Mount Washington served as a memorable location for the author’s 16th birthday adventure.

In the journey from childhood to independence, my 16th birthday was a giant stepping stone.

My friend Jackie’s birthday was two days before mine in August. He lived on a large farm with many acres of woods. When he was around 8 years old, his father purchase a World War II surplus Jeep, which Jackie learned to drive right away. There were many cart roads through the woods on the farm, over which he drove us for years. Therefore, when he turned 16, he was ready to get his driver’s license. He made an appointment on his birthday and successfully passed his driving test.

He got the use of his family’s 1954 Ford station wagon for three days. So, on my birthday, we packed our gear to climb Mount Monadnock.

The weather was really beautiful, and our plan was to get near our goal and camp out the first night, climb the mountain the second day, camp out again and return home the third day.

We were sitting in the car with the map of Massachusetts and New Hampshire ready to plan out our route. Jackie had climbed Mount Monadnock a couple of times, so we made our first “executive decision” as 16-year-olds to climb Mount Washington instead. Off we went. By mid-afternoon, we were in the Mount Washington area, found a nice campsite near a stream and set up camp. After supper, it started getting dark, and out came the mosquitoes. We had heard that wild citronella smoke drove them away. We found some citronella bushes and loaded them on the fire. It smoked all around us — so thick that we couldn’t see each other 4 feet apart. Jackie said, “See, no mosquitoes.” However, we couldn’t breathe, either, so we went into the tent and went to bed.

The next morning dawned bright and clear. We broke camp and went to the parking area for the trail near the Cog Railway. We had a nice, easy climb up Mount Washington, spent a couple of hours on the summit and bought lunch there. It seemed you could see forever that day.

Descending the mountain was almost more difficult than climbing it. You had to be careful not to get going too fast, or you could fall down on the rocks.

We departed the area and found a different place to camp by another stream. Luckily, there was a breeze that night and no mosquitoes, so we could sit around the campfire and reflect on our adventure.

In the morning, we broke camp and had a leisurely drive back to Hopkinton. It was a great first experience going away from home with no adult supervision. Another step on our journey to independence.