Parents with two young boys were having lunch on the summit of Mt. Morgan. A bluebird day, with lots of sun and the vast blue of Squam Lake stretched out before me.

It was a Sunday and the parents were chatting about previous adventures.

After 20 minutes one of the young boys who appeared to be about six years old approached me "Hey mister, what's your name? Where are you from? What's ya doing?"

This led with me meeting his parents and exchanging tales of previous adventures.

Solitude is often a treasure sought in the out of doors, but the trailside talk by the people met along the way can turn an otherwise humdrum experience into a memorable one.

Take a few weeks ago, when I led a group to perform trail maintenance for Chiltern Mountain Club's Spring Jamboree. The last thing most gay hikers want to do on a day off is put on a pair of work gloves and trudge into the woods with an army of clipper-carrying volunteers to brush out a trail. But that's what happened on the Mt. Osceola Trail in Waterville Valley, NH. A half-dozen Chiltern Mountain Club volunteers were tackling terrain near the summit of Mt. Osceola, clipping left, right, up and down.

Pretty monotonous work, however it was the people who turned it into a good time. Seems everyone had a story. We tackled interesting topics like shaving our balls.

Then last Saturday, further north, I was leading a trip to the Alpine Gardens of Mt. Washington. We drove our cars to the summit so we could spend more time admiring the alpine flowers in bloom this time of year. It was a classic circuit: Nelson Crag Trail, Alpine Gardens Trail, Lion Head Trail, Tuckerman Ravine Trail. The steep and slippery ascent back up the summit at the end of our trip was a place for frequent rest stops. Naturally, you play pseudo-tag with fellow hikers, taking turns in the lead. We had a large group of fifteen.

Many of these folks with me try to get out and do a mountain trek every other week. It's about being active and camaraderie.

"The clouds throw off the perception of how high you are," Arlene was saying while resting on a rock and lamenting the thought that the summit seemed so far away.

Dave had never been on top of Mt. Washington before.

"This trip is rated moderate?" he asked. "This isn't just a walk."

Depsite the soupy mix on the summit of Mt. Washington, everyone found this better than channel surfing.

Onward, the final destination was the Mt. Washington summit house. When the cloud curtain parted sporadically, one could see the mountains of the Northern Presidential Range. There, amidst having a snack, one could see the diversity of the people up there who arrived by foot, car and train. I heard one man speaking to someone on his cell phone and relating how proud he was having made the summit on foot.

At the other end of scale were motorcycle bikers, those dedicated, enthusiastic and slightly off-center folks, who come here up each year as part of NH's Motocycle Week. I thought about what might be their full time jobs. One behaved like an actor while another looked like a ski bum from out West. One rider looked liked an Ivy League grad while another might have been a priest.

A priest? Not only do I hear good stories on the trail but good confessions as well. But I'll save those for my next story.