A map of Sunday River.
Snowboarding at Sunday River (part 1)
Thursday, December 31, 1998
Jon and I packed our gear and headed over to meet Claudia and Jim in town by Lou's Restaurant. Jim jumped in the car with Jon and I drove Claudia's car (so she could nap, though I daresay our conversations kept her awake the whole way) and we made the trip up 91 and across Route 2 all the way to Bethel, Maine. It was a cold morning, and the weatherman said it was going to get even colder. It took a bit longer to get our stuff together and drive up there than we had expected, but we finally made it to our hotel--the Jordan Grand Resort--at around 11am. There we met Dan (Jim's brother) and his girlfriend Sybille. Dan and Jim had planned the trip and made the arrangements for our accommodations, which turned out to be very comfortable indeed. The six of us lugged all of our gear up to our room, doing so somewhat covertly since we were squeezing a few more people in than the management knew about. Calling it a room is a bit of understatement, though--it was no different than a furnished apartment with its own kitchen, dining and living areas, and even a separate bedroom. We grabbed a bit of food and got our stuff together, finally getting out on the slopes at around 1pm for a half-day of skiing and snowboarding.
We skied right out the back door of the hotel, it couldn't have been more convenient. On our way around to the nearest lift, we passed the outdoor heated pool and hot tub behind our hotel--ah yes, there was little doubt that we'd all end up there later tonight! We jumped on the lift and headed to the top of the Jordan Bowl, the mountain right behind our hotel. We decided to traverse closer to the heart of the Sunday River resort on a very flat trail called Kansas. This was a big, big mistake. I'd forgotten just how frustrating and difficult it is to cross long, flat distances on a snowboard--I learned that lesson last winter at Burke--but after this fiasco I don't think it'll slip my mind. I struggled fruitlessly to try to push myself along skateboard-style, slipping, sliding and falling all over the place. To make matters worse, although the trail was flat lengthwise, it was angled widthwise, and every time I did push myself along, gravity just pulled me right off the low side of the trail into the woods. The frustration was practically unbearable, and coupled with the fact that everyone else was constantly having to stop and wait for me, I really felt like I was ruining the already shortened day. I'm not sure anyone quite realized just how angry (at myself and stupid old Kansas) I was at this point. After what seemed like an eternity (but was probably only 15 minutes) struggling along the flatland, I finally just picked up my board and walked. Everyone was very patient and sympathetic, though, and thankfully we bagged Kansas and zigzagged lift-to-trail across the next couple of mountains.
The rest of the day went much, much smoother from there on out, and we all stuck together for the most part, checking out different trails on Aurora and Spruce Peaks. Just as we'd heard it would be, the weather was bitter cold, staying below zero most of the day. We were all well-bundled, however, and had minimal problems staying warm. The sky was clear and it was a beautiful day to be on the slopes. I fell an awful lot, but what's new. The snow wasn't nearly as icy and unforgiving as it was at Whaleback earlier in the week, and I seemed to be making slight progress with my turns. Jon lent me his hip pads, which I wore underneath my snowpants. I've really got to remember my knee pads next time, though. Everyone else seemed to be doing well, though I was working so hard avoiding self-mutilation that I wasn't too observant of what anyone else was doing. I was very happy, though, that despite my shortcomings I didn't seem to be slowing people up too badly.
We met at the North Peak Lodge around closing time (4pm), and headed on down to the South Ridge Base Area where we caught a shuttle back to the Jordan Grand. It had been a short night's sleep for some of us, and so we were more than ready to relax and veg out at the hotel for a while. We snacked quite a bit and looked over the various New Year's events that would be taking place later on. Nothing seemed particularly fascinating, except for possibly the puzzling advertisement for a petting zoo. Shortly thereafter we figured it was about time we check out the hotel's recreational facilities, so we grabbed our trunks and headed for the hot water. Using the hot tub proved to be a bit more challenging than we had anticipated. At some point it came to our attention that the hotel was having problems with its hot water supply, and that the water temperatures were several degrees cooler than normal. We decided to convene in the sauna to determine a plan of action. Eventually we decided that whether it was a hot tub or just a warm tub, we were going out there. The only obstacle was that we had to first swim through the barely lukewarm pool to get to it. It took a little mental strength to get started, but we all made it over pretty quickly. Indeed, the water wasn't so hot, but warm enough that we could enjoy it for a while as our hair turned white in the -10F air. When that adventure finally came to an end, we headed back upstairs to make some dinner and get ready to go out.
We checked out a couple of places around our hotel, but the cover charges were high and the entertainment quality low. We finally decided to head over to see a comedian at the Foggy Goggle bar at one of the other hotels. We walked in and before anyone could do a thing about it, wide-eyed and unsuspecting Jim, who spotted an empty table up front, led the six of us right on in to the pathetic world of Mr. No-Talent-Big-Ego Comedian. He got his kicks picking on all of us, starting before we even sat down. Poor Claudia, who was barely awake in the first place, became the White River Junction Lady, and with that honor she bore the brunt of an insufferable number of dubious and sometimes perplexing put-downs. I myself realized right away that we had a situation on our hands, so I immediately increased my tolerance for these shenanigans by ordering rum and Cokes one right after another. He finally wrapped up his shtick and we skedaddled back to our hotel. You had nothing but good intentions, Jim. We forgive you.
We got back into the apartment and it was mighty close to midnight. In fact, I flipped on the TV and we had literally 30 seconds to go. I grabbed the Bailey's and some glasses and poured them way too fast, and we all had a toast just in the nick of time. At that point, we folded out the beds and crashed for the night.
Snowboarding at Whaleback
Monday, December 28, 1998
You could call it snowboarding or perhaps "beating oneself to a pulp" would be more accurate. There was only one real run open thanks to this pathetic, snowless winter we're having, and it was not terribly beginner-friendly. It wouldn't really have been too bad had it not been such a hard, fast slope, icy in spots. I did OK here and there but falling on such a hard surface wore my body down fast. I think I learned a few things, and it was fun for the most part. A whole bunch of us were there alpine and Telemark skiing and snowboarding--Claudia, Jon (B.) as well as several others from the hospital who I met for the first time. Looks like I'll have reminders of this outing for a while--my knee, shoulders, my butt ....
Algonquin and Iroquois
Saturday, December 26, 1998
Sherpa Kevin, Sherpa Travis and I (Sherpa BJ) hit the trail from the Adirondak Loj at 8:50am. The conditions were quite good as winter conditions go, with temperatures in the 20s and mostly clear skies with no detectable wind (at the bottom). For Sherpa Kevin and I, this was our second attempt at a winter ascent of Algonquin this year. (Our previous try was way back on January 2nd.) There were only a couple of inches of snow on the ground when we started--not much, given what time of year it was--but it was enough to fully coat the forest floor and all of its trees, beautifying the wilderness in the way that only snow can. We marched along the trail a ways, and heated up quickly despite the cool outdoor temperatures. Just after dressing down by a little stream, Sherpa Travis broke through a patch of ice and both of his feet plunged into about 6 or so inches of icy water. Fortunately, he was wearing waterproof rubber boots and jumped out so fast that the water pretty much just rolled off of him without getting a chance to soak in anywhere. Not 30 seconds later, Sherpa Kevin slipped on the ice of that very same stream and cut his hand on a rock while catching his balance. OK, a rough start ....
We continued on up, and I was being extremely cautious, figuring I was the next one to have a mishap. The snow got deeper and fluffier as we quickly increased our elevation, but it still didn't look like we were going to need the snowshoes which we all had strapped to our backs. We passed a cool little frozen waterfall just as we met some folks who were coming down. They said they'd been on Wright Peak, and it was extremely windy up there, but clear. We continued on, and before we knew it we'd reached a spot on the trail which went through little saddle--Sherpa Kevin and I remembered it from last time. There had been huge drifts from the wind whipping through it and we'd put on our snowshoes at that point. There was no need for that this time, though we did begin to think that we might need our snowshoes just for the crampons. The trail was beginning to show signs of being icy. Sherpa Kevin then spotted a big rock outcropping through the trees across the saddle, maybe 100 feet away. We'd not noticed it last time, apparently. We left our packs and decided to take a little diversion to climb on top of the exposed rock. The snow was in fact pretty deep on the way over, and it was pretty steep climbing up the rock, but it was a lot of fun. And the wind was picking up something fierce. As we were getting to the top of the outcropping, we realized just what those folks had meant about heavy winds. It was difficult to walk without getting pushed over! We were laughing and having a great time playing like childish Sherpa's apprentices up on the rock, and taking in some of the views around us. We figured this tiny little place probably didn't have a name, so we dubbed it Leght (pronounced "left") Peak. After our little romp we climbed back down and got ready to move on.
We hit the trail just behind two guys with crampons who we'd run into again at the top. They didn't say much--we think they were French-speaking Canadians. We didn't waste any time moving on and soon came to some very beautiful, narrow parts of the trail winding through the heavily snow-laden pines. Just after this corridor of sorts, the trail opened up to a wide and straight but very steep section. By now the trail was under enough snow that no more rocks were detectable, and of course they also weren't there to make climbing a little bit easier. This part of the trail wasn't so bad this time around, but it was trying on the calves. I do remember struggling up it (and sliding backwards, too) last year. Sherpa Trav decided that this was the perfect place to use his snowshoes--after all, he did pay for them. So, he put them on and zoomed up the trail. Soon afterward we reached tree line and began to prepare for the wind. We bundled up good and headed out into the open. It wasn't too bad, but as we made our way up the slippery, ice-coated rock, the wind was constantly picking up. We soon passed the place where Sherpa Kevin and I had turned around last year due to poor visibility. Had we known that we were less than one tenth of a mile from the peak, we probably would have kept going, and perhaps wouldn't have been here today ....
Just before the peak we passed the two Canadian guys who had apparently stopped for a break. The summit was only a few hundred feet further, and so we beat them to it. On top the wind picked up dramatically, but was probably not any worse than on Leght Peak. There were clouds in the sky but they were all so high that they didn't obscure the views. We could see every last little contour on hundreds of bare, wintery mountains in all directions around us. It was incredible, though taking in the views required more effort than usual with the constant winds of 40+ miles per hour pushing us around. We looked around a bit and then found some shelter behind a big rock where we decided to eat lunch. Sherpa Kevin whipped out a hot Thermos of chicken noodle soup, minus the broth which had apparently all been soaked up by the noodles. It was great to have the warmth, as our bodies were cooling quickly and snow was blowing around in our faces and over all of our equipment and food. Everything was starting to freeze--our food was all crunchy and we even had to break away a thin layer of ice from the mouths of our water bottles in order to drink from them. My thermometer said 16F, but it's always a bit high since it's close to my body. We finished up eating and jumped around to warm ourselves up before starting out towards Iroquois.
The descent down the side of Algonquin toward Iroquois was probably the toughest part of the trip--it was so icy that we all had our share of spills and we slid down much of the way (intentionally and unintentionally). The wind here was even worse than on top--so bad that I began to worry that Sherpa Kevin, who didn't have goggles on, wasn't going to be able to continue. Since we only had two pairs of goggles with us, one of us always had to be without and Sherpa Kevin's face was freezing from the wind burn. I didn't know if he'd be able to keep his eyes open, but he adjusted his scarf and hat just right and made it down OK. That's when I began to wonder how hard it would be to get back up to where we just came from ....
Technically, Iroquois is a trailless peak, though there's an obvious path, and many cairns, which many previous hikers have followed to get there. You only just barely get down below tree line so given clear skies, the destination is always visible ahead of you. There was a good six or more inches of powder on the ground down among the stunted pines as we bridged the gap between the two peaks. The pristine snowfall was marred only by the tracks of a bunch of rabbits that appeared to have passed through recently. We waded through the snow, which drifted up to a couple feet in spots, over to a false peak, and then further to the actual peak of Iroquois. From there the view back to Algonquin was marvelous, and we could also see a great cliff not too far off which Sherpa Kevin said was one of the biggest (perhaps the biggest?) in the Adirondacks. [BJ with Whiteface in the distance] [Travis with snow-whitened rock slides in the distance] After a short stay, we headed back for Algonquin. It turns out the hike up the icy face was not as bad as I'd imagined--Sherpas Travis and Kevin strapped on the snowshoes just for the use of the crampons, though I was able to make it up (albeit a bit slower) without using mine. We popped back over the peak and then headed right back down toward tree line.
Once there, Sherpa Kevin whipped out his roll-up sled, and I grabbed a plastic garbage bag that I'd brought, and with Travis on the seat of his slippery pants, we slid down much of the trail on our butts. It was a bumpy ride, though, since the snow wasn't too deep in most places. We soon reached the wide open steep part of the trail where Sherpa Trav had put on his snowshoes on the way up. He ran on down as Sherpa Kevin prepared to remount his sled. I started barreling down a little too quickly and nearly plowed over Sherpa Kevin as I zoomed uncontrollably over the slick snowy surface. Sherpa Travis was screaming from the bottom and my boots were kicking up snow into my face so I couldn't see a thing. I figured Sherpa Trav could be telling me that I was about to hit a tree, so I jammed my feet down and ground to a snowy halt. I was nowhere near the trees, but I had been closing on them fast. I turned and looked up to Sherpa Kev, who'd been hoping to race me down. My legs were tired so I opted not to climb back up, and he flew right on down the hill in good time on his blue bomber.
