After the terrorist attacks of 9/11, Louise Chaput reluctantly called off a hiking trip to Turkey she had been planning to take.
Chaput, a 52-year-old psychologist who worked primarily with prison inmates, lived in Sherbrooke, Quebec, a French-speaking municipality of 160,000 once known as the “Queen of the Eastern Townships.” Her best friend, Marie Pinault, was going to join her on the trip, along with Pinault’s husband, Denis Masson. But, like so many others, the two were feeling more than a bit rattled about flying.
“We said, ‘No, we’re not going abroad, because the planes and all this,’” Pinault told The Daily Beast. “So she said, ‘Let’s go to Mount Washington.’”