Sept. 24, 2025

By Mary Beth Bracy, consecrated virgin
Contributing Writer

On his birthday, August 13, Father Bryan D. Stitt, diocesan director of Worship and pastor of St. Mary’s in Canton, St. Patrick’s in Colton, and St. Mary’s in Potsdam, finished climbing the 46 High Peaks of the Adirondacks, ascending the summit of Whiteface Mountain.

“I’m not that exceptional,” he emphasized. “Father Philip Allen, Father Bill Reamer, Father Scott Belina, Father Justin Thomas, Father Ray Moreau are 46ers, and Father Carter Pierce is aspiring.”

Traveling “to the heights” is in Father Stitt’s blood.

“It’s been something I’ve loved doing since I was a kid,” he said. “Mom was the inspiration for getting off the couch and getting outside. Dad was an inspiration for beauty. I did the first one when I was 14. And then, when I entered seminary, I started spending a lot of time in the Adirondacks because of Guggenheim but also because of being assigned to Saranac Lake with Father Tim Soucy, so we started chipping away.”

“I thought I had done a bunch of them,” Father Stitt reflected. “And then the ultimate motivation was three years ago. For Christmas, my brother and sister gave me this beautiful gift of a picture frame with puzzle pieces to put in once you’ve climbed each mountain. I said, ‘Oh, that will be great, I’ve probably done not half but a third.’ I’d only done nine of them. And so, I had this big picture frame with just nine spots in it. That’s silly, I have to fill this out.”

‘CAREFREE TIMELESSNESS’
“I had a number of good friends around me and we ended up going into the mountains together. There is nothing like a hike for good visits with people,” Father Stitt said. “You’ve got hours and hours, most of it’s not that arduous, there’s tough spots along the way, some of the best conversations you get into are on those long mountain hikes. Ultimately what drives me is seeking the experience of beauty and wonder, that’s a huge piece of the motivation for me. There’s nothing like it – to be able to get away from everything else.”

This sense of venturing out is one of the most exhilarating aspects for Father Stitt.

“One of the saddest experiences I had was when I was heading in from a hike, and somebody was coming down from what we presumed was the summit of one of them. I said ‘Oh, you’re already coming down, that’s great.’ ‘No, I got called into work,’ he replied. He was miles and miles in. And what do you do?, I thought. What could he possibly do? Was he a surgeon? If so, like how many hours (had he spent climbing)? But that’s an unusual experience in the mountains. Normally, people are experiencing the carefree timelessness out there.”

COURAGE IN THE EYE OF THE STORM
Father Stitt has a wealth of stories to share about his most memorable climbs. “I’ve done Colden more than any other. It’s really outstanding, not that long of a hike. I really loved my hike of Allen, which is many people’s least favorite. But again, it was a perfect day and I was hiking with wonderful people, Madonna Champagne and Gabe Gratto, who will be married soon. And it was just a pleasant conversation – and we didn’t die; Alan is a little treacherous in some spots. It was a pleasant surprise at how much I enjoyed that one. If I had to choose one, I’d say Colden is my favorite.”

At times, Father Stitt encountered unexpected dangers. “I was hiking with my brother-in-law, and we were at the summit of Hoff mountain. We covered four mountains that day and we were hoping to hit five (the Dix Range). Dix was still off in the distance and, when we got to the top of Hoff – remember when Frodo and Sam look out on the horizon and see Mt. Doom, and all the sky just looming? – that’s what it looked like when we got to the top of Hoff. And around that time we heard the thunder. And we said ‘Oh dear, this could be bad.’ So we started making our way down, we just gave up on Dix right then.

“And the storm came in fast and hard,” he continued. “It had been such a beautiful day. We were going down and there were a couple of other people that were also at the summit and were coming down. My brother-in-law and I had started a Rosary earlier in the day and we paused when we were with other people. Anyway, as we’re coming down the mountain now it’s thundering and lightning and we’re basically at the top of the mountain, and I said ‘Scott, I think it’s time to get that Rosary going again.’ And I said to the people we were with, ‘Folks, do you mind, we’re going to start our Rosary again?’ And one guy said, ‘We really would like you to do that.’ It wasn’t the most prayerful of Rosaries but it was earnest. I don’t think that I’d ever been wetter and I’ve gone swimming before.”

MOUNTAINTOP ADVENTURES
And then there was the time that he and a brother priest made a daring escape.

“Couchsachraga is a Huron name that means desolate wilderness, and that should have been the clue that it wasn’t going to be such a great experience,” Father Stitt said. “There is a bog as you approach the summit because there are two other taller mountains there so it’s like a swamp, sometimes it’s waist deep and there is no other way around it. So, what a lot of people advise is to do it during the winter. Father Scott Belina and I decided to do so. It was great, I mean it was a tough day, it was long and we were in snowshoes. But we walked right over the frozen bog; that was wonderful, but, then, as we approached the summit, there was four or five feet of snow on the mountain at that point. This was March sometime.”

