The fellas and I decided to go on another hike, this time to the High Peaks Region of the Adirondacks in northern New York. Erik Diehn and I drove from the city while Matt Abraham and my brother Jerry came in from Boston. We had scheduled this trip two weeks ago, but bad weather reports forced us to postpone. Despite rain in the forecast this weekend, we decided to make a go of it.
Both cars arrived at the Adirondack Wilderness Loj at about three o'clock on Friday. Seldom does this group stay in the planned campsite. After inspecting our reserved spot, number 13 on Friday the 13th, we didn't like the massive puddle it had turned into. The campsite also rents lean-tos. These were dry and isolated along the lake so we paid the extra two dollars for one. The lean-tos require you to lug your equipment about one hundred yards from the parking lot, but it was worth it to be alone and right on the lake. The rest of the campsite was full of people from Montreal, which is only two hours away. The lean-to next to us held five raucous, middle-aged, French-speaking lesbians.
The lake held rising trout and we were able to fish a while before dinner. None of us has the right fly, but Jerry was able to wade in and give a casting demonstration.
For dinner the first night, I cooked fresh made Italian sausages from Faicca's in the West Village. I started to brown the sausage in some olive oil and garlic, but a few pieces were still frozen and I was worried that they wouldn't cook through. I added a few splashes of beer–I had one handy–and put the lid on so the meat could steam cook. After it was cooked through, I let the lid off so it could brown and then poured the sauce on top. To this we added fresh gnocchi and devoured. The sausage was the highlight of the trip and I definitely will be buying more. The rain had already moistened us a bit and we began the familiar ritual of continually dying bits of apparel buy the fire.
The women at the registration desk warned us about "heavy bear activity" and that we should put all food and plates in the car before going to sleep. We took a quick group shot before bed as a "last seen alive" joke in case of bear attack.
The camp host, Frank, clicked the first shot before we met the trailhead. At this point, we are still dry and happy. It would be quite some time before we were again. In shot two, we pause, puzzled, on a trail that was supposed to be less than a mile long but mysteriously climbs many miles up Wright Mountain. We realized that we had not taken the approach trail, but had followed a forbidden ski trail up the mountain. In hindsight, that path elevated in a smoother, more gradual fashion.
At the moment of the first three shots, although we weren't technically lost, we were not where we intended to be. We chose to climb Wright Mountain on the way to Algonquin because the dude at EMS told me there was a plane wreck on the peak. In the fourth picture you can see a piece of the wreckage. We found various bits as we bushwