Roasted hot dogs, anyone?

     This was one “virgin” experience I never expected to have – participating in an outdoor weiner roast in the middle of February.

     Yesterday’s meal was made all the more delectable by the fact that I and my dining companions had hiked in two and a half miles to a shelter in the middle of 8,000-acre Bear Brook State Park outside Allenstown, N.H. before building a fire for the feast. We were hungry.

     There were maybe a dozen of us, mostly strangers, brought together by an “events” listing in the magazine published by the Appalachian Mountain Club (AMC), a venerable organization for lovers of the outdoors. But people rarely stay strangers at an AMC function – so much so that some refer to the group as the “Appalachian Meeting Club” for the many relationships it has fostered. A former coworker (you know who you are) met her husband because of AMC when they both showed up for a hike and were the only two there. They hiked anyway, and they’re still hiking together, years later.

     The day’s pleasure was also enhanced by the weather – 45 degrees and sunny, perfect for a brisk hike. But our friendly, knowledgeable group leader, Bill Darcy, had been exacting in his instructions beforehand – no matter how warm you think it is, wear warm winter boots, dress in layers, keep an extra jacket in your pack and make sure you have crampons for navigating icy trails.

     I had scoffed at the idea of crampons – there’s no snow or ice in the woods at our house – but his experience trumped my naivete. The trails were like glacier flow, white and icy and slippery as hell. Rick and my YakTrax friction cleats spared us from sudden horizontality but some others were not as fortunate (note: Bill’s favorite crampon-like device is called MICROspikes, which many of the more experience hikers were wearing).

     We roasted sausage and wieners (in our case, tofu dogs), as well as the marshmallows Bill had kindly provided, before carefully putting out the fire with snow and proceeding the two and a half miles back to the parking lot.

     I found the round trip a bit more tiring than I normally find a five-mile hike, perhaps because I kept tensing my leg muscles in fear of the ice on the trails. But we returned home having made new friends and having exercised our bodies and spirits – “sore, but happy” as Rick wrote in a note to a friend.

     We were in bed by 7:30. I slept 12 hours.