After dumping my backpack in a room at the Arctic Hotel I asked where the closest nesting location was for peregrines. He and Graham were beginning to celebrate their return to the island with beers. I was ready to explore. There were three sites that had been reported near Sondy; one at the end of Lake Fergusson on Garnet Mountain, a second somewhere on Mount Hassell, a long mountain behind the Danish side of the base, and the third on Sugarloaf, a few-hundred-foot-high knob located about halfway to the icecap. Hassell was the closest but Sugarloaf was the easiest to check for peregrines because of the limited cliff face, and a gravel road which could be followed most of the way.
David Clement, one of the Dartmouth students who had done a lot of backpacking and rock climbing, was also raring to go. The second student was Jim Harris, a tall, gangly individual who had never climbed much beyond a set of stairs and spent very little time out-of-doors, but he was game and ready. Jim had new boots (about size twelve or fourteen gunboats) while Dave's were better broken in, as were mine. To support the weight of carrying a heavy pack across rough terrain, heavy-duty, durable hiking boots were needed. Such hiking boots are usually very expensive, stiff, heavy devices of torture that are not broken in until they are worn out. I think many American stores that sell back-packing equipment purposely buy foreign-made boots with unpronounceable names so they cannot easily be sued for physical and mental pain and debilitating energies, and so customers have trouble remembering the names after they give them away to supposed friends and it comes time to buy another pair. Also, when foreign-made boots are returned for repair, customers must buy replacement boots, as it may take more than a year to get the old ones back. (Fortunately, since those days foot wear has improved.) |