We continued to zip on down, wasting no time heading for the car. We paused at the intersection with the trail to Wright Peak, but it was getting late (it was past 3 already) and we all had tired legs, so we unanimously decided to skip it. It was a pretty quick trip out, and we reached the Loj at about 4:45pm. It was an excellent trip, we all agreed, and we were anxious to tell others about our fun with the icy rocks and high-speed wind.
Passaconaway
Sunday, December 6, 1998
Felipe and I got on the trail at a little after 9am, hoping to ascend both Passaconaway and Whiteface. We headed toward Passaconaway first, though we decided to take a slightly longer route that ascended a shoulder on the east side of the mountain which had some steep cliffs. There was no sign of snow for a long time on the way in, and I began to seriously wonder if we'd see any at all. I was very surprised, but since it's been such a warm winter, I guess even up there the snow just doesn't stick around. As we made our way toward the shoulder, we noticed the incredible destruction left by the ice storm back in January. Though the trails had been cleared, trees were down everywhere and with a foggy mist around us at some points, I felt almost like we were in some swampy wasteland that one might find in a good adventure story. The sun did finally begin to burn away the fog and the clouds cleared somewhat to ease the encroaching claustrophobia. We continued trodding along when suddenly there appeared through the trees an amazing view of the upcoming cliffs. I wasn't sure there would actually be any such cliffs just from looking at the map, but there they were--at least a few hundred feet high and majestic in the distance. As we neared them, I began to wonder exactly how we were going to ascend the shoulder--if I remembered correctly, the trail ended up at the top of those cliffs. It didn't look climbable, but the trail kept getting closer and closer to the cliffs. Finally it veered off slightly and we climbed up a very steep trail just to the side of the cliffs. It was a fun ascent and once atop the cliffs we bushwhacked over to the edge to have a look out. It was thick with trees and bushes right up to the edge so it wasn't too easy to see out, but we were able to peek at some of the nearby mountains around us.
As we began to ascend from the shoulder, we were able to look up and see what we had in store for us. We could see that Passaconaway was indeed snow-covered, and the clouds were rolling back in. The top was engulfed. It wasn't long at all after leaving the shoulder before we saw snow and ice--the opposite side of the bulge was protected from the sun and there was snow that looked like it'd been there a while. There were a few tracks in it, but none recent. Looked like no one had been along this trail in a while. As we began to ascend more steeply, the snow got deeper and deeper. It was pretty crunchy--definitely not fresh snow--and quite slippery in many places. But we steadily made our way up, at one point spotting moose tracks (possibly multiple moose) making their way along the path as well. They eventually diverted from the trail, and as we neared the top we began to find some of the outlooks described in the trail guide. Unfortunately, the clouds were still all around us and the views were non-existent. The summit itself was tree-covered, and once we reached it we unrolled a sleeping pad we'd brought along and sat down on it on a rock to have lunch. It had taken a while longer than we thought to reach the peak, and we debated whether or not to continue over Whiteface. With the time getting late, we decided not to. Besides, there were no views anyway and the slippery snowy trails made for slow hiking. So we went with the backup plan and took a trail down which split off between the two peaks.
Not half an hour down the trail it began to get brighter out. Looking up we saw that the cloudy sky had cleared miraculously--it had to have been 75% blue up there and I was really annoyed. We could see the peak where we'd just been such a short time ago with no views whatsoever. Oh well, I guess those are the breaks. We stopped by a beat up old lean-to that was along the trail on our way down and wondered why it hadn't been kept up by anyone. The rest of the hike out went quite quickly, which was good as daylight was quickly coming to an end. The very end of the trail out passes right through somebody's yard, through a gate and down their driveway. It was kind of weird, but it's nice of them to give hikers the right to go through. We reached the car at dusk, and though the clouds had cheated us of views at the top, it was an otherwise good day, and for Felipe a little more winter hiking experience under his belt.
Mom, Felipe and I decided to do a short trip while everybody else was shopping on this Black Friday. In my haste, however, I misread the guide book and thought that the hike was longer than it actually turned out to be. It was about 2 miles round trip, as opposed to 2 miles each way. It was a drizzly day in Plattsburgh, but by the time we reached the Adirondak Loj, it was flurrying beautifully, and the trees and ground were covered in a gorgeous white fluff. We headed up the trail, which was quite muddy underneath the snow, and took the Short Trail to the peak. It was fairly steep in parts, and the snow made things a bit tricky here and there. But we had no troubles, really, and we reached the peak in about 45 minutes. Unfortunately, it was somewhat cloudy, and so only parts of some of the neighboring mountains could be seen. We snapped a bunch of pictures and had our lunch, but the wind and cold temperatures quickly cooled us down. [BJ with Mom at the summit] Shortly thereafter, we headed back down, and this time we took the Long Trail to the Rock Garden Trail before reaching Heart Lake and the Loj once again. Although it was a very quick hike, it was a fun one and a good warm-up for winter hikes to come.
Smarts
Sunday, November 22, 1998
Fred, Simone and I didn't hit the trail until about 11:30. We had a cool, clear day, but shed a lot of clothing because of the heat we worked up on the way up. Despite temperatures in the mid-30s, I was quite comfortable hiking in shorts all the way up. There were a couple of very nice viewpoints along the way, and I was quite impressed with how far one could see from this mountain. The last time I hiked this mountain, it was very foggy and nothing could be seen at all, so I had no idea. The trail was enjoyable, with a bunch of stretches of open rock, and yes, even some pine forests with beautiful beds of needles on the ground.
We started to see snow on the ground as we were beginning the final ascent, and we had already seen a little ice here and there on the trail. The ice actually got quite a bit worse, and many steeper, rocky parts in the trail became iced over and quite dangerous. But we managed them cautiously and without much trouble, and even noticed that in several places there was a trickle of water flowing underneath the glaze of ice creating peculiar, though fun to watch, moving globular patterns. At the top we ascended the fire tower, and sat down for lunch in its enclosed top. Without the tower, there wouldn't be much for views due to the tree-covered peak. But up in the tower the 360-degree outlook was marvelous. I was still quite amazed at how many hundreds of mountains could be seen in all directions, and very far in the distance.
After eating it was nearly 3 o'clock and we decided to get going as darkness would be setting in in less than two hours, and Simone also hoped to get a nap before going to work later on. We briefly checked out the ranger's cabin that was also near the peak, and then headed back down. We quickly navigated the icy rocks, and soon reached a split in the trail which I knew had existed, but which we missed on the way up. Not long ago, the trail had been rerouted, though the old trail was still open for use. It's now called the "Ranger Trail" and we decided to take it for a change of pace. It turns out that this trail was actually a tad shorter, and probably flatter and quicker as well. It was a little more boring as well, though, and I surmise that's probably why they rerouted it. We kept a brisk pace and got out just as it was getting dark. We all enjoyed the trip and I personally hope that we get to do a couple more such trips before the winter is over.
John and I both had rough weeks, but what we lacked in sleep we made up for with motivation ... or maybe stupidity. John didn't even get to my house until 1:30 in the morning, right after I'd gotten back from some last-minute shopping. I ate dinner at 2am, then packed, and only then did I look at a map to plan our route. I knew I wanted to do the Franconia Ridge, but that was it. I found a decent hike that put us at the Garfield Ridge Campsite Saturday night and avoided backtracking (a key concept for this trip, as you'll soon see). I finally slept at 3.
We got up (well, Lucy got us up) at 8am, threw the rest of our stuff together and hit the road. We took two cars, and put John's at the base of the Liberty Spring Trail on Route 3 at the south end of the Franconia Notch, then drove my car down the Kancamagus Highway to where it crosses the Each Branch of the Pemigewasset River, which is the beginning of the Lincoln Woods Trail. I had planned a pretty easy day for us--over 10 miles, but almost completely flat until the very end. We'd go straight north, right along the Franconia Brook Trail and to the Garfield Ridge Campsite, or the 13 Falls Campsite if we tired early. We didn't finally get going until 11:20, but a few miles in we were flying down the trail and realized just how easy this day would be. That was great, since we were both still pretty beat from the past week. We were cruising along, keeping our eyes open for the intersection with the Franconia Brook Trail, when we reached a sign: the Bondcliff Trail. I realized immediately that this was a bad sign, no pun intended. We'd missed our turn. I knew that we could take the Bondcliff Trail and still reach our destination, but it was longer and passed over 4 peaks in the Twin Range along the way--no easy task. I looked at John, and we realized we were faced with the following question: "Bust our asses, or backtrack?"
"Let's do it," John said, without hesitation. We were both feeling pretty good at the time and it was my inclination to go for the gusto as well, so we did. We were making great time, considering we each had 40 to 50 pounds on our backs, and as we were getting most of the way up our first peak of the weekend, Bondcliff, we passed and older gentleman with whom we stopped to chat. John let it slip that we were headed for the Garfield Ridge Campsite, and this guy clearly thought we were insane. He may have been right, but we didn't want to hear any of that. We were young and fast. He said we wouldn't make it before 10 or 11pm at least, and there was always the much closer Guyot Campsite if we came to our senses. As John put it, he lit a fire under my butt, and we picked up the already quick pace.
We soon reached the peak of Bondcliff, though just before it there was an interestingly steep little section where we had to do a little handoff with Lucy. She wanted no part of that, but nonetheless we got her up. We met another hiker right at this spot. He was heading for the Guyot Campsite, and we stopped and chatted with him for a little bit. The views on this day were absolutely spectacular. The air was perfectly clear and there was nearly a 360-degree view all of the way along the ridge. There were countless mountains visible in all directions. We had a very, very quick lunch, then passed over Bondcliff to Bond. We decided not to take the short spur trail over to West Bond since we really were running out of daylight fast. It was already three o'clock, which meant we had not much more than three hours before we'd have to break out the headlamps. We decided that we'd see how things were going when we passed the Guyot Campsite and maybe consider staying there if things were looking bleak. But it was no time before we reached that point, and we barely stopped to think about it. "Well, now we're committed," said John. "Maybe we ought to be committed," I responded. Yuk yuk yuk.
Guyot went fast and I regret that we didn't have more time to take in the superb views on this day as we made haste along the ridge. But hey, if we'd stuck to our original plan we wouldn't have even had these views in the first place. We continued to zip on over to South Twin, our fourth peak of the day. We arrived there at 6 o'clock and the sun was over the horizon. We had twilight as we skittered down the steep westward descent from South Twin to the Galehead Hut. Headlamps came on just as we neared the bottom of the slope. The hut was a nice milestone to have reached, but we still had 2.7 miles left, and we were really getting exhausted. All along we'd been wondering whether or not there would even be spaces left at the Garfield Ridge Campsite. We figured at this time of year, though, there had to be. We briefly considered crashing on the porch of the hut, which was now closed for the season, but that would just make tomorrow an even longer day. We knew there were tent platforms at the Garfield Ridge Campsite, and that would be just perfect for us. We pressed on.
Every step was beginning to be difficult. I tried not to think about it, but I was constantly making mental calculations about how far we had left to go. Another 5 minutes. Another tenth of a mile. We stopped often to rest, and drink, but our water was getting very low. Somewhere along the trail we saw two other lights coming our way in the dark. We passed a couple that was heading to the hut. Chatting with them for a while got our spirits back up and was a bit of a sanity check. After the break we continued on, focussed on our destination. A short while later, John noticed a trickle of crystal clear water at the side of the trail. There was a small spring that supplied dripping water from some higher mossy soil down into a very tiny pool. We didn't know if we'd be seeing much more water, so we took the time to fill up. The end of the filter barely fit under the surface of the water, but it was well worth the effort. The spring water was pure, cold, and refreshing. Once again, we pushed forth.
Not much farther down the trail I was nearly scared out of my boots. As I trekked down the path in the silence of the night, a voice came out of the pitch black just off in the woods and really startled me. It turns out that it was just a concerned backpacker in his tent, making sure that we were OK and not lost, etc. We thanked him and told him that we were "just a bit behind schedule" and nothing more. We asked if the Garfield Ridge Campsite was full, but he didn't know. We continued.
All the while I was attempting to distract myself from the complete exhaustion that my body was experiencing. I'd not felt such fatigue in a long, long time. I tried to look up at the night sky from time to time--there was not a single cloud to obscure the brilliant stars that shone on this clear evening. But although I yearned to lie on my back and stare at them as I fell into sleep, I could not stop. We trudged on, caring not the least about the mud that splattered our boots and legs as we plodded straight through it. Perhaps the worst feeling of all was knowing that the final stretch of trail before the campsite was a 500-foot ascent up the base of Mount Garfield. The mere thought of it made my legs ache. Yet onward we marched.
The intersection with the Franconia Brook Trail: this was the final milestone before we reached our destination. This is where we would have come in to the Garfield Ridge had we not so fatefully missed our turnoff some eight long hours ago. The sign indicated that we had 0.5 miles left before reaching our destination--the light at the end of the tunnel was finally beginning to appear. The only thing now separating us from sweet, sweet rest was a simple matter of 500 feet in elevation. We breathed deeply and took the plunge.
I can hardly begin to explain the suffering that followed. Each individual step was a battle, a conscious struggle to fight gravity and exhaustion and move just a little bit further. Not a footstep went by when I didn't consider collapsing in the nearest available space between rocks. Not a breath was taken without the thought of stopping for another gulp of water. I've never grasped so blindly at trees and rocks, nor concentrated so hard just to keep from closing my eyes. It was a torture I never want to experience again. I've been this exhausted before. I've been unable to lift my head, to take a step, to utter a sound. But never have I been in such a condition in the middle of the woods, on a cold night, in the dark, with none of the comforts of civilization. I attempted to void my mind of thoughts--I did anything I could that would help remove me from having to perceive the agonizingly slow passage of time. And at last, it appeared to me.
