Marion Young

“When I was about 10 years old, my family went to Boston,” Henry Cooper ’29 said.

Cooper and I were on our trek down from Mount Adams on October 3, and he continued to tell the story as we made our descent. We were grateful that the air still had a faint warmth that could only belong to an early fall day, mostly because about three hours earlier, at the 5,793-foot summit, the raw wind whipped at our cheeks and the thin air caused our noses to run.

“We went to the Bunker Hill Memorial—which is a big tower with a staircase that leads up to the top. My dad and I are going up, and we’re only about twenty stairs in. It’s also 95 degrees outside, making it miserable. We pass some tourists, and we ask them, ‘Hey, how far up is the top?’ And they very famously answer, ‘Oh, you’re basically there.’ And about 200 or 300 steps later, we were almost there. So now, every time when my dad and I start a hike, we always turn to each other and say, ‘How far is it to the top?’ ‘Oh, you’re almost there,’” Cooper said.

The way down the mountain was due for laughs and easy conversation, and we chose to distract ourselves with the challenge of Cooper’s landmark climb.

When I asked Cooper why he signed up for this Bowdoin Outing Club (BOC) trip, he had two motives: to add another mountain to his resume and to be with a friend.

“I wanted to climb [Mt.] Katahdin last weekend, and I wasn’t able to. So this was sort of unfinished business. I needed to climb a mountain,” Cooper said. “And I was the only one who responded to Samantha [Yeung ’29] in the group chat, asking if anyone wanted to sign up for this Mount Adams trip.”

A mountain is a destination in its own right, and the people alongside you are part of what makes the journey worth taking.

“My family liked to tent camp a lot when I was younger. We went on a seven-week road trip across the U.S. where we tent camped throughout Yellowstone, Badlands and we have a little bit of land out in Mississippi that I also camp at,” Cooper said.

Companionship extends beyond the trail. All adventures are a part of something larger, especially through connections to the people whom he shares them with.

“My inspiration comes from the community around me, like my friends, my roommates and my family. I really just think about my community and how much impact they all have on me,” he said.

Cooper finds this community at frisbee practice, with his housemates at Boody-Johnson and at Board Game club. With every step you take, what’s the point of taking the next one if it’s not all in good company? Having people around you on adventures can lead to shared memories, but outdoor exploration also includes the serene moments that only belong to ourselves.

“My favorite part of nature I’d say is the quiet. There was a moment on our hike down where we laid down, and you could hear the wind blowing and it was really peaceful. It helps to get away from any stressful environment, and just have some quiet and be with nature,” Cooper said.

As with the balance of companionship and self-discovery, the same is true of words: fulfilling conversation balances with personal rallying.

“I think hikes are a great time to recite personal words or mantras. My personal mantra on the way up was, ‘Climb every mountain, for every stream.’ On the way down it was, ‘Pain is weakness leaving the body,’” Cooper said.

Specific words guided Cooper up and down the mountain, and they’re also what led him to find Bowdoin.

“I found Bowdoin when I was reading ‘The Killer Angels’ by Michael Shaara. The book talked about Joshua Chamberlain, so I looked him up, and then Bowdoin was right there as well.”

An inside joke from a sweaty walk up a Revolutionary War monument, a text that floated across Cooper’s phone screen about a BOC trip that weekend, lines and characters from a book, mantras that remind us how to survive a challenge, the conversations with strangers on a hike: These are all words that weave into adventures, and they’re also what lead to connections.