Hiking Part One
Ken Batten
December 11, 2025
Long hair was a fad with boys when I attended high school in the early 1970's, despite the disdain of some of the older generation. More than once, I heard a long-haired fella defending his hairstyle by declaring that 'Jesus had long hair.'
Then there was the story about a sixteen-year-old boy that had just gotten his driver's license. The boy asked his father if he could borrow the family car. The father said he couldn't borrow the car until he got a haircut. The boy countered with, "Well, Jesus had long hair." The boy's father came back with, "Well, Jesus walked wherever he went, so that's just what you can do."
People have been walking out of necessity for eons. Walking for fun or exercise started to catch on in the 1800's. They even had a sport in Britain and Ireland called pedestrianism which led to the sport of speed walking or race walking. The Britannica Encyclopedia defines hiking as, walking in nature as a recreational activity. Growing up in the hills of Vermont in the 1960's and 70's, far from the frills and thrills of urban centers, hiking, snowshoeing and skiing through the woods and fields became one of my favorite recreational activities. Of course, I didn't think of it as a recreational event. To me, it was just something fun to do.
The little farm that I grew up on in West Topsham, VT was built right on a hillside. There was a small lawn out back that was almost flat and a dirt dooryard out front that was somewhat flat. Everything else was up or downhill. It was uphill to the barn, pastures and woods. Almost all of the 110 acres of the farm was uphill.
It was a half mile down the dirt road to the village of West Topsham, and West Topsham was built on a hill. We walked downhill to the one room schoolhouse that kept grades sixth through eighth, or to wait at the end of the road for the bus to go to high school. There was a small flat field across the road from the schoolhouse where we had a skating rink in the winter. There was a little league baseball field right beside the school where they had done a really good job to make a flat playing field, but the last half of the outfield sloped uphill. When you played in the outfield and someone hit the ball over your head, as you were running uphill to get to it, the baseball would sometimes be rolling back down to meet you.
It all seemed normal to me, growing up there, but whenever I went away for an extended period of time and came back, I was always struck by how steep everything was. Most of my time spent in the Army and Vermont National Guard were in mountainous areas. Kuwait was mostly hot and flat, but my time in Korea, Washington State and even Afghanistan were in some kind of valley or plateau looking up at big mountains. When I was at Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan with Company A, Special Troops Battalion out of Bradford, VT, we were at 4895 feet above sea-level, exactly 500 feet higher than Vermont's highest peak, Mt Mansfield, and yet we were in a valley surrounded by the rugged Hindu Kish mountains.
By the time I joined the Army, I was pretty well conditioned from hiking up and down the hills and I was used to carrying a weapon as I always carried a shotgun or rifle during the hunting seasons. My parents were 4-H project leaders in Outdoor Life, which centered around camping and hiking and my dad became the first Scoutmaster in the first Boy Scout troop in West Topsham. We did a lot of hiking in those days. We climbed Camel's Hump just about every fall and Spruce Mountain in Plainfield Vermont was another favorite, because we got to climb up the fire tower. In the 1960's there was still a fire warden living in a camp on the mountain. It was the fire warden up there that spotted the forest fire that burned right up to our farm property line.
As I got older into my teen years, I began to explore further from home. If I wanted to go somewhere, I would generally head out cross country and not bother with roads. There's nothing like being out in nature, seeing the local wildlife and breathing in fresh air.
Ken Batten grew up on a small sheep farm in West Topsham VT. He was a logging contractor, soldier and rural mail carrier. He now lives in North Hyde Park VT with his wife Tina-Marie. You can contact Ken at kenbatvt@gmail.com or PO Box 5 N Hyde Park VT 05665
Then there was the story about a sixteen-year-old boy that had just gotten his driver's license. The boy asked his father if he could borrow the family car. The father said he couldn't borrow the car until he got a haircut. The boy countered with, "Well, Jesus had long hair." The boy's father came back with, "Well, Jesus walked wherever he went, so that's just what you can do."
People have been walking out of necessity for eons. Walking for fun or exercise started to catch on in the 1800's. They even had a sport in Britain and Ireland called pedestrianism which led to the sport of speed walking or race walking. The Britannica Encyclopedia defines hiking as, walking in nature as a recreational activity. Growing up in the hills of Vermont in the 1960's and 70's, far from the frills and thrills of urban centers, hiking, snowshoeing and skiing through the woods and fields became one of my favorite recreational activities. Of course, I didn't think of it as a recreational event. To me, it was just something fun to do.
The little farm that I grew up on in West Topsham, VT was built right on a hillside. There was a small lawn out back that was almost flat and a dirt dooryard out front that was somewhat flat. Everything else was up or downhill. It was uphill to the barn, pastures and woods. Almost all of the 110 acres of the farm was uphill.
It was a half mile down the dirt road to the village of West Topsham, and West Topsham was built on a hill. We walked downhill to the one room schoolhouse that kept grades sixth through eighth, or to wait at the end of the road for the bus to go to high school. There was a small flat field across the road from the schoolhouse where we had a skating rink in the winter. There was a little league baseball field right beside the school where they had done a really good job to make a flat playing field, but the last half of the outfield sloped uphill. When you played in the outfield and someone hit the ball over your head, as you were running uphill to get to it, the baseball would sometimes be rolling back down to meet you.
It all seemed normal to me, growing up there, but whenever I went away for an extended period of time and came back, I was always struck by how steep everything was. Most of my time spent in the Army and Vermont National Guard were in mountainous areas. Kuwait was mostly hot and flat, but my time in Korea, Washington State and even Afghanistan were in some kind of valley or plateau looking up at big mountains. When I was at Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan with Company A, Special Troops Battalion out of Bradford, VT, we were at 4895 feet above sea-level, exactly 500 feet higher than Vermont's highest peak, Mt Mansfield, and yet we were in a valley surrounded by the rugged Hindu Kish mountains.
By the time I joined the Army, I was pretty well conditioned from hiking up and down the hills and I was used to carrying a weapon as I always carried a shotgun or rifle during the hunting seasons. My parents were 4-H project leaders in Outdoor Life, which centered around camping and hiking and my dad became the first Scoutmaster in the first Boy Scout troop in West Topsham. We did a lot of hiking in those days. We climbed Camel's Hump just about every fall and Spruce Mountain in Plainfield Vermont was another favorite, because we got to climb up the fire tower. In the 1960's there was still a fire warden living in a camp on the mountain. It was the fire warden up there that spotted the forest fire that burned right up to our farm property line.
As I got older into my teen years, I began to explore further from home. If I wanted to go somewhere, I would generally head out cross country and not bother with roads. There's nothing like being out in nature, seeing the local wildlife and breathing in fresh air.
Ken Batten grew up on a small sheep farm in West Topsham VT. He was a logging contractor, soldier and rural mail carrier. He now lives in North Hyde Park VT with his wife Tina-Marie. You can contact Ken at kenbatvt@gmail.com or PO Box 5 N Hyde Park VT 05665
West Topsham Boy Scouts on top of Camel's Hump, (L-R) Jimmy and Ricky Butler, Kenny Batten, Tommy Otterman, Stuart Partington and Bruce Ackley patting the dog.
It was October 5, 1969. The day before my thirteenth birthday.
Batten Family Photo
It was October 5, 1969. The day before my thirteenth birthday.
Batten Family Photo
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