It was the sign for the campsite turnoff. We had just one tenth of a mile left, still climbing, along the spur trail to the campsite. It was glorious. Having pictured our arrival in my head about a million times already, it was just as I envisioned. I'd been here before and even remembered the style in which the arranged rocks were laid out on the trail. I felt great comfort, but even so, I was nearly unable to make it up these last few steps without taking a break to sit down. I did make it, though, and we passed the first tent platform, which was taken. Then we arrived at the one lean-to, which already had people sleeping in it. We continued to walk around to all of the platforms, one by one. Taken ... taken ... taken. It didn't take long for us to realize that we were out of luck, utterly and completely. There was a tight boundary around the campsite, indicated by aligned rocks and signs, marking off revegetation and watershed areas where camping was forbidden. While tempted to use them anyway, we resisted the urge and pushed our way through some branches into the woods, looking for a space big enough to set up a tent in what we thought was a "legal" area. The forest was very dense, however, and so we decided to consider our options while plopping down in a tiny space to cook dinner. We had made it to the campsite at 9:20, completing 17.2 miles and four peaks exactly 10 hours after we began. Ha, that old man was crazy indeed. (read: sarcasm)
I had all I could do to keep my eyes open while I watched the stove. The cold evening air quickly cooled my body and I began to shiver. I wasted no time in putting on all of my dry clothes--long johns, insulated wind pants, a t-shirt, sweatshirt, fleece vest, winter jacket, mittens, ear-warmer, and hood. I really don't know how cold it got, but it had to be approaching freezing. Not so bad really for this time of year, but then again I'm not usually sitting outside in it. After warming myself with some pasta, I somehow scrounged up the effort to put some things back in my bag before collapsing into sleep. I was so tired that I told John that squeezing between two trees right here in the woods would be just fine with me. It wasn't supposed to rain so I was willing to take that risk. He thought about going to check out the lean-to and looking for other spaces to pitch a tent, but in the end we both just laid down our sleeping pads and bags and crashed, hard.
I'd found a spot between a big rock and a pile of dirt at the base of a tree. On any other day it would have been out of the question, but tonight it would do just fine. Unfortunately, sleep didn't come as easily to me as I would've thought. Lucy came over as I was first falling asleep, and she was shivering. I let her lay down next to me, and even opened up my bag a little and covered her with it. Unfortunately, it was very uncomfortable for me, and after a few hours of sleeping sporadically, I moved around enough that Lucy thought I was kicking her out. She was whining, and so I turned on my light to see her looking through the dark, apparently trying to find John but without success. I called out and woke him, and he called Lucy over. I curled up and was ready to sleep, but I heard John struggling with Lucy and, remembering how much she was shivering, I couldn't stop worrying about whether or not she'd be OK.
Finally I did sleep, only to be woken again a while later by Lucy, who had returned to me, again shivering, and this time worse than before. I again opened up my bag and she laid down next to me as I covered her with it. My bag was almost completely unzipped, but somehow I got it tucked just right so that I couldn't feel any cold air, except on my nose, which was about the only part of me exposed to the outside. This time I was quite comfortable, and I shared my warmth with Lucy, who eventually stopped shivering. I finally slept well for a while, though it seemed like no time before it was morning. All in all, I didn't feel very refreshed, and I was quite disappointed about that, considering what we still had ahead of us.
We got up at 8, or so we thought--we'd forgotten to set our clocks back so it was actually only 7. We were indescribably grateful for that extra hour, though we kept in mind that it would get dark an hour earlier than it had yesterday. We bantered with some folks at the lean-to as we prepared some oatmeal and started packing up for the day ahead of us. We also realized, as we were coming out of the woods, that we had in fact crossed the revegetation line. Oh well--I think we can be forgiven, especially since we camped (if you can call it that) away from the highly overused areas, in a place where it's likely that no one had ever camped before. I didn't know how John felt, but I for one had never felt so sore before I was about to hike. So I asked him if we were going to continue over the Franconia Range as planned, or if he wanted to take it easy and stroll out on the Franconia Brook Trail. He answered without the slightest bit of reservation in his voice. We'd come this far, and we weren't wimping out now.
So we hit the trail and made the last few tenths of a mile up to the summit of Garfield. It was slow but definitely an improvement from last night. The weather today was far different than yesterday--there was a heavy cloud cover, and it was very windy (actually, there were some big gusts yesterday, but not as persistent). We peered around at the non-existent views from the peak and then continued on down the Garfield Ridge Trail. It descends quite a ways, then goes up and down over a couple of smaller humps before the big ascent up Lafayette. We stopped at the tiny Garfield Pond for water--as it turned out, there was a brook right by the Garfield Ridge Campsite, but we had already gotten water from the spring the night before, and there were other dogs around in the morning to contend with, so we decided to skip it and wait for the pond. It was pond water, so not as fresh but certainly still drinkable. We made decent time towards Lafayette, and then up it. Although it was a long haul, it went well and I was happy with how I felt. The weather, however, continued to get worse as we ascended above the tree line, and by the time we reached the summit it was very windy, and visibility was almost zero.
We were greeted by several other hikers (some astoundingly underdressed), but kept moving for we had yet another long day ahead of us. We were bummed that we didn't have clear skies as we did yesterday, since the views from up here would no doubt have been even better, as the elevation is quite a bit higher than in the Twin Range. We pushed through the wind, passing several other hikers, and along the ridge. It was quite cold, but we were pretty comfortable, having brought plenty to wear. Mount Lincoln went by without much ado--we weren't even sure when we were on it until after the fact. We just kept on going along the ridge, hardly stopping, and making pretty good time. We began to discuss how our trip would come to completion. We'd planned on going down the Liberty Spring Trail, which heads off the ridge just before the summit of Mount Liberty. However, since we had come this far, we were considering the possibility of making a complete loop back to where we had started. This would entail passing over the summits of Liberty and then Flume, and heading down the Osseo Trail--a total of at least a few more miles than we would have done otherwise. We decided we'd wait and see how fast we got to the Liberty Spring junction.
It didn't take long. We moved quickly along the ridgeline over Little Haystack Mountain and to the junction, where the major concern was not whether we were physically able to hit two more peaks, but whether or not John would still have time for the four hour drive back home. I left it up to him, but by now hopefully you've seen the trend. We practically ran up Liberty, considering the condition we were in, and got a picture of John at the summit, though it was still very foggy. We wasted no time in continuing towards Mount Flume. We reached the peak--our tenth one--almost exactly 24 hours since hitting the peak of Bondcliff, and were happy to find that the sky had finally started to clear. There were some nice views of the valleys on both sides of us, and we met another hiker who kindly took our picture. After gabbing with him a little, we (as usual) made haste and started heading down our final descent.
It was quite steep for a while, and there were several wooden ladders along the way. But finally it evened out as we followed a nearby river down a ravine, and the going was easy on our weary bodies. I couldn't stop thinking about how close we were to finishing, and so time passed pretty slowly. But finally we reached the junction with the Lincoln Woods Trail, where we'd come in. It was a wonderful sight, and we vowed not to talk about pain as we booked it out the last 1.4 miles in practically no time.
The sight of the parking lot sent us both into ecstasy. We high-fived and John collapsed onto the pavement on his back. WE DID IT! It was unplanned and unexpected, but each of us had just completed the most grueling outdoor adventure that either had ever been a part of. We clocked in at 4:20pm (new time), which meant our total trip time was exactly 30 hours. 10 high peaks (8 official), 31.7 miles, all in just 30 hours. We averaged a pace of over 1 mile per hour, even if you count the time we were sleeping!
We swung around to pick up my car, and the entire Franconia Range was in plain view ahead of us as the sky had completely cleared up. Go figure.
Looking back on this trip, I can honestly say that it's not the kind of thing I want to do again anytime soon. But John and I shared an amazing experience on this weekend, and although there were times when each of us became frighteningly comfortable with the thought of collapsing and giving up, neither one of us would ever think of taking it back.
Le Tour de Foliage II
(Mountain Biking near Raquette Lake)
Saturday and Sunday, October 3-4, 1998
Somewhere in the midst of the successes of our inaugural mountain biking trip in the Raquette Lake area in 1997, John and I decided that this was a tradition that had to be continued. (Actually, I remember exactly when we made that decision. It was while we were gazing out over Mohegan Lake.) So despite busy work schedules and our unpredictable social lives, we both managed to make it to Raquette Lake (Lucy the Courageous Trail Dog, was, of course, right at John's side) during the peak of autumn for the 1998 version of what we've now dubbed "Le Tour de Foliage."
I didn't arrive at Raquette until about 11:30am Saturday, thanks to a grad student party the night before. As soon as I arrived, we whipped up a big brunch and discussed our plans. We decided to drive down to Inlet first, to check out what trails they had used for the mountain biking festival that had taken place there the previous weekend. We stopped at Pedals and Petals (yes, a combo bike & flower shop) and they told us that the races were held on the cross-country skiing trails at Fern Park, right in town. We also found out that the biking options at this time of year were a bit limited (or at least risky), thanks to hunting season. We noted another spot--a trail around Moss Pond--which looked good. But first we headed over to Fern Park, where there exists a complicated maze of paths to ski/bike on. John and I had both been there skiing on more than one occasion, but as we set out on the trails, we had a tough time keeping ourselves oriented. To be frank about it, the trails stank. They were slow, poorly marked, and just too difficult to be fun in many places. And to top it off, it appeared that many of them had been bulldozed out for the races, so it was just an ugly, unsatisfying ride.
After an hour or so there, we headed down the road to search for the Moss Pond trail. We found it without much trouble, parked, and headed out hoping things would work out better this time. After the first hundred feet or so, we were having serious doubts--it was very rocky and nearly impossible to ride. But we gave it another minute and were glad to find that it turned into a very nice, very rideable trail. In fact, we saw a bunch of tracks from bikers who'd been down the trail in the not-too-distant past. The trail first passed between Bubb Pond and Sis Pond, and we stopped to observe them and have some trail mix. The trail got better and better as we got further along--it was mostly smooth and rolling, with no huge climbs or descents. We were able to cruise pretty fast at times, though we had to keep an eye out for hikers. We hit the intersection at the beginning of the loop around Moss Pond and turned east. Shortly thereafter we hit a parking lot (on Big Moose Road), where several hikers had parked. We rested and chatted with a few of them, then continued around the pond. It continued to be a fantastic ride, through tall pines and lush vegetation. The only bad thing was that leaves were falling already (a bit earlier than last year), and there were occasionally surprises hidden underneath them. Unfortunately, about halfway around Moss Pond I became a victim of one such surprise.
I was riding a little too closely behind John as we were cruising along a path at maybe 15-20 mph. All of the sudden, a partially hidden but fairly large rock appeared from under the leaves immediately in front of me. I swerved as quickly as possible and avoided it with my front tire, but the rear tire didn't make it. Having just quickly thrown my weight to the side to try to avoid the obstacle, I was in a very bad position to handle such a jarring bump. I was wobbling and heading off the left side of the trail towards a very large tree. I bailed (only somewhat intentionally) and hit the ground hard. My right hand nailed something, and the knuckles in my pinkie were pretty sore. My left knee scraped the ground, and I had plenty of blood dripping down my leg for the rest of the trip. Somehow, my handlebar rammed into my left quadriceps, and it would turn a real nice deep purple over the next couple of days--an amazingly large bruise. My bike sustained only minimal damage--the left foot strap snapped, nothing serious--and I was OK to continue riding, thankfully. The rest of the trip went without incident, and though the weather had been pretty overcast most of the day, the sun finally peeked through the clouds and we stopped at the ponds on the way out to enjoy the beauty and serenity of the moment.
We finally got out after a couple of hours of riding, and were ready to eat. We stopped at the Screamen Eagle in Inlet for some pizza. I'd been past that place innumerable times, but never eaten there before. It was a real nice, cozy, comfortable place, and the homemade pizza was fantastic. We took our time enjoying the food and chatting. Finally, we headed back to camp, where we got a fire going and discussed the next day's trip: we decided on a 25-mile loop, most pieces of which we'd done at one time or another, but never all together. Satisfied with the route we'd planned, we chilled out in front of the tube and watched a cheesy sci-fi movie before crashing for the night.
We slept in a bit later than planned, and got to the Raquette Lake Elementary School parking lot a bit before 9:30. It was a cold morning--upper 20's when we left camp. I rigged up my left foot strap with some Velcro reflective anklets of John's and we were ready to go. After crossing Route 28, John, Lucy and I began the first leg of our journey, starting down Sagamore Road at 9:40. Sagamore is a well-maintained dirt road. Not quite four miles down it and you'll find Camp Sagamore. Once there, we continued on another dirt road toward Mohegan Lake. After about 5 miles total on these nice roads, we branched off onto a much smaller, hardly-used dirt road--the one that we followed to Bear Pond (the end of the line) last year. Not far down this road was our little side path to Lake Mohegan. This, of course, was the best part of the trip last year, and again, it did not disappoint.
