Slingerlands man and canine companion have scaled over 200 summits
The Lone Ranger had Silver. Turner had Hooch. Alan Via has Bookah.
Like in other great pairings, Via can always count on the companionship of his 5-year-old chocolate Labrador when he embarks on his adventures. His many, many, adventures.
Via has hiked and bushwhacked his way to the top of the highest 100 peaks in the Adirondacks and the Catskills, many of them more than once, and Bookah also finished those 200 summits in August of 2008.
Capturing those summits is a remarkable and rare distinction for a human. To Via’s knowledge, Bookah is the only canine to do so (and the second female).
That’s a source of a lot of fun with the other female finishers behind her, Via joked.
The Slingerlands resident has been an outdoorsman since his youth, but was introduced to hiking only after moving to Albany in his 20s and befriending a member of the Adirondack Mountain Club (ADK). Before long, he was organizing outings for the local chapter.
`I discovered you could go walking in the woods without hunting or carrying a fishing pole,` he said. `I was learning at the elbow of people my age, with decades of experience.`
Now 62, Via holds many of the trappings of true hiking fanatics, including a spot on the exclusive ADK Winter 46’r and Catskill Winter 3,500 lists and a basement full of topographic maps and equipment. Freshly retired from a career as an insurance marketing rep, he’s seizing on his newfound time to lead others to the trail, by print and in person.
Via is set to publish a trail guide entitled `Catskill 100 Highest: A Hiker’s Guide to the 67 Peaks Under 3,500 Feet,` that will focus primarily on the shorter summits between 3,000 and 3,500 feet, which receive little use.
`More and more people are getting interested in the Catskills. Of the 67 peaks, many, many of them people have never heard of,` Via said.
Exposing people to those mountains is in line with general conservation principles. Spreading the ever-increasing number of hikers across more terrain will limit the impact on the taller, more popular peaks.
`The Adirondack Mountain Club, they don’t want to discourage people from hiking and enjoying themselves, but one of the club’s stated purposes is to space out the usage,` he said.
Included in the guide will be topographical maps and directions to trailheads or bushwhacks, but Via intends to leave much of the approach to trailess peaks up to the hiker.
`We want to make it useful to people, hikers and bushwhackers, but we don’t want to be like Tom Sawyer and lay out the thread for them,` he said. `I don’t want to spoil the fun for the people; the same fun I had climbing the peaks.`
Via is also planning to sink more time into a hiking class he’s been running for two years through the Bethlehem YMCA. About 100 people take part.
While the program takes real day hikes into the wilderness, beginners are more than welcome. Via has plenty of participants who don’t have any outdoors experience beyond walks through Thacher Park, and that’s fine with him.
`It’s a real pleasure to introduce people to new mountains or mountain ranges, and see their eyes light up with the view,` he said.
Via’s also kicking around future books addressing hiking with a canine companion, a subject that he’s well acquainted with.
Bookah`Boo` because she was born on Halloween`took her first easy hikes at 6 months of age and hasn’t stopped since. At home in the woods, Via finds her to be an accomplished pathfinder who will follow the scent of animal trails up rocky outcroppings.
`By now, she’s got a great sense of how to get up things,` he said. `With all the mountains she’s climbed, she’s probably the best bushwhacker I know.`
Wildlife in the woods often keeps Bookah entertained. Squirrels, chipmunks and even porcupines have had close encounters with the dog (some ended better than others).
Via doesn’t plan to spend his retirement completely on the trail; he also canoes, kayaks, mountain bikes and is a fly fisherman. Still, there are plenty of peaks all over New England he’s yet to summit, including a solid 70 of Vermont’s 100 highest points.
`That would be kind of a fantasy list. I’ll chip away at it,` he said. `It’s something to work for.`
Via has enjoyed 39 years of marriage to his wife, Barbara, with whom he has two grown children. `Catskill 100 Highest` is on track for a first-quarter 2011 release.
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