“It was just warm enough that the snow was starting to give way,” Father added. “And there’s something called a Spruce trap, when the snow covers the branches and you can walk over it oftentimes but sometimes if the snow hits the right way you go through the tree. It had just warmed up, we had hiked up to the summit and we had gone over fine, now we’re coming back and it warmed up just enough that Father Belina went through. And we talked him out of it and then I went through. To get out, I was trying to push myself out, and the snow was collapsing underneath and so we had to figure out how to do these things. Eventually, we decided to wait until spring to do the next two. We closed winter that year.”

That wasn’t Father Stitt’s only adventure. Another time, “Mike Neaton almost needed a helicopter rescue because he was nauseous at the top and and Karl Doty blew out his boot and only a mile into a 12-mile hike but somehow soldiered through. Other memorable ones are bringing my nieces and nephews up and just introducing other people into the mountains. I’ve hiked with some newbies and been able to share that joy. The greatest celebrity I hiked with was Father Phil Allen whose done them 25 times. I got two in with Father Allen, so that’s a special honor.”

SOURCE AND SUMMIT
Father Stitt shared that hiking is sometimes a spiritual experience. “We’re Catholic, we can pray anywhere. John Paul (II) was definitely an inspiration for me early on. Witness to Hope came out when I got to major seminary, so learning about him offering Mass on a kayak with young adults was something that I was doing early in my priesthood, going out to experience the beauty of creation and the Source and Summit of the faith all at once.
“And Rosaries, and Liturgy of the Hours – many of my fellow hikers learned that ‘Okay, we’re going to be pausing a few times a day to pray the (Divine) Office.” So, the outward facing inward kind of beauty. The Psalms really come alive when you’re praying “Sun and moon, praise the Lord, mountains and hills praise the Lord.’ When we’re praying the Luminous mysteries of the Rosary and there’s the Baptism of the Jordan and we’re walking by a brook, and the Transfiguration and you’re at the summit of the mountain, and the Institution of the Eucharist and you’ve come from offering Mass, it all comes together beautifully.”

“The obvious thing, too, should be that wherever you have a beautiful view as you do on many of the summits of the 46, you realize the sheer magnitude of God, the wonder of God, the beauty, the complexity and the strength, and also how fragile we are as well.”

THE END AND THE BEGINNING
Father Stitt’s ascent to the heights isn’t over. “One of the joys has been sharing this with other people, so I’m going to support them,” he said. “I never did finish Saranac Triad or the Tupper Triad, so I want to finish those.”
For those who are interested in beginning the journey, Father Stitt offered this advice: “Start with the Saranac Six or the Tupper Triad, none of those are of the 46, but if you’ve never been hiking before those are good mountains to start on, Baker in the village of Saranac Lake or Arab over in Tupper Lake. Those are terrific little ones to start on. After you’ve experienced those, then the gateway of the high peaks is Cascade. It’s a wonderfully beautiful mountain and relatively short. What you can see at Cascade is just amazing, and many people will knock out Porter because you go almost all the way into Cascade and then there’s a fork in the road (leading there). So many people will do two high peaks in their first hike. Cascade was my second high peak. My first one was Marcy. That’s not what I would recommend for most people.”

MORE ENJOYABLE TOGETHER
“So much of the hike is getting into the mountains,” Father explained. “And many of them, like the Dix range or there’s one stretch called the Great Range – once you’re in there, you’ve gotten most of your elevation in – and the most technical parts are at the top, but you’re just knocking them out as you go. Once you’ve done your first dozen or so, most of the mountains you’re doing two or three at a time. That’s how you really start ramping it up.”

“(One time) we stayed at Johnsburg Lodge, a wonderful little spot (in Keene), where you hike in three and a half miles. There is a little lodge to stay at that has four bunk rooms, and they make dinner for you, get you breakfast in the morning, and pack a lunch for you. God bless the Guggenheim staff that work there, they lug like 60 pounds of groceries in every day to feed the dozen or two dozen people who are staying there.”

Father Stitt’s least favorite hike had nothing to do with the terrain or weather.

“My least favorite hike is one that I did by myself. It was fine, I mean it’s not a bad thing to hike alone as long as you’re safe about it and let people know where you’re going to be. It’s definitely not as enjoyable as it is to share something as beautiful as that. Even Jesus brought Peter, James, and John on the mountain; he went off by himself to pray but to experience the glory at the summit is much more enjoyable together.”