It was almost exactly the same as we'd left it the previous year--a gorgeous sunny sky, very light breeze. Perfectly clean, with tall pines extending skyward and their beautiful long needles covering the ground. There were only two differences that we noticed: today there were no clouds in the sky, whereas last year there had been a few puffy cumuli floating around, and the changing colors of the leaves had progressed a little farther this year--more trees had lost leaves than last year. But there was still plenty of color despite that, and we basked in this heavenly place once again, amazed at how lucky we were. We snacked, walked around a bit, and took plenty of pictures before finally continuing on our way.
Just a bit further down the road was our turnoff down the Old Uncas Road path. It was quite a bit dryer than last time, but there were several more trees down, making it a bit frustrating having to stop more often. But after the initial uphill climb, it's nearly all downhill and a lot of fast (and sometimes dangerous) fun. We moved as many of the trees as we could, but basically went through pretty steadily otherwise, arriving at Route 28 shortly before noon. From there we crossed the road and into Eighth Lake Campground. We found our way to the lake shore, and paused to take in the nice view, riding our bikes out onto the (shaky) little docks sticking out into the water. But this is where things began to get tricky.
You see, we needed to get to the trail at the other end of Eighth Lake, about two and a half miles in front of us. We could have ridden down Route 28 along the east side of the lake, but that ain't no fun with traffic and all, especially since we had Lucy with us. We'd looked on the map and seen that there was a shelter on the west side of the lake, so we thought there might be some semblance of a trail along that side, even if it wasn't marked on the map. We figured even if we had to walk rather than ride our bikes down such a trail, it would be better than taking a high-speed state route with almost no shoulder. What didn't occur to us (until it was too late) is that nobody ever hikes to this shelter ... they all boat to it. So there was absolutely nothing resembling a trail whatsoever. We struggled for over a mile, often carrying our bikes on our shoulders, through thick vegetation and over boulders and downed trees until we finally reached the shelter about halfway to our destination. Somewhere along the way I'd banged my left shin extremely hard against a very solid branch. The pain was excruciating, though it didn't bother me much after a few minutes. Just more blood .... Actually, what was most annoying was having our legs scraped to death by bushes, branches, and our own bike pedals. It was incredibly irritating. But at least now we had reached some kind of milestone.
We remarked at how huge the shelter was (basically just a really big, open-ended lean-to) and then had a snack. The shore was sandy and the water was very shallow. There was also a nearby island, maybe a couple hundred feet away, and I noticed that one could probably wade over to it without going through water more than a few feet deep. Then I got a crazy idea: could I bike to the island? Impossible .... it's probably deeper than it looks, and riding in deep water is pretty difficult. The air was cool and the thought of getting wet frightened me a bit, but the sun was beating down pretty hard .... The next thing I knew I was taking of my shoes and walking my bike down to the shore. "Hey John, you think I can make it to that island? It doesn't look like more than a couple of feet deep." John scoffed at me and indicated that he thought it would be funny to see me try. "OK then, hurry up and get the camera!" I said, as I hopped on my bike and took off. He seemed a bit surprised but then ran off to grab the camera. I took my time pedaling, but things were going pretty well and I was halfway across and doing just fine. It was still getting deeper, though, and the water level was approaching my seat. It was really strange to look down and see my tires--along with most of the rest of my bike--completely submerged under the surface. The water level was about two inches below my seat and I was getting very concerned about getting my clothes wet--there were still some 10+ miles to go on this trip, after all, and riding in drenched shorts ain't no fun at all. So, I lifted my butt a bit to increase the clearance. But as soon as I did there was a noticeable decrease in the traction I was getting with my rear tire--it was starting to float up! The buoyancy of one's tires is not something you think about much when biking, but it was now coming into consideration. So I sat back down, and thankfully the water didn't get any deeper. I made it to within twenty feet of the island's shore when I finally lost my balance and hopped off my bike. My shorts got somewhat wet but not too bad.
I had focussed so much on getting over there that I hardly noticed that Lucy was swimming over with me. I pulled my bike up onto the rocky shore and she and I walked around the island a bit. There was another shelter there and it looked like a fun place to camp. After a couple of minutes I headed back to my bike. By this time John was readying his bike to come join me. He did even better than I did, and made it all the way to the shore until the rocks kept him from going any further. We noticed two guys on the lake fishing from their boat. They certainly must have been baffled by what they saw. After a few more minutes on the island we headed back. I went first, so that I could take pictures of John coming back. I made it much of the way, but the current in the water, which I hadn't noticed much on the way over, pushed me too far away from my destination and I had to hop off to avoid some logs. Darn! I really wanted to make it all of the way. I grabbed the camera and watched as John prepared to head back. The current wreaked havoc with him from the beginning, and he was quickly pushed into deeper waters. To his chagrin, he ended up standing in water which was over his waist--his pants were saturated. It wasn't so much fun anymore, and he walked most of the way back. We both stripped off a lot of our wet clothes and hung them in the trees, sitting in the sand under the sun and waiting for them to dry. This really was a very nice spot, and we had our lunch while we laughed about what we'd just done.
Finally, we put our now slightly dryer clothes back on and hit the woods again. It was no better than the first stretch through the woods, and we couldn't wait to get out of there. Finally, though, we made it. (Check out a map of our horrendous detour.)We arrived at the spot where John, Dan and I had come to last year on our first day of biking. But we didn't stick around, we were anxious to move, having gone two and a half hours without doing pedaling on dry land. We cruised down the trail, following it all the way to the end of the Brown Tract Inlet, where it turns to wooden planks. Again, we'd been here last year (and gotten extremely muddy), but the long dock-like structure through the swampy area had been repaired, and was in much better shape than previously. We rode out to the end, then turned back to hit the intersection of the connecting trail which we passed on the way through. We cut over to the main trail from Raquette Lake, and took it west to its intersection with the Brown Tract Road at Upper and Lower Ponds.
We crossed the road and continued on the trail, between the ponds, as we had last year. The trails were again dryer, with more blowdown blocking the way. But because it was so much dryer, the ride was very fast. We made great time and had a lot of fun sailing up and down the rolling trail. Before we knew it, we were at the cutoff heading back over to Brown Tract Road. It was a challenging trail, as before, but not too hard to be unrideable. It was pretty fun going until about halfway along the trail, at which point a stupid, stupid twig jumped up and got caught in my derailleur. I had been a bit frustrated earlier in the trip because of some other minor yet irritating mechanical problems (wobbly headset (still!), loose handlebars (what?), rear brake rubbing, and the snapped left foot strap) I'd had earlier. When I felt that something was wrong, I looked down to see what had happened. The derailleur was completed messed up. I was on the verge of getting seriously ticked off. I pulled out the twig and saw that the derailleur had gotten pushed far enough over to have gotten caught in my spokes, and was bent. I was seriously ticked off. I would've blown my stack except there was really no point--I was in the middle of the woods. John was a ways ahead of me, so I started walking. Finally, I yelled. He heard me, and came back to meet me. It was clear he could tell that I was pissed. I felt bad letting him do all of the work, but I had absolutely no motivation. You name the weirdest things that can go wrong with a bike, and it's happened to mine. After a little while, we determined that the derailleur had not in fact been bent, but the part of the frame that it attaches to was bent. Let me repeat: a twig bent my frame!!! Sheesh. Well, John managed to manhandle it back into a decent state, reattach and readjust the derailleur, and I could hardly tell that anything had gone wrong. I'm so glad he was able to make the repairs, because I was in absolutely no state to do so. He saved the day for me.
So we got back on our way, and I felt quite a bit better. We arrived at the really muddy, rooty place where I'd endoed last year, and guess what? I did it again. I was half-expecting it, though, and it was a boring, slow-motion-type endo. So I just hopped back on and kept going. We then did a retake of last year's rigged photo of me biking up a cliff. Just after that was the Brown Tract Road, which we followed back into the town of Raquette Lake. We stopped on the bridge over the Brown Tract Inlet on our way back to the school for some final photos. We completed the loop--about 20 to 25 miles long--at almost 5 o'clock, about seven hours total trip time.
Though we were not physically exhausted, the terrible trek through the woods really took a lot out of us, and we were happy to be able to rest. We had some soup and leftover pizza for dinner, showered, and packed up. It took some time to drain all of the pipes and the hot water tank, and we both finally hit the road for home at about 8pm.
It was, again, an excellent weekend, despite the setbacks. There was no question in either of our minds that our calendars would immediately be marked to reserve time for Le Tour de Foliage III.
Ascutney State Park
Saturday and Sunday, September 19-20, 1998
I drove down to Ascutney State Park to meet Kevin and Denise at about 6:30pm on Saturday. We set up our tents, bought some firewood, and then cooked some burgers and dogs for dinner. After eating well (better than on most of my camping trips), we started a fire, cooked s'mores and talked for hours. We talked a fair bit of computerese, but did a lot of reminiscing about Clarkson, laughing about all kinds of fun experiences we shared in college. We finally went to bed at around 11:30. The next morning we got up around 9:00 and cooked bacon and eggs--a delicacy of sorts compared to my usual oatmeal breakfasts. We packed up and checked out, and headed north a bit to park my car at the end of the Brownsville Trail, where we hoped to finish our hike. Then we packed into Kevin's car and drove to the opposite side of the mountain to the Weathersfield trailhead. The total hike would be 6.1 miles. We finally hit the woods at about 11:15.
We took our time, resting often as Kevin and Denise hadn't hiked in quite a while. Unfortunately, Denise's boots weren't fitting very well, and sleeping on the hard ground the night before didn't make the hike any more comfortable either. We passed Little Cascade Falls, or at least the place where they usually are, when there's water. It was bone dry. Not too much longer was the Crystal Cascade Falls--an 84 foot drop, and very pretty. Though probably a lot prettier when there's more than a trickle of water splashing down. We continued up the trail, and eventually reached Gus's Lookout. Although the weather was great and the skies above were blue, the views were very poor. It was incredibly hazy--practically foggy--and I'm not really sure why. We ate lunch at Gus's Lookout and debated whether or not to continue to the top. Denise's feet were not doing well, so we didn't want to push too hard. But she was a good sport and we scooted up to the West Peak Vista, where there's a hang glider launch (nobody there on this day, though), right after lunch. The last push to the top was the toughest on the ailing feet, but we finally made it at about 3:30. There were all kinds of radio and weather equipment, including a big metal tower. Unfortunately, there was also a fair amount of garbage, including lots of broken glass. We rested a bit and then started down the Brownsville Trail.
Just down the trail a bit was an observation tower. Kevin and I climbed the stairs and got a better look at the hazy surroundings. It was too bad, because it was an otherwise near-perfect day for hiking. The trip down was quick, and the trail was very beautiful for a long ways, passing through a forest full of tall, narrow pines. The ground was carpeted with the long needles from the pines and there was hardly a dead tree or branch littering the ground. There were very few low branches on the pines, and so one could see a great distance in any direction. We passed the old abandoned Norcross Quarry, which provided a lot of peculiar items for us to wonder about. There was a huge beam lying on the ground, with a metal base and thick cables extending from it. The cables were draped somewhat randomly through the surrounding trees, and followed the trail for hundreds of feet. There were a few huge metal pulleys dispersed on the ground as well, and we tried to figure out if they were actually moving the rocks out with some kind of overhead pulley system. We never did find out for sure.
We finally made it out to my car at a bit before 6:00. It was a longer day than we'd planned, but it turned out OK, and we had a lot of fun chatting and joking along the way.
Baxter State Park: Doubletop and Katahdin
Friday - Sunday, August 28-30, 1998
This is the trip I've been waiting for.
We were psyched to go and made some rough calculations about how long it would take to get there. We wanted to use our time efficiently, and so we planned to leave at 4am Friday.
By 4:30, John, Sunshine and I were heading up 91 on our way to the hinterland. Except for the last few hours, the trip went quickly as we had each other for company (aside from naps). We cut across Route 2 and then up 201, to 16, and then through Bowater's private roads. Somewhere along the way (I forget where) at maybe 10am we stopped for gas in a small back-country town in Maine. Someone there recommended that for food we try the Appalachian Station restaurant in town, because they have a "wicked good chef ... wicked good." We did and they did. The food was great and we joked and chatted with the waitress. At the beginning of the Bowater (paper company) land, we stopped at a gate and paid to use their private roads (open to public). We drove for a while and saw some cool road signs--all kinds of random wooden ones attached haphazardly to one big post--at the various intersections. We were starting to get close to the park, and since our campsite, the Nesowadnehunk (just slur it all together and the locals will understand) Field Campground, was nearest to the west side, we thought we'd take the road on our maps (my New England map and the AMC Guide map) which looked like it went right up to the campground.
What happened over the next few hours is still somewhat of a mystery, though we'd later figure out some of the details of just what took place. We drove through the back country (we've been on dirt roads for quite some time now, since Bowater at least) for quite a ways, looking for a turnoff to the park. Finally, we saw a sign for the Nesowadnehunk Lake Wilderness Campground. It didn't look quite like I would have expected a park sign to look like, and heck, we hadn't even seemed to have entered the park yet. But nonetheless, it was the Nesowadnehunk Campground, right? We drove down a skinny little dirt road for a couple miles, and I felt like I was in the middle of nowhere. There was nothing but short trees. No other roads, no people, no animals, no nothing. We all agreed that something seemed fishy so we turned back and continued north on the road we'd turned off of. Soon we reached a Bowater checkpoint, where the locals said "Baxter State Park? Ha ha ha ha!!! You're waaaaaay off!! Ha ha ha ha!" Nice compassionate folks. But when I pointed out that we wanted the Nesbmloyrbobrbnehunk Campground, they said oh yeah that one's just right down the road. "But why doesn't it seem to be in the park?" said I. "Half of Nesbbbbrcyfbjkbcbcgypznehunk Lake is in the park" they replied. So we went back to the middle of nowhere. Clearly these folks knew just what they were talking about. And certainly, if there really were two Nesow-ow-ow-that-hurts-nehunk Campgrounds, they'd certainly know about it, right?
