniard I saw coming, I dropped my gun and run.

SO BEGINS “The Battleship of Maine”, a rolicking song about the war of 1812 and a not-so-brave volunteer. McKinley also called Peter Stanley and Sam Huntington to climb it. In January 1985, Peter’s old college friend Sam Huntington called with the suggestion they climb the mountain, and along with Sam’s brother Larry and his two sons, Matthew and Stewart, they hit the slopes in July.

The trip followed six months of preparation, bicycling to work, running up stairs and getting into shape. They first climbed Mt. Ranier, a two-day climb, and McKinley took 13 days, up and back. Peter took along a tape recorder and dictated a log:

[On Mt. Ranier] We’re now at Camp Muir at 10,000 feet. I’m walking over the ice. I can see Mt. Adams, Mt. Hood in Oregon and Mt. St. Helens… We will make a summit dash beginning at 2:30 or 3:00 in the morning... I’ve found that the greatest strain of this is not physical but mental… The wind is blowing pretty hard. God, it’s an incredible view because the sun is just beginning to light the northern horizon. There is a very definite dawn over there. Would you believe 3:30 from 10,000 feet!

   

SAM HUNTINGTON was president of New England Electric, and in August 1988 he was invited to give a lecture in Aspen. In the morning, Sam and Jenny Huntington were climbing in the mountains, and Sam was struck by lightning and was killed. Peter lost a dear friend, and in fact it was Sam who taught him “The Golden Vanity”. The example of the tune that we’ve included here is with Sam Huntington on the recorder, and Peter on the guitar.

[On McKinley] I slept perfectly abysmally last night, and I concluded that I was probably mentally unfit for this trip. I think one of the problems is just being wired… The sun was as bright as it could be, and I pulled the sleeves up on my polypro lightweight undershirt with a turtleneck so that I’d get some sun on my arms. I guess I have two and a half hours of sun on my arms, and they feel like they are fried. The interesting thing is that they were burned as much from the bottom as they were from the top.

[Camp III, 11,200 ft.] When we got here it was about 15 degrees and blowing at about 30 miles an hour. Sam and I put up tents and Stewart and Matthew dug a snow cave which I am a little leery of because it could cave in.
The incredible thing is that weather can change so extremely rapidly. You can be baking in the sun one minute and be hit by a blowing, snowing blizzard 20 minutes later… I’m a little concerned having awakened this morning with a headache, and I’ve had one most of the day. Eric [Simonson, the guide] has asked me to keep him apprised. He says it’s not a good idea to take bad headaches higher.

We are way above the clouds. I cannot see the ground below, but the sky above is a deep, deep blue. I can see for miles, and miles, and miles. It’s just that there’s nothing to see but clouds, except for things like Mount Foraker which stands out very boldly here... One of my most frequent sensations is the feeling that I have run a hundred yards and have forgotten to breathe for 30 seconds, and then all of a sudden I really have an incredible need to get some air, and when I breathe it’s hard to make up for the oxygen debt.

   

[Camp VI, 16,200 ft.] Last night I woke up at 2:00 a.m. As I was turning in my sleeping bag in that ice cave, I was plagued with a sense of claustrophobia because I couldn’t breathe, but a lot of this is psychological. You can rationally say, “I’m not going to expire at 16,000 feet in a snow cave,” but when you get there, and you recognize you can’t breathe, and you can’t sit up because there isn’t room, it’s very easy to feel claustrophobic… Everybody was willing to acknowledge that one of the most characteristic aspects of this life in the high mountains is the very high highs and the very low lows, and somehow you have got to have the wherewithal within to recognize that the rough times will pass.

Everybody found yesterday to be a singularly tough day and everyone found it to be the most difficult day so far. Holly Parker was talking about how she just couldn’t... she didn’t have anything else to reach down for. She almost burst into tears in the middle of the climb, but she knew she couldn’t stop, and she couldn’t go any slower, and she certainly couldn’t go any faster, and I must say I felt exactly the same way… When we started out this morning from 16,200 after about ten steps I couldn’t breathe, there was just no air, I was exhausted, I felt like I couldn’t do a thing… I am going to turn in because I am beginning to freeze. The sun is not shining, and as soon as the sun goes behind a cloud or behind part of the mountain the temperature drops very fast.

Larry suffered from a severely sunburned tongue just from leaving his mouth open. The gal down below talked about having sunburned gums from the way she smiles and keeps her mouth open. My lips have blistered and my left cheek has scabbed over, the scab has fallen off, my nose has peeled, and the trouble with “Sunblock 15” is that it freezes.

   

[At the summit] We’re just below the final pitch trying to get up to the summit, and I don’t ever want to forget how much this hurts. We are ten feet or so from the summit, and I am unsnapping on the advice of Eric, or trying to, and we will walk the final ten without belay. There it is! There it is! The top of the cotton-picking North American continent!

I’m the tallest person in North America right now!

 

IN 1967, RODNEY BRYAN returned from a year on the Vietnam DMZ put off with the war, started playing guitar and tried to forget about the whole thing. He managed a coffee house in Richmond, and it was there he first met Peter Stanley. “He was the first really good folksinger I met. I heard Peter play, and I decided I needed to double down and learn it.” Rodney spent three years of full-time playing, and he became one of the city’s best folksingers. He has written many songs, including “Morning is the Hardest Time of All” and “Dead Man’s Hand”.