At 3:30 in the morning, on July 15, 1932, 31-year-old Bob Marshall started walking. His goal: to see how many peaks in the Adirondack Mountains he could scale in one day. At 1 p.m., he met up with Herb Clark, an old family friend, at the summit of Mount Marcy, the highest mountain in the range. Clark was with a young architect named Paul Schaefer. More than 30 years later, looking back on the encounter, Schaefer could vividly recall his impression that Marshall’s eyes “reflected a great joy for living.”
Bob Marshall.
Photo: The Wilderness Society.
Marshall had recently returned from a long sojourn in Alaska, and as Schaefer described the various logging and development projects that had transpired in the Adirondacks in his absence, Marshall grew upset and restless. “We simply must band together,” he said, “all of us who love the wilderness. We must fight together — wherever and whenever the wilderness is attacked.” The men shook hands, and Marshall took off, literally running down the mountain. At day’s end, he had climbed 14 peaks. Three years later, Schaefer rec... Read more
