Gstaad with Bill

James writes:

A friend's upcoming nuptials in Gstaad, Switzerland bring me back to the winter I worked at the ski resort as a writing assistant to William F. Buckley Jr.

In 1999 Bill called me into his office at National Review, where I was an editor, and asked if I liked to ski. I did (and still do). On the way out, I said, "Thank you, Mr. Buckley." He put his hand on my shoulder and said, "Call me Bill." A day later he phoned up and asked me to come to Gstaad for the winter to help him write his next novel.

The book writing was a yearly activity that Bill devised to kept his busy mind occupied during the resort's social season. His goal was 2,000 words a day and a novel in thirty days. He just about did it. Working away in a study in Rougemont, down the valley from the town of Gstaad, we hammered out a novel called Spytime: the Undoing of James Jesus Angleton--a fictionalized history of the real-life American head of counter-intelligence James Jesus Angleton. (A few years after the book came out, Angleton became the basis for the movie The Good Shepherd, but our account was better.)

Bill and I started early every morning, never took off weekends, but still managed to ski for a few hours after lunch. We then did a round of late-afternoon editing and, at 7pm, his chef brought two kirs down to the study and a box of cigars to transition us into the dinner hour, which might include a visit from Roger Moore, Taki Theodoracopulos, deposed and pretender royals, and other stars of the Gstaad Constellation.

Not bad work from a classics major a year out of college. When Bill died in 2008, Leon Neyfakh wrote a nice story in the New York Observer about WFB's lucky class of young assistants.

Before I left for Gstaad a colleague at National Review introduced me to the art of Super 8 movie making. The method was anachronistic then--I still had my parents' equipment from the 1970s. Today it looks like a machine-age time warp, which is why I find it appealing. I plan to digitize more of these old movies in the next few months. But first, here are two of my Super 8s from that winter in Gstaad:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeOuWzY2t1Y

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFv_CyE76MQ

3/12/12 UPDATE: Great to be back

Winter Hiking in the Pemi

James writes:

The snowy weather has us thinking back to our winter hike in the White Mountains in northern New Hampshire. The Appalachian Mountain Club maintains a unique string of huts along the ridge line of the Appalachian Trail over the Presidential Range south into the Pemigewasset Wilderness. In the winter, most of these huts are inaccessible, but a few remain open for winter overnights. One of these, my favorite, is Zealand Hut. They can all be booked through the AMC's online reservation site.

Dara and I rallied two friends, Jamie and Sara, to take it on. The visit was my second time to Zealand in winter and third stay overall. The drive from New York is about 6 hours, all highway, and Friday night we stayed in the AMC's Highland Lodge in Crawford Notch--a slightly soul-less new facility but a good staging ground for hikes in the area. We picked up topo maps, bars, and other supplies here before heading off.

The winter trail head is a short drive from Highland--there is a large parking lot on the side of the road. In winter the hike in is six miles with a steady up grade. It takes several hours, so we left early to arrive at the hut in daylight. Half of the trail is over a snow-covered road, and the first section crosses several snowmobile trails, which is tedious. (In the video below, Dara calls it "interminable.") The excitement starts over the second three miles, where the trail narrows and follows an old logging railroad bed, which is today nearly covered in a dense woods. We dressed warm as though skiing, and used snowshoes lashed to our winter boots. We also brought thick sleeping bags (actually two each to double up one in the other), ski poles, water, and enough food for dinner and breakfast at the hut and lunch on the trail.

The most challenging section of the hike comes in the last few hundred feet. Zealand is located on the side of a waterfall, and the trail goes steeply up. In the winter with the snowpack, we needed the spikes of our snowshoes to dig in our footing.

The Hut comes as a welcome sight. Unlike in the summer, when the huts are staffed with a half dozen 'croo,' in winter there is only one care taker. He tends to a pot belly stove in the main room and the gas lights. The kitchen is self-serve. It's very wet and cozy. 

Here's Dara at the hut:

The main room is warm, especially around the stove, but the bunk rooms get down to around freezing at night. We snagged the bunks against the back of the kitchen wall, which are slightly warmer. We also used the stove and overhanging racks on pulleys to warm up as much of our clothing as possible. The rest we stuffed in our bags at night.

Most of the other overnighters at the hut were part of organized groups, but from what we saw some of them were far less prepared than we were on our own (one group even started a day late). The kitchen can be a scramble for space, so we booked our stove time early upon arrival.

Thanks to its waterfall location, Zealand offers the best winter view in the hut chain, with beautiful sunsets and sunrises over the Pemi. The hike out is a treat with its steady down grade, and many people (including our friends) bring cross-country skies for the ride out. With its moderate trails and beautiful scenery, Zealand offers an excellent introduction to the joys of winter hiking, as it was for Dara. It's also a fun place to visit again. 

Here's Dara during our morning departure from the hut:

TNtrack

Kenyan celebration from the archives

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jamesgrayking/ / CC BY-NC 2.0

In 1992 when I was sixteen I worked as an aid worker in Kenya alongside my best man and marathoner David Spitz through a program called Global Routes. The organization still runs many programs but has since canceled its mission to Kenya due to tribal conflict. My group lived in the town of Sagalla in the Sagalla Hills above Voi town. Above is a picture of the hills. In the satellite view, below, Sagalla is located in the center of the green zone, an ecological island above the Tsavo plains--the only home of the Sagalla Caecilian.

View Larger Map

While digging through some junk in my closet the other day I came across an old dictaphone. On the tape inside I had written "do not erase" in pencil. With some fresh batteries I was able to play the recording. At the end of my stay in the village, after helping to construct a school house and a dairy cooperative, I recorded the town's send off party. The student music is exceptional, even if the quality of the recording is not. I just transferred the recording to an MP3 file below. After the music, you can hear the school's wonderful headmaster. After him comes "the chairman of the board of governors" (not so wonderful) followed by two short addresses by our Global Routes leaders. Click on the button below to stream the recording.

Africa recording-mp3