Wrong. We drove 8 miles down that God-forsaken road and what did we find? One guy drinking beer by a campfire in an otherwise desolate campground filled with RVs. Office: Closed. Luckily, this guy knew what the hell he was talking about and told us that yes, one used to be able to get into the park from this here road, but not in a while. There's a dirt pile in the way now, it seems. We found out that we were now about 4 miles and approximately 2.5 hours away from our destination. I was really bummin' but the drive back seemed quick and without much further ado we found the south entrance to the park. After all was said and done, we arrived at our tent site at 3:30, about 11 hours after we'd left Hanover. About the only good thing that came from our detour was that we saw a moose crossing the road. We stopped and stared at it in the woods and it stared back.
Well, it was an interesting trip indeed and despite the confusion, we were happy campers in the end. It'll take a lot to top this one.
Oh wait a second, I forgot about Katahdin, etc. Guess I got a bit carried away with the details of the drive out. Hope it was worth your time reading it, though. Having lost a few hours on the drive, we wasted no time in setting up our tents and hitting the trails. Our tent site was at the beginning of the trail to a nearby mountain called Doubletop. It was about 3500 feet high, so nothing small. We grabbed our day packs, head lamps, and some food and headed up. We reached the top, about 3 miles up, at 7:30, just in time to catch the sunset. There were gorgeous views of Katahdin to the east and other mountains in all directions. There was hardly a sign of man to be seen anywhere. We huddled behind a rock and cooked some pasta for dinner, then headed back down. It got dark while we were still at the top, and we needed to use headlamps most of the way. It was a nice hike, and when we got back we wasted no time in getting right to bed, setting our alarms for 4:30 the next morning.
Why 4:30am? Because I'd lost my wallet, of course. Yes, had I not left my wallet on the bench near the sign-in sheet at our campsite, I wouldn't have had to go back for it just before we left for Doubletop, and I wouldn't have run into The Lonely Park Ranger who talked to me for a while about all kinds of stuff, including the fact that the parking lot for the trailhead by Roaring Brook would probably be full by 6:30. We were lucky to learn this, we thought, though as it turned out there were still spots left at 8am, if not later still.
Sunshine drove us down the long, narrow, winding, and somewhat bumpy (dirt) park roads ("It's 17 miles. It should take you about an hour.") back past the south entrance and to the parking lot near the Roaring Brook campground. We got there at 5:45, and there was plenty of space. We ate breakfast, filled up on water, and packed our packs, taking our sweet time. We finally hit the Chimney Pond trail at 8:00.
The 3+ mile hike up to Chimney Pond was pretty leisurely, and we passed a bunch of folks who didn't look like they'd be making it to the top of anything today. We stopped at a small pond along the way--Basin Pond--where the water was crystal clear and almost perfectly still. Sunshine seemed dead set on going for a swim, though John and I were content to sit and wait, as the water was very cold. As she was wading in and presumably about to take a plunge, a mother with her two small children wandered up to the shore. We chatted with them and she complained about how they had stumbled upon some skinny dippers the night before. She didn't seem to approve of any such silly activities, possibly including swimming in this icy cold pond. So we waited, hoping she would leave. But she didn't seem to be going anywhere fast, so Sunshine gave up, put her boots back on, and we continued on our way.
We soon hit a group of eleven family members that seemed completely out of place in the back woods. They were friendly, but seemed unprepared for any kind of hike, and they didn't seem to want us to get anywhere either, as we struggled to get past them on the trail. At one point, we crossed a bridge where apparently there had been three moose just a few minutes earlier. [John on a wooden walkway (somewhere near that bridge, I think)] That would've been cool, too bad we missed them. Not too much later, we arrived at the Chimney Pond Campground. We strolled over to the pond for a quick look up at the surrounding ridge. It was a magnificent sight, but we didn't stay long as it was crowded with people and we didn't want to get behind the eleven stooges again.
We had planned to take the Cathedral Trail up, as it appeared to be the most fun and challenging. (Though John was completely fixated on the precipitousness of the Dudley Trail, waxing disbelief over it for much of the trip.) At Chimney Pond, we mentioned something about our choice of trails to some guy we saw, and he said the Cathedral Trail was really nasty, we might want to take the Saddle Trail instead. This naturally confirmed our decision to take the Cathedral.
The trail is so named because of a couple of rock outcroppings on the way up which I guess looked like the side of a cathedral sticking out. It was indeed a challenging trail, and it was hand-over-foot at times. We climbed over boulder after boulder, always looking around as we ascended higher up out of the gulf surrounded by the horseshoe-shaped ridge. The steep rock formations along the ridge walls were fantastic, but we'd get a closer look at those soon enough. [the Knife Edge as seen from the Cathedral Trail] The weather wasn't bad, but it was starting to cloud up a bit and rain was supposed to hit later in the day. We saw wisps of orographic clouds curling over the top of the Knife Edge and floating away in slow motion. Finally, the whistling guy behind us caught up (he kept whistling back down the trail, I guess to the rest of his party) and passed us, shortly before we reached Baxter Peak (we didn't go to Hamlin Peak, the lower of Katahdin's two peaks). The top was fantastic, and we managed to snap some pictures [all three of us] [John with the sign] [BJ and Sunshine] before it got too cloudy. There were even some clouds in the distance which were below us--I don't really think I've seen that happen very often on peaks of this height (Baxter Peak is 5267 feet), either that or I just don't pay enough attention.
We didn't spend too much time at Baxter Peak, since we wanted to make sure to get across the Knife Edge before the weather turned foul. So, despite being hungry, we waited to eat. While we were there, though, we spotted four guys who looked like they might be AT hikers. They didn't appear to have shaven in months and had big (though mostly empty) packs. As we looked around, the four guys started shouting back down the trail to another guy who was making his way up. We watched as he took his last few steps toward the wooden sign at the apex. He slapped it, threw his hands in the air and shouted in exhilaration--it was obvious he was feeling a great sense of accomplishment, relief and completeness. He joined his friends, and from the group there radiated a joy which all of us on the mountaintop that day could share. Somehow I felt as if I too had been a part of their great journey. "Anybody got any cheap liquor?" one of them asked, jokingly, as they posed for pictures. We soon left them to their celebration, though, as we had some more business of our own to take care of.
For the first while, the Knife Edge was nothing like I thought it would be. Yes, it had steep, long drop-offs, and they were spectacular to see. But the trail wasn't nearly as narrow or treacherous as I'd expected, and it didn't seem like it would get that way, either. We snapped plenty of photos of the steep ledges from every angle. And despite my request that they not do so, Sunshine and John risked their lives before my very eyes as they walked along the edge of one of the drops and then sat down. They even had the gall to force me to take a picture of them. I still wonder which is more irrational: my fear or their lack of it. As we took our time crossing the ridge, the clouds really started to roll in. We had no views to the south, the direction from which the air masses were coming, and the views to the north were pretty scant as well. Still, we relished the fact that we were able to be there at all, and the views down never disappeared. They were the most exhilarating views of all.
OK, it's starting to get narrower. Indeed, long after I'd gotten comfortable with the trail the way it was, it turned into what I thought it would be. No, I didn't have to crawl, but the Jell-O legs were in full effect with drops on both sides and not much room for error. It continued that way on and off for a while, and it wasn't so bad. I still had a greater fear of others falling off than of myself. I guess it's the things that I can't control or predict that scare me--a gust of wind, a slippery rock, other people. Soon we reached a very steep drop in the ridge, followed by a steep climb right back up on the other side of this little dip. We'd seen it from afar while we were climbing up the Cathedral Trail, and it seemed much steeper now that we were actually there. Going down was a slow process, making sure of one's footing at each step and most certainly holding on tight with one's hands. We had no trouble going down, but as I looked through the fog toward the climb back up on the other side, I spotted trail blazes on the rocks. I guess at that point I didn't realize we were going straight back up, and I laughed at the funny joke someone had played by painting the rocks as if the trail went straight up a cliff. Slowly I looked around and reality kicked in--that was no joke, we really had to climb up it. It looked damn near impossible from that angle, though when we actually got over there it wasn't bad. It was easy to get up, but it was hand-over-foot and definitely-don't-fall-backwards.
At the top of that little rock climb was the peak of Pamola. We stopped and lunched, and had plenty of extra food which we offered to a hiker we'd met that morning in the parking lot. He helped lighten our load, and then headed down the Dudley Trail to pick up his wife and baby girl at Chimney Pond. The rest of his party arrived at Pamola shortly before we left, and followed us down as we descended on the Helon Taylor Trail. It followed the ridge all the way down to Roaring Brook Campground. I enjoyed the hike down to the tree line, as there were plenty of boulders around, and I hopped from one to the next as long as I could. I was feeling a bit too daring a few times while boulder hopping, and once I did slide out of control down the steep side of a big boulder and into a dead old tree. I couldn't see what was below the tree, as my vision was obscured by underbrush, but I was preparing for a painful rocky landing. Luckily, the tree just barely held my weight, my feet found solid ground, and I stopped just short of falling into the unknown. I think I managed to make it look like I knew what I was doing to some degree, but if John or Sunshine ever read this (hello!) I guess the jig will be up. I'm sure you both forgot about that incident 30 seconds after it happened anyway, but it took a few minutes for my heartbeat to return to normal. The rest of the way down we listened to John tell great stories about his travel overseas and wondered why the heck the trail seemed so darn long. Finally, we stopped and wondered out loud how much farther it would be to the junction with the Chimney Pond Trail. I said 5 minutes, John said 45, and Sunshine said something in between. After about five strides, we saw the river and realized we were right there. I told Sunshine if we ran we could get there in one minute. We did and we did. She got there in 1:00 flat, and I was less than one second behind. John finished a disappointing third.
The parking lot was only a few more minutes from there, and so we signed out, unpacked, changed clothes, and hit the road. We had plenty of time (an hour and a half) to contemplate the superlative hike we'd just completed as we drove back to our camp site. I, for one, felt deeply satisfied and at peace with myself for having done it. I don't know why I got such a bee in my bonnet about this climb, but ever since I bought the Maine guide book last year with the sole intention of reading about Mount Katahdin, I'd looked forward to this trip and wondered if it would really ever happen. It finally did.
It was just about sunset as we approached N'hunk Campground. We decided to continue past the site to see if we could find an open area to watch the sun go down. We never did, but just a few miles up the road we found a trail to Nuh-sowd-nuh-hunk Lake. We parked and took a very short walk down the trail. What we saw then was not a big surprise, but nonetheless we couldn't stop talking about it. We saw a very familiar small cement bridge at the end of the lake, and several RVs on the other side. Office: Closed. No beer-drinkin' guy to say hi to this time, which was too bad. But he had been totally right. We had been just a few miles walk or a few hours drive from our campsite when we came out this way yesterday. I was glad we all could laugh about it--it could have really put a damper on the day had we not all been in good spirits.
We checked things out a bit and then headed (past a dirt pile) back to the van and on to our camp. Once there, I went to get some firewood and chatted with The Second Lonely Ranger. Actually, he was talkative but didn't seem so attached to the conversation as the first guy. I went back and started working on a fire and John and Sunshine made some beans and rice. It was delish! The fire was ornery as the wood was a bit damp, but we finally got it going. In the meantime, we fought with the accessory lights in the van which didn't seem to want to go out. Finally, they did--once John pulled out the fuse, that is.
The next morning we slept in (8:30!) and had a nice breakfast by the stream behind our site. We took our time packing up and got out around 11:30. We stopped at the Ledge Falls on our way out--a section of river in which the water had smoothed out the bedrock into large pools and slippery chutes. I felt like a little kid sliding down the slimy rocks and trying to swim upstream. Sunshine and I found a little Jacuzzi-like section of rapids where we sat back and let the water splash over our shoulders. Then the three of us lay in the sun and rested as we dried off. [lying in the sun by Ledge Falls with Doubletop Mountain in the distance] Even though it was crowded on Friday when we drove by, we'd had the place to ourselves today. A couple of families arrived as we lay in the sun, but all in all it was very peaceful. The weather today was beautiful, and the sun beat down around a few puffy white cumuli as we stared at Doubletop right in front of us. It was nearly one o'clock when we hit the road for good.
The trip back went very smoothly. We stopped for a late lunch by a covered bridge just south of Foxcroft, Maine, and later stopped for ice cream somewhere in northern New Hampshire. We went back about the same way as we'd come, but instead we avoided Bowater territory, passing through Millinocket and around to the east a bit. We arrived in Hanover at 9:00.
It's difficult for me to bring this entry to an end; I've had nearly as much fun recounting the whole trip as I did when it happened. Above all else, I'm thankful that I was able to share this experience with others who appreciate and enjoy it in the same way that I do.
