What’s another 33 peaks?
Veronica Ashcroft, an out trans woman currently living in New Hampshire, has summited more than 540 mountains in just over two years with a transgender pride flag in tow. This month, she reached another milestone, visiting all 27 fire towers in the Adirondacks and six fire towers in the Catskills, including the Upper Esopus Fire Tower.
Ashcroft, 23, started the Fire Tower Challenge in earnest this past August. She spent a few weeks at a time, in three bursts, hiking to fire towers as part of a broader effort to complete the New Northeast 131, another hiking challenge.
“I’m clearly someone who likes hiking,” she said Sunday.
Hunter Mountain in Greene County — where one of the Catskills’ first wooden fire towers was established in 1909, later replaced with a steel tower — was the first she reached on June 15, 2022. She ended with Pillsbury Mountain Fire Tower in Hamilton County on July 11. She completed the fire tower hikes in roughly five weeks total, capping off her challenge as the state celebrates the 115th anniversary of fire towers in the Adirondacks and Catskills.
Ashcroft said her favorite fire tower to visit was the Hurricane Mountain Fire Tower in Essex County, which she described as a “very delightful hike” with “the best view.”
“Even though I only had (the view) for about 30 seconds before the clouds rolled in,” she said.
Some of the fire tower hikes proved more difficult. She visited the Vanderwhacker Mountain Fire Tower in April, climbing the 3,389-foot-tall mountain — 1,715-foot elevation gain — with no snow packed out. It was muddy, overgrown and “quite stressful,” she said.
Still, it was a “decent hike,” she added.
On each of her hikes, Ashcroft brought a trans pride flag with her. At each summit, she posed for a photo, waving the blue, pink and white-striped flag against a backdrop of forest or expansive mountain ranges. She shared these photos online, where people around the world could see them. These photos are a symbol; a display of pride meant to show others that trans people do, and can, find belonging anywhere — even in the backcountry.
“Part of something bigger”
Ashcroft started transitioning in 2021 while working a trail crew job in Tennessee, a state that was named by Out Leadership as among the least LGBTQIA-plus-friendly states in the country this year, based on the prevalence of anti-LGBTQIA attitudes and lack of legal and nondiscrimination protections.
She told the Enterprise that she was often the only visibly queer person in any given space.
“I started this project as kind of a way to help have some trans visibility in the outdoors,” she said.
Over the past two years, she’s discovered other trans people who have made their mark in the outdoor recreation sphere. She cited Buffalo native and Denver, Colorado resident Erin Parisi, a trans mountaineer, as one example. Parisi has been on a journey to climb the highest mountains in the world, the Seven Summits. Ashcroft also highlighted Robbi Mecus, a trailblazing Adirondack forest ranger, Keene Valley resident and out trans woman who died in an ice climbing accident in Alaska in April.
“I now understand that I’m part of something bigger, rather than doing something one off,” Ashcroft said.
“We’re also rural”
As the nation continues to see a groundswell of anti-LGBTQIA-plus legislation proposed in state houses across the country — at least 527 bills have been proposed so far this session, many targeting the rights of transgender people specifically, according to the American Civil Liberties Union — Ashcroft continues to get outdoors.
“It’s easy sometimes to feel alone as a trans person in this country,” Ashcroft said. “Even just a little bit of positivity, even for a brief amount of time … can help stave off some real pessimism when you think about your future. I like that I’m contributing to that. I think I understand the bigger picture now than I did two years ago.”
Even in rural Tennessee, where she began her transition, trans and queer people can still find community, according to Ashcroft.
“We’re still here. We still have our communities. We still look out for each other,” she said. “That’s just another dimension of why I like to do what I do.”
Oftentimes, she feels that media attention focuses on LGBTQIA-plus people living in metropolitan areas.
“We’re also rural. I know trans people who are farmers, small town car mechanics. We’re here. Some of us leave; not all of us do,” she said.
As in her everyday life, Ashcroft has had some uncomfortable experiences on the trails. Some hikers have refused to acknowledge her while walking by on the trails; others have snickered or laughed after she passed by, she told the Enterprise in 2022.
Still, she has continued onward — and she has no plans of stopping anytime soon. She still has the Saranac Lake 6er challenge to complete.
Anniversary
Ashcroft’s completion of the fire tower hiking challenge comes as the state celebrates the 115th anniversary of fire towers in the Adirondacks and Catskills.
The first fire towers were established in 1909, in the wake of two devastating fires that leveled nearly 1 million acres of forest in the Adirondacks, destroying homes and killing countless wild animals.
“The damage from all these fires resulted in public outcry,” author and historian Marty Podskoch wrote in an article for the October 2009 issue of New York State Conservationist magazine. “New Yorkers wanted protection from forest fires, and the state responded by creating a rigorous fire prevention and control program that included building fire towers to spot fires early, hopefully before they grew out of control.”
The state closed 55 of its 100 staffed fire towers in the early 1970s, after it began using airplanes for fire surveillance. By 1990, all of the towers were closed. Over the years, some were removed; others were simply abandoned.
Several communities, wanting to preserve this history and the 360-degree panoramic views that these towers provide, banded together in the 1990s and 2000s to save and restore their local fire towers.
The Adirondack Mountain Club started the official Fire Tower Challenge for hikers in 2001.