Mountains As Direction for Living

It’s hard to imagine the New England outdoors without Laura and Guy Waterman. Through their books, adventures, and volunteerism, the two have influenced recreational culture for more than forty years. Laura, the daughter of a preeminent Emily Dickinson scholar, was working in New York City publishing when she joined an Appalachian Mountain Club outing to rock climb in New York’s Shawangunks. It was 1969, and although Laura had grown up swimming and hiking around Vermont, the Gunks climbing was a revelation, and she fell head over heels. One of her AMC instructors was Guy, a successful political speechwriter, and he shared her passion for being outside. By spring, the two were a couple, and within a few years they’d married and moved to a rural twenty-seven-acre homestead in Vermont, where they lived in a one-room cabin for almost three decades.

At their homestead, Laura and Guy thrived on living deliberately, growing a massive vegetable garden and chopping firewood for heat. Their biggest concession