Mountain Biking on the Old Uncas Road Trail
Wednesday, August 26, 1998
John (and Lucy) and I found where the Old Uncas Road intersects Route 28 and put on our gear for a bit of exercise. The trail was mostly uphill on the way in, and was a good workout. We had to stop several times to cross streams and down trees, but all in all it was a good trail and my bike was much happier than on our previous trip (new headset, new chain, fully tuned: $130). The climb on the way in (which we knew about, intentionally saving the best for last) is pretty gradual, and goes for most of 3 miles before the trail ends at a road--one we'd biked on during the Tour de Foliage last October when we failed to find the Old Uncas Road from the other side. This time we knew exactly where we were going, however, and we went right over to our favorite spot on Mohegan Lake. There were several campers there, and we chatted with one of them who told us that she worked at Camp Sagamore and was a trip leader for Skidmore College's freshman orientation trips. It looked like a lot of fun and brought back fond memories of my orientation trip at Clarkson. Lucy splashed in the lake a bit and then we headed back out. Going downhill was a blast, and as usual I nearly wiped out a bunch of times. In the end, though, neither of us actually did hit the dirt. We took plenty of pictures and were mud-covered by the time we got out from the water running down parts of the trail. It was a fun ride, and we both are looking forward to the Tour de Foliage II in the very near future.
Mount Minsi and Swartswood State Park
Saturday and Sunday, August 22-23, 1998
Becky and I left Montclair Saturday morning and headed for the Delaware Water Gap Recreation Area. We had picked a hike that looked moderate and we found the trailhead easily. We began the 4 mile climb up Mount Minsi at midday and had some nice views along the way. Just a short distance in, there was a small lily pond by the trail which was filled with beautiful lily pads and flowers. Further up there were views of the Delaware River down below (and the highway right next to it). We were worried that there would be no views at the peak when we first arrived there, but a little trail off to the side found a nice lookout where we had some food and took in the views of the nearby mountains. We took a slightly different route on the way down to complete a loop.
We then drove down the road a bit to see if we could find a spot to wade into the river. We were lucky to find a hidden spot with a nice sandy shore. We waded in a bit, but it got deep so fast that it wasn't too rewarding. We were tired and lay down and napped for a while as fishermen, boats, and tubes passed by.
Earlier we had spoken with rangers who said that it would be really hard to get a campsite anywhere nearby. We figured that most places would be booked by this time, and were a bit disappointed that we'd not thought of making reservations anywhere. We decided to go for a drive past a few of New Jersey's state parks for which there were campsites marked on the map. We were in luck, because the first site we stopped at--in Swartswood State Park--had a few sites left. We picked one and set up camp.
We cooked some food with her camping stove and pots, and went for a walk around the park. There were some nice views of the lake the park borders on, and a nice beach. We stumbled across a talk being given by a ranger about black bears, and listened for a while. Then we headed back and passed some time perusing our old PHS '91 yearbook which I'd brought along. Finally we decided to get some sleep. As Becky was settling in, she felt something cold under her hand in her sleeping bag, and began frantically looking around for what it was. I helped her look, but we found nothing. As she was about to lie down, a small yellowish frog appeared and Becky let out a loud shriek. I picked up the friendly-looking frog and tossed set it free outside. We both couldn't help but laugh and wonder how in the world he got in there!
The next morning, we packed up and headed back to Montclair, stopping to check out antique stores along the way.
Tubing on the Hudson
Saturday and Sunday, August 15-16, 1998
John (and Lucy), Uncle Hank, Hank (Jr.), Jake and I all drove up near Warrensburg to hit the river with our tubes. We first found a good spot near the river and set up camp. We then plunged into the river off of some big rocks and started our three mile float downstream on the Hudson. Surprisingly (because usually she doesn't like water), Lucy joined us and did a lot of swimming! The boys actually did most of their drifting down the river without tubes, while John and I relaxed as the current carried us. We stopped at another rock outcropping a little ways down the river to meet Uncle Hank (who wasn't tubing because of a recent back injury) and take a break and jump off rocks into the water. We also left Lucy off here, since she was starting to shiver, but not before she had joined John on his tube and floated down the river herself! The rest of the trip was both fun and relaxing, taking about three hours altogether. We accidentally missed our stopping point and had to walk back about a mile from where we actually stopped tubing. We met Uncle Hank and drove back to camp. That night we cooked big burgers and hung out chatting until bedtime. It was nice weather and we all slept well. The next morning we packed up and headed to Potter's Diner for breakfast, and then were on our way back home.
Breakneck Ridge
Sunday, August 2, 1998
John (and Lucy), Lisa (from EMS) and I started out at 9am up the very steep initial ascent of Breakneck Ridge. We went up 1000 feet in just one half mile. It was a fun climb, lots of rocks to climb and great views back at the Hudson just behind us. I'm not sure where exactly we were, but it was just east of the Hudson, a little north of Fahnestock State Park. We continued up and down along the ridge, with plenty of outlooks at the surrounding landforms. We eventually looped around and took a parallel trail back to complete the loop, with a very steep final descent. It was an enjoyable climb, and Lucy (with pack) did pretty well, considering the steepness of certain parts. John did lift her once or twice, though. Lisa made brownies for dessert after lunch. Yum! We took our time on the 5.5 mile trip, and were done at shortly after 2:00.
Mountain Biking at Fahnestock
Saturday, August 1, 1998
John, Dan and I tuned up the bikes for an eight mile ride through part of Fahnestock State Park. My bike took a beating on this day, starting with a little downhill about two miles down the path. I was (as usual) going way too fast on a downhill stretch. I was flying over a lot of large, loose rocks as the trail got windier and I got more frightened. I was happy to finally come out of it alive, but as soon as I started to pedal again, my chain got caught up in itself and my pedaling came to a grinding halt. Apparently the chain had gotten tangled over itself while bouncing around on that downhill. Two links were twisted and we had to remove four links in all. As we continued on, my headset promptly came loose and rattled loudly the rest of the way. It was annoying to the ear more than anything else. The last stretch on the way out was down a very steep path, and I had all I could do to keep myself from tipping forward, let alone trying to avoid rocks and logs and follow the trail and its sharp turns. I did lose it at one point and fell off of my bike, but otherwise managed the nasty trail. It was much fun and a great challenge. Now my bike goes to the shop.
Ashokan High Point
Saturday and Sunday, July 18-19, 1998
Our packs were lighter this week, and we're getting better at distributing the weight. John and I and Lucy didn't start our trip until about 7:00pm. But we only hiked in about a mile and a half before setting up camp. The Ashokan High Point is a little south of the Ashokan Reservoir in the Catskills of New York. This was Lucy's first real trip with her new dogpack on, and she did very well.
After going to bed early, John and I got up at about 7:00 and hit the trail again at 8:00. In only an hour we had made it the two miles to the top. It was steep in many places, and a tiring hike with our packs, but certainly nothing compared to the previous weekend (except that the elevations here were much higher; the peak was at 3080 feet). There were decent views at the top, but mostly obscured by closer trees in the foreground. [BJ, John and Lucy near the summit] We tried to find a couple of outlooks marked on the map, but had no luck in doing so. It was somewhat disappointing, as I was hoping to get some good views of the reservoir. Perhaps there were good outlooks, but we just didn't find them. We couldn't spend too much time up there, as we had to get back to my grandparents' camp (Henbar Haven) for a late breakfast. We were back at 11:20.
PS--Called Baxter State Park later on in the day--looks like we'll be lucky to get a campsite at all for the Katahdin trip, let alone at the campground of our choice.
Bear Mountain State Park
Saturday and Sunday, July 11-12, 1998
John and I (and don't forget Lucy the Trail Dog) planned this trip as a preparatory outing before our big trip to Katahdin. We figured we could use some practice with all of our nice new equipment (stove, water filter, etc.), and especially with carrying extra weight on our backs. As it turns out, we got a lot more practice with the latter than we expected.
As we were packing up at John's place in Pleasantville before we set
out for the park, we did some weighing to try to distribute the weight
evenly between us. To our surprise (or at least to mine), John's pack
weighed over 40 pounds! So, to balance it out, I ended up carrying
both sleeping bags, both bed rolls, and the tent poles as well, which
hadn't even been accounted for yet. That evened it out and put both
of our packs at a little over 40 pounds. So, we threw everything in
the car and headed to the park.
We started out at a parking lot on the east side of the park. It was on Jones Point (right on the Hudson River), right across from Ayers Road. From there we headed into the woods on a trail whose name I don't know. We ascended slowly for a long ways, with a couple of views back across the river to the nearby nuclear power plant (you could tell we were not hiking in New Hampshire). We passed a little man-made tunnel at one point which baffled us, as it didn't really tunnel through anything, and it was only maybe 20 feet long. Strange. Not too much later, we found a cave which was no doubt carved out by dynamite. It was huge--probably 40 feet high, 30 feet wide, and over 100 feet deep. We weren't really sure what to make of that sight, either, but it was interesting to check out.
Finally, we came to an intersection at which point we hopped on the Timp Torne Trail, which we took for a while. It was not a very high-traffic trail, and was a bit tricky to follow a times. (In fact, this was true of many of the trails we followed on this trip.) Here and there along the trail were some nice viewpoints, looking out at the surrounding hills and towns. Our maximum elevation, though (for the entire weekend), was only around 1200 feet. Next we planned to hop on the Ramapo-Dunderburg Trail to continue westward. But the intersection which we thought would take us to that trail didn't seem to correspond with the map. We ended up wandering down some unknown trail and when it seemed to disappear before us, we decided to bushwhack for a bit. However, not five minutes later we hit another trail, and a big intersection, which seemed to be the one we'd been looking for, and in fact it was. We headed along the R-D trail and had many nice views. We could even see New York City out on the horizon, and you could just make out the World Trade Center and the Empire State Building from the rest of the skyline. We lunched and then continued on--passing some unusual vegetation patterns which we eventually realized was caused by a forest fire in the recent past--until we met with the Appalachian Trail.
We continued west on the AT, and, soon after passing a very large black
snake* (over four feet long, for sure), we could hear the
lovely sounds of the traffic on the Palisades Parkway, which we were
soon to cross. "I'm sure there'll be a bridge over it," I told John,
confidently. "After all, this is the Appalachian Trail." A few minutes
later we stepped out of the woods and there were all of the cars,
zinging by right in front of us--I had been dead wrong. As John put it,
we played real-life Frogger for a bit before we continued. (Like I
said, this definitely wasn't New Hampshire.)
At this point we were
really starting to feel beat and made our final plans for where we'd set
up for the night. We decided to head over to the east side of
Silvermine Lake, which looked like it would be farther away from
civilization than the west side. We made one final ascent over an 1100
foot mountain (name forgotten), where we took in some more nice views.
The final descent brought us to an old road which we followed to the
lake. It was a beautiful little lake, but unfortunately there was trash
here and there from previous campers. Nonetheless, we quickly found a
good spot to pitch our tent, right next to the water. We took a dip and
got ready to cook dinner. It was about this time that we started to
realize why our packs had weighed so much.
I'll spare us some of the embarrassment by leaving out details, but basically we had waaaaay too much food, and way too many unnecessary accessories. We spent the night making lists of what not to bring next time. (Oh yeah, and we gorged ourselves with food since we didn't want to have to carry so much back. I was stuffed ....) So as it turns out, this trip really did provide some very useful experience.
The next morning we packed up and headed back the way we came, but this time we turned north for a while after the parkway crossing, staying on the AT. Eventually we left it to head east again, and we zig-zagged from trail to trail, at one point passing through an old cemetery near a small pond (the June Cemetery). Shortly thereafter we made what was probably our steepest ascent of the weekend as we headed back up the ridge that we'd started on the previous day. We took a trail that was roughly parallel to the one we'd come in on, and had a few more nice views of the river on our way out. That last descent was killer on our feet, but we both agreed that our backs were feeling much better than we'd expected (the previous night we were both incredibly sore). We hiked down the road a bit to get to the car and wrap up the trip. I'd not been so tired and thoroughly sore in a long, long time. But despite the physical stress, neither of us could stop chattering about our upcoming trip to Katahdin.
[estimate on total distance covered: 12-15 miles]
* After asking a few knowledgeable folks about the snake, we concluded that it was, in fact, a (venomous) timber rattler. (I failed to mention above that when it was far away, we tossed a stick at it and it did rattle this little thingy on its tail.) Yikes!
Camel's Hump
Friday, July 3, 1998
Kevin and I met just off exit 11 of Route 89 at 10am, and proceeded from there to the trailhead, which was down a dirt road near Huntington Center. The weather was clear and hot--85 F (29 C)--a great day for a moderate climb. It turned out to be a shorter day than expected; we did a loop that was not quite six miles. We started up the Burrows Trail to the peak. It was not terribly steep except for the last few tenths of a mile, and there were no views along the way, though it was a pleasant trail to hike. It was somewhat hazy so views of distant places were inhibited, but the rocky peak afforded 360 degrees with which to take in the surrounding Vermont landscape. Kev and I ate and rested on the edge of a big cliff--surely a couple hundred feet down. After a good long rest, we headed south on the Long Trail, and got to see the cliff from below--it's precipitous nature was marvelous, though we had fun trying to spot ways which we thought we could climb up without ropes. The trail was very steep for a long way on this side of the mountain, and there were some nice views along the way as well. Eventually we came to an intersection with the Forest City Trail, which we took back to our cars. Though not as challenging as we'd expected, we had a good day and were both glad to have time left for some other activities later on that evening.
