A Summer Hike to Share

Far from the pressures of urban life, in the pine-scented air of the Vermont hills, a father and son have found a refuge and a relationship. Until two years ago Dr. Robert O'Malley and his teen-age son were almost strangers to each other. They lived together, skied together and spoke together, but they were barely acquainted. Then that summer when they began hiking the Long Trail in the Green Mountain Range, Sean and his father discovered a new world, a world of experiences to be shared: long, lazy strolls through a sea of gentle ferns; chest-crunching climbs up rocky stream beds; noonday halts on the slippery slab of a mountaintop; the sudden shock of the chilling waters of a mountain lake on an August afternoon. The summer hours that they enjoyed—and endured—together helped to close a generation gap

Lesser summits on the trail stretch below as Sean and his dad attain its highest point, Mount Mansfield's Chin, and nearby Cave of the Winds.

SEVEN PHOTOS

HANSON CARROLL