Camping in Acadia National Park
Tuesday - Thursday, May 26-28, 1998
Kevin, Ethan, Kye and I left Norwich Tuesday morning at about 10:00am for the long trip to Mount Desert Island, upon which lies Acadia National Park. We cut across Route 3 hoping to make time, but it was slow and all told it took us nearly seven hours to get there. It rained heavily on and off on the way there, and even poured for a few minutes right as we arrived, but we never saw a drop again after that as we had fantastic sunny, warm weather the rest of the way. [A carriage house we drove past as we crossed the island.] As we set up camp at the Blackwoods Campsite in the southeast "corner" of the island, we realized that we had no poles for one of the tents. So, we had four people and only one two-person (maybe three-person) tent. We dealt with that later. Anxious to make use of every moment of daylight while we were there, we hit the trails right away.
We drove a few miles from the site and parked on the east side of Dorr
Mountain, which we ascended via the Ladder Trail. [Kevin on the Ladder Trail.] [BJ, somewhere on Dorr.] (Not as steep
and exciting as we'd hoped, but definitely a worthwhile climb, with a
couple of ladders.) [Kye, Ethan, Kevin
and BJ atop Dorr.] From Dorr we continued over to Cadillac
Mountain, the highest peak on the Eastern Seaboard at 1530 feet.
Views of the surrounding mountains, islands, and ocean were
spectacular in the late afternoon sunlight. [BJ and Kevin near the top of Cadillac.]
The only negative thing about Cadillac is that there's a road up to
the peak. We headed southward down a ridge and as sunset approached,
we wandered over to a ledge, gazed at the beautiful scene, and snapped
a few photos. It was fantastic--I think it's the first time in my
life that I've ever really paid close attention to a sunset (believe
it or not!), and this was definitely one of the most perfect ways to
have done it. [Sunset from Cadillac
Ridge.] Finally, we headed back down the trail to the car and back
to camp.
Once there, we ate a very late dinner (10:00) and three of decided that we'd sleep outside since the weather was so nice and we didn't have the tent space. Kye got his tent all to himself. Sleeping outside went fine and was very refreshing, until first light at which time the mosquitos came out with a vengeance. I couldn't stand it and eventually slept in the car for an hour or two. [Did the mosquitos bother Kevin?] Once we all were up, we headed toward the western part of the island, and checked out Somes Sound and the fjord (the only "true" fjord on the east coast, they say) in which it lies. It was a pretty scene with the high mountain walls surrounding it, and we stopped to snap more pictures. Eventually, we continued driving around the sound to the west side of St. Sauveur Mountain. We hiked up through a very tranquil section of trail, brightly lit by the sun which shone through the sparse pines, and carpeted by their long needles. We reached a high point before descending a bit again on our way north to Acadia Mountain. Along the way there were some nice views with Echo Lake in the distance. [A nice view of Echo Lake in the distance.]
At the peak of Acadia, there were open rock formations affording
spectacular views over Somes Sound and out to the ocean. [Kevin looks out toward the Atlantic.] [Currents in the sound.] We stopped and
lunched before continuing down the path which would take us right
along the edge of the sound. The hike down toward the water was
breathtaking. It was a steep trail with drops right down to the
water, and fantastic views all the way. With the sun high in the sky
and a slight breeze, one couldn't have asked for a more perfect
experience.
As the trail was about to begin ascending again back
up St. Sauveur, we took a side path which led us right down to the
shore. We sat on rocks and dipped our toes into the clear blue,
perfectly calm ocean water. We wandered a bit more and found a
somewhat hidden stream which ended in a mini-waterfall right into the
sound. It was fascinating to see such a hidden sight, and unusual in
that you could pinpoint the exact place where the fresh water met the
salty ocean. We were tempted to jump off of the 15 foot ledge into
the sound, but decided in the end that the salty water and lack of
towels would make the experience more troublesome than it was
worth. [Kevin sits above the
waterfall.]
The trail back up to Sauveur was less interesting, though there were still more nice views over the sound from atop the cliffs high above. [Somes and the Atlantic from the side of St. Sauveur.] Once on Sauveur, we continued back down the trail we started on to complete the loop to the car.
Next we headed just down the road to check out Echo Lake and take a rest. It was early afternoon and we were hot and tired. The lake was beautiful, with a large sandy beach (man-made?) and high cliffs on the west side. [Ethan and Kye in Echo Lake in front of the Beach Cliffs.] [The Beach Cliffs.] Despite the cold water, we plunged in for a dip, explored around a bit, and then napped in the sun for a while. Once rested, we walked over to the Beach Cliff Trail to get a view of the lake from above. This trail was a little more like what we expected the Ladder Trail to be. There were some very steep parts, all of which had ladders. [BJ on a ladder.] Without them, the ascent probably would have been impossible, as most of them were nearly vertical and 20 or 30 feet long. It was great! The views from above were no less than spectacular, although when Ethan and I walked around the loop to look over the Canada Cliffs a little bit to the south, we were very unimpressed by that portion of the trail. [Above Echo Lake.] So, we headed back down and drove into Bar Harbor to walk around a bit and be tourists. That didn't last long, and there was not really much there to see or do, so it wasn't long before we were back at the campsite eating dinner.
After a bite, we all hopped in the car to check out some of the places of note along the Park Loop Road. We first stopped at Sand Beach, where we walked out along the shore and kept our eyes peeled for a cave that we'd seen in one of the brochures in town, to no avail. [A panoramic view of Sand Beach.] [BJ supports island.] Continuing down the road, we eventually made our way to Thunder Hole, a place in the rocks along the shore where the pounding of the waves had worn a long narrow crevice in the granite. When the waves come crashing into the hole, a thunderous sound results when the swell converges on the back and has nowhere else to go. In addition to the sound, the water shoots up into the air and back out over the sea. [Kevin by the ocean near Thunder Hole.] We chatted with an old gentleman there who told us how to find Anemone Cave, the one we were looking for. It was getting dark, so we decided to see the cave early in the morning before heading out. We did a bit more driving but eventually made our way back to camp where we holed up for the night.
Again I was awoken at first light by the buzzing of mosquitos around my head. After about 10 minutes of frustration, I was too pissed off to sleep. I heard Ethan rustling around as well, and so I ventured to ask him what time it was, fearing the answer. "4:40," he said, and my fears were confirmed. The two of us then decided that we might as well go drive up Cadillac Mountain and see if we could catch the sunrise. It took a bit longer than we thought to get there, and we were about 20 minutes late (sunrise was 4:49 that morning). However, it was still a beautiful sight to see as the orange sun shone across the land and reflected off of the water. [Sunrise on Cadillac.] After gazing for a while, we headed back down, stopping at Bubble Pond to check it out. A peaceful place, but after all we'd seen in the past 36 hours, it didn't seem that great and we moved on. It was not much after six when we got back. We woke up the others, ate breakfast, packed everything up, and were on our way. We stopped where we thought the cave was supposed to be, and after a quick look around, we found it. [The opening of Anemone Cave.] We climbed down the slimy and very slippery rocks and into the cave. There were many birds (don't know what kind) flying around, with muddy nests attached to the roof of the cave. It was a very wide cave, perhaps 50 feet deep. [From inside the cave.] We didn't spend too much time there, and soon hit the road for the long drive home. Skipping on Route 3 this time, the trip took us not quite five and a half hours, not including a lunch stop.
We overwhelmingly agreed that the trip was nothing less than fantastic. Next stop: Katahdin.
APPENDIX: Did I mention that the four of us and all of our stuff were crammed into my little car ('87 Plymouth Colt) for the whole trip? And that as we were about to leave Tuesday morning, the trunk wouldn't stay shut so we had to use bungee cords to keep it closed the whole time?
Mountain Biking and Hiking near Camden, Maine
Saturday and Sunday, May 16-17, 1998
Jon and I drove to Camden Hills State Park on Saturday morning, and hit the mountain biking trails almost immediately after arriving and pitching our tent. This was around one o'clock in the afternoon. We rode down a snowmobile trail which was inside the park, and was four miles each way. It was a nice trail through the forest, but a very difficult ride in some places. The were enough challenging (but not impossible) climbs and fun downhills to make it a worthwhile ride, though. The final hill at the far end of the trail was a long, gradual, and very bumpy slope. My arms were numb from vibrating by the time I reached the bottom (I was going too fast for my own good), and I now know why people have shocks! The black flies and mosquitos were also out during our ride, and were not very pleasant.
After showering (yeah, we were extremely muddy), and grabbing a bite in town (we wimped out), I got the idea that we could climb one of the mountains in the park, since it wasn't a very long climb it wouldn't be that bad after dark. The highest mountain in the area (and one of the highest along the entire eastern U.S. coastline) is Mount Megunticook at roughly 1300 feet. It was a 1.8 mile climb, but we ended up going not quite to the top, stopping at 1.4 miles at the Ocean Lookout, which had some nice nighttime views of the ocean and nearby towns. It was a little hazy, and the moon didn't seem to be out yet, but I found it to be an enjoyable climb.
We got back at 10:00 or so, built a fire and had a few marshmallows before turning in. The next morning we left the campground and headed to nearby Pleasant Mountain for another ride. We're still not really sure if we followed the trail as described in our book, but we did meet some other bikers who pointed us up to a nice spot with decent views part of the way up the mountain. It was a fun ride down and out, but after about 2 and a half hours of hard riding, we were ready to hit the road for home.
Dickey and Welch
Sunday, May 3, 1998
Katya and I, both tired, did the loop on a cloudy, dreary day. It was a nice trail, and lots of big patches of open rock which were fun to trek across. We did get one nice, though limited, view before we reached the level of the fog, but after that there was nothing. Our belongings were attacked by large masses of miniscule black bugs at the peak, but they seemed harmless and so we just brushed them away and moved on. The trail was fun, and the sun did peek out for just a few minutes on our way out, but I'm sure we missed some nice views because of the clouds.
Katya, Celine and I trekked through a ton of ice storm blowdown to reach the outlook on Wolfe, and though the views were nice, it was a lot of work, and our feet were soaked by day's end. We followed moose tracks along the trail for at least a couple of miles, and though they looked at least a couple of days old, we couldn't help but wonder how close it was. On the way back, we sidetracked a bit to find Gordon Pond, which was a nice stop, and looked like a neat place for camping. We took the Dilly Trail on our way out (just a tiny loop at the very end of the hike), and there was a nice lookout (outlook?) just before an incredibly steep (but fun!), rocky descent back to the road.
White Water Rafting on the Hudson
Saturday, April 18, 1998
Aunt Loretta, John, Paul, Joe and I hit the rapids in North Creek, NY, for a day's worth of white water action. The water was cold, but Aunt Loretta didn't believe it, and decided to take a swim to find out. It turns out I was closest to her after she was tossed from the raft, and she was just barely close enough for me to reach out and grab a strap on her life jacket. Another inch and I'm quite certain I would have joined her! Our guide Steve helped out and we pulled her on to the side of the boat. The whole time this was going on, the rest of the crew was paddling madly, without anyone to guide them, through a nasty section of white water. It was mayhem, but that's what it's all about! In the end, I lost my paddle but we had an extra. Aunt Loretta was soaked but not too cold, and had set the tone for an exciting day!
We all paddled our butts off and had lots of fun navigating the rapids thereafter. We tried our hand at surfing in one spot, but we just couldn't battle the current that blocked our path to the eddy. We made two tries at it, and in the first attempt I was at the front of the raft. The water was rushing in right over the front and I might as well have been right in the river. I was completely prepared to go overboard and thought sure that I would, but somehow I never did. In the second try, I moved to a position further back, but I had a little more difficulty as the guy in front of me (who we didn't know and whose name escapes me) was pretty much just shoveling water into my face. I don't think he helped the cause much. We managed to remain stationary against the current for several seconds, which was as good or better than any of the other rafts did. Our muscles inevitably gave out, though, and we were pushed back. We were unsuccessful but it was great fun!
All of that paddling really did us in that night, as we were all exhausted. My arms were very sore; I don't think I've had an upper body workout like that in a long time. We all slept well in the motel that night, but not until after recounting all of the memorable moments on the river that day.
Holts Ledge
Wednesday, April 15, 1998
Sunshine, Celine and I started up toward Holts Ledge just before dark, and found that the ice storm had done some work on the trail up near the top. We attempted to find the Skiway and hike down one of the ski trails, but turned the wrong way when we reached the ledge, and bushwhacked our way through a lot of scrub in the dark before finally turning around. We finally realized our mistake and did find the Skiway just a couple hundred feet in the other direction. On the hike down, we did a little bit of sliding on many of the snowy patches that still remained. Afterward, I realized I hadn't mailed my taxes yet, so I hurried to the White River Junction P.O. and got them off at 11 p.m.!
John, Laura and I started up Blue Mountain with more difficult trail conditions than expected. The path along which previous hikers walked was in the form of about a foot of hard packed snow, but melting quickly. This made walking along the trail akin to balancing on a slippery log--our feet were continually slipping off to the side and into the deep soft snow. The weather, on the other hand, was absolutely incredible; mid-seventies and the sun beating down. We hiked in shorts and t-shirts, but the sun also had the effect of creating many, many muddy streams that we had to cross along the way. We were all getting sick of the difficult trail conditions, and Laura decided to chill out and let John and I finish it off while she took a nap on a tree. I threw on the one pair of snowshoes I'd brought with me, though the sticky wet snow made them real heavy. John and I hustled up the rest of the way, took in some nice views from the rickety fire tower, gawked at two guys who were about to ski down the mountain, and then headed back down. We lunched with Laura and then trudged out, all of our feet soaked to the bone, but the sun still shining intensely.
Skiing and Snowboarding on Burke Mountain
Tuesday, March 24, 1998
Jon, Mina, Anna and I took a drive up to Burke Mountain in Vermont, just north of St. Johnsbury, and had a great day for downhill skiing and snowboarding. Later on in the day we met up with Craig and his cousin Eric. I snagged Mark's snowboard and attempted to improve my pathetic skills all morning as the others skied. The weather conditions were fantastic. The temperature varied between 20 and 32 (depending on how far up the mountain you were), and there was essentially no wind. The weather was actually very bizarre--sometimes we were literally skiing in a blizzard of fluffy (fun!) snow, and only minutes later there was hardly a cloud in the sky and the sun was beating down upon us. I was amazed at how many times the weather changed between cloudy and snowy to clear and sunny and vice versa. It had to have changed back and forth at least three or four times, but the variety was great and we had the best of both worlds. Up near the top of the mountain, all of the trees were covered with snow and looking over them from the chairlift was an experience in itself. And at the times when it was clear out, you could see for miles.
As luck would have it, Jon and I have the same size feet, so halfway through the day we switched and he snowboarded while I tried skiing for the first time in a few years. We both had a blast and I felt like I was a much better skier than I realized, though I'm still definitely a much poorer snowboarder than I'd like to be. In any case, a good time was had by all and we all left feeling that the day had been an incredible success. I just hope Mark doesn't mind that I borrowed his snowboard without asking ...
Fred, Katya and I hit the Valley Way trail, which starts from Route 2 north of the Presidentials, at 9am on this clear, mild day. We followed this trail all the way to the Madison Springs Hut, the most commonly used trail to the that destination. It was a relatively moderate climb to the hut, though the last stretch was significantly steeper, and Fred, with wet, heavy boots together with crampons, was getting seriously tired legs at this point. He climbed valiantly to the hut, despite his weariness, and we all were able to rest indoors there, as someone had apparently broken open the door into the sleeping area (the hut is normally closed for the winter season). In fact, Fred waited there while Katya and I ditched our packs and scrambled up the last 0.4 miles to the peak. The views were superb, the skies still very clear. The wind picked up quite a bit in this last stretch, but the temperatures still weren't bitter cold, and it was thrilling to stand on top of the mountain with my arms in the air, wind whipping all around me, and the whole world below me. What a rush! Katya and I snapped a few pictures and then headed back down, as we were cooling down quickly. We were hoping to get to go up Adams as well, and probably could have, but with the hour getting late, we decided to head back down. We strapped on the snowshoes at this point, and headed down the Air Line trail, which goes along a ridge much of the way down, parallel to (and very close to) the Valley Way. We went through only a short distance of deep powdery snow before we took the snowshoes off again. The ridge was windblown and rocky, and the snow was not very deep or powdery. The hike out was pretty uneventful, excepting a couple of spills I took in my crampon-less snowshoes. We finally got out at 5pm, grabbed some dinner at the Pizza Pub in Twin Mountain, and headed home.
X-C Skiing near Moosilauke
Sunday, February 22, 1998
Katya, Sunshine, Celine and I got out for a little cross-country skiing (well, not Celine) on the Merrill Ski Loop trail by Moosilauke. It was an absolutely gorgeous day, and while the sun was out the need for warm clothes was minimal. We trekked gradually uphill, across many (annoying) stream crossings on the trail. We finally reached what we thought was an intersection, though we had a hard time identifying our location on the map. We decided to scrap the rest of the loop and head toward what looked like a high point in hopes of some views and a place to eat. To our surprise, the trail we followed led to some kind of weather tower (perhaps on or near Sayre Peak or Mt. Kirkham?). We figured we could probably be considered authorized personnel in some sense of the definition, so we climbed up the four or five story high metal structure. There wasn't a whole ton of room up top, but we ate and took in the breathtaking scenery, made possible by the crystal clear air mass that surrounded us. Celine got anxious after a while so we headed back to ground level and on down the trail from whence we came. It's a good thing that Katya is patient, as Sunshine and I aren't exactly skilled at going down hills in cross-country skis. In one wipeout, part of the binding on my left ski broke, but we managed to rig it with a spare shoelace, thank goodness. The last stretch back to the cars down the Ravine road was done in the dark, and a quick glance upward indicated that the sky was no less clear than it had been earlier, as the stars shone brightly as ever. We finally made it back to the car at 7pm, another successful trip behind us.
Cardigan
Saturday, January 17, 1998
Katya, Sunshine, Celine and I whipped out the snowshoes (except Celine) for what we thought would be a quick morning outing up Mount Cardigan along the West Side Trail (a mere 3.0 miles round trip). However, it turned out to be a one-of-a-kind trip that none of us are likely to forget.
The "Ice Storm of the Century," as it's been called, just hit us (and a very large part of New England) over the previous two weeks, though in the valley we didn't see much of it. Having forgotten about that, I wasn't prepared for the sights that lay ahead. The last section of road to the trailhead was closed for the winter, adding another 1.4 miles to our trip. It was as we were walking up that first section (we hadn't put our snowshoes on yet) that we received our first indications of the ice storm that had visited. Occasionally, a thin tree was bent over the trail, its position due to the coating of ice engulfing it. It was as if someone had frozen the tree to preserve it for some future use. Rounding one of the turns in the road, we encountered our first truly spectacular sight of the many that were to come. The sun shone through the leafless trees, and not a twig was spared from the icy fate that Mother Nature had cast upon the region; each and every one glistened so brightly, all we could do was stare in amazement, occasionally uttering hackneyed adjectives. We took some pictures, but having seen them already, I can say that they just don't do it justice. When we got to the trailhead, we strapped on the snowshoes (it was Katya's first go at them), and were joined by an older gentleman who was hiking up alone. As we ascended, we encountered more and more fallen trees (with ice-covered branches, of course), which slowed us down significantly. After a little while, things opened up a bit and we fully realized just how serious the ice storm really was. The once-thick forest had been razed, as trees everywhere were snapped in half and stripped of branches which had broken off under the weight of the ice. But as before, the destruction was also a thing of beauty--the ever-thickening layers of ice in the shining sun were brilliant. Some of the more flexible trees bent way over in an upside-down U shape, but didn't snap. Their branches just dangled to the ground, and as we walked through them it was like passing through a very dense beaded doorway--the branches clinked and chimed together making a sound that one rarely hears in nature. Further up, there were fewer deciduous trees and more conifers, which seemed to have collected a little less ice in general. [BJ in front of some conifers] They weren't destroyed as badly, but it was quite clear which way the wind must have been blowing during most of the ice storm. Looking back down the trail at one point, we could see a nearby hill covered with lots of uniformly sized pines, all hunched over in exactly the same way. As the older gentleman with us pointed out, it looked like a crowd of waddling penguins. The wonders of the ice never ceased to amaze us, and finally we made our way out of the trees and up the open, rocky summit. All of the rock was, of course, covered with a layer of ice, and there were some interesting patterns that had formed from the wind not only in the ice, but in the occasional drifts of snow as well. After hanging out near the top for a while, taking in the nice views (it was a very clear day) and getting a bite to eat, we headed back down. As the sun beat down on the icy wonderland, chunks began to melt and fall off, knocking down other pieces as they fell. If you stopped and listened at any point on the trail, you were certain to hear shattering ice falling from a nearby treetop. We saw all of the same icy spectacles on our way out that we'd seen on the way in, and none was any less amazing the second time around. All in all, we spent about four hours on the trail, and what had been planned as a quick, leisurely snowshoe turned out to be the experience of a lifetime.
Algonquin (incomplete)
Friday, January 2, 1998
Kevin and I ventured out hoping to hit Algonquin, Iroquois, and Wright peaks. The weather was pretty warm (probably upper 30s) and no wind as we started out. It looked like it would be a good day for a climb, and there were many other people out on the trails. We started from the Adirondak Loj and proceeded down the Van Hoevenberg Trail until, at the first junction, it continues straight but changes names to the Algonquin Trail. We decided that we'd hike without snowshoes as far as possible, since they say that every pound on your foot is like five on your back. We made it pretty far, but finally got to some major drifts where I sank in over three feet on every step. I spotted a trail marker on a tree that was probably only 18 inches above the snow. So we put on our shoes there and continued up. Not too much later we reached the junction with the spur trail to Wright Peak. It was 0.8 miles from there to the peak of Algonquin. After about a half-mile, we were getting close to the timber line. The trail was narrow through the trees at times, and the patterns and shapes of the snow on the trees was absolutely beautiful. Near the tree line, we met a few different folks who'd been up there and said that above the line, the wind was fierce and the blowing snow made visibility very low. We still hoped to make it, but were a little worried. Upon reaching the timber line there was, as expected, a marked change in conditions. Snow was blowing madly across the barren snowy surface, and the trail basically disappeared before our eyes. We started up, following the barely visible tracks of the few folks who had been up before us. We noted our compass direction and followed cairns as carefully as possible. The wind was incredible. It pushed us around, nearly knocking us over on occasion. Kevin's face was completely protected, but the area around my eyes was not, as I didn't have goggles. The side of my face was freezing, but I pulled my scarf up a bit to alleviate the effect of the whipping wind. The cairns were not spaced out very far, but the amount of snow being blown around kept us from being able to see more than one at a time. The patterns of ice and snow that had built up on the protruding rocks, though, were almost artistic, and truly a sight to see. We stopped repeatedly, debating whether or not to continue. Finally, after going probably about one tenth of a mile or so, we decided to turn back. We passed another climber just behind us who was sticking reeds into the snow at intervals to mark the trail. We thought this was a great idea, and nearly followed him up. But even so, we felt that the rewards of reaching the top just weren't worth the risk we'd be taking. We lost the trail once briefly on the way down before reaching the timber line, but it was not a real scare as we were being very careful to note where we had come from. On the way down we met several more hikers, many of whom did not seem very experienced (from talking with them), and we wondered how many would make it to the top. The trip out was pretty uneventful, we slid down the snow in the steep spots here and there, which was fun. All in all, it was a little disappointing not to make it to the top, but a real learning experience as far as seeing how true it is what they say about the differences in weather from bottom to top.
-> GO HOME <-
![[BJ with Whiteface in the distance]](/img/1998-12-26/0005lg.jpg){kind=link}
![[Travis with snow-whitened rock slides in the distance]](/img/1998-12-26/0006lg.jpg){kind=link}
![[BJ with Mom at the summit]](/img/1998-11-27/0001lg.jpg){kind=link}
![[John on a wooden walkway (somewhere near that bridge, I think)]](/img/1998-08-29/0001lg.jpg){kind=link}
![[the Knife Edge as seen from the Cathedral Trail]](/img/1998-08-29/0003lg.jpg){kind=link}
![[all three of us]](/img/1998-08-29/0004lg.jpg){kind=link}
![[John with the sign]](/img/1998-08-29/0005lg.jpg){kind=link}
![[BJ and Sunshine]](/img/1998-08-29/0006lg.jpg){kind=link}
![[lying in the sun by Ledge Falls with Doubletop Mountain in the distance]](/img/1998-08-30/0001lg.jpg){kind=link}
![[BJ, John and Lucy near the summit]](/img/1998-07-18/0003lg.jpg){kind=link}
![[A carriage house we drove past as we crossed the island.]](/img/1998-05-26/0001lg.jpg){kind=link}
![[Kevin on the Ladder Trail.]](/img/1998-05-26/0003lg.jpg){kind=link}
![[BJ, somewhere on Dorr.]](/img/1998-05-26/0004lg.jpg){kind=link}
![[Kye, Ethan, Kevin and BJ atop Dorr.]](/img/1998-05-26/0005lg.jpg){kind=link}
![[BJ and Kevin near the top of Cadillac.]](/img/1998-05-26/0006lg.jpg){kind=link}
![[Sunset from Cadillac Ridge.]](/img/1998-05-26/0007lg.jpg){kind=link}
![[Did the mosquitos bother Kevin?]](/img/1998-05-27/0001lg.jpg){kind=link}
![[A nice view of Echo Lake in the distance.]](/img/1998-05-27/0002lg.jpg){kind=link}
![[Kevin looks out toward the Atlantic.]](/img/1998-05-27/0003lg.jpg){kind=link}
![[Currents in the sound.]](/img/1998-05-27/0004lg.jpg){kind=link}
![[Kevin sits above the waterfall.]](/img/1998-05-27/0005lg.jpg){kind=link}
![[Somes and the Atlantic from the side of St. Sauveur.]](/img/1998-05-27/0006lg.jpg){kind=link}
![[Ethan and Kye in Echo Lake in front of the Beach Cliffs.]](/img/1998-05-27/0007lg.jpg){kind=link}
![[The Beach Cliffs.]](/img/1998-05-27/0008lg.jpg){kind=link}
![[BJ on a ladder.]](/img/1998-05-27/0009lg.jpg){kind=link}
![[Above Echo Lake.]](/img/1998-05-27/0010lg.jpg){kind=link}
![[BJ supports island.]](/img/1998-05-27/0014lg.jpg){kind=link}
![[Kevin by the ocean near Thunder Hole.]](/img/1998-05-27/0015lg.jpg){kind=link}
![[Sunrise on Cadillac.]](/img/1998-05-28/0001lg.jpg){kind=link}
![[The opening of Anemone Cave.]](/img/1998-05-28/0002lg.jpg){kind=link}
![[From inside the cave.]](/img/1998-05-28/0003lg.jpg){kind=link}
![[BJ in front of some conifers]](/img/1998-01-17/0002lg.jpg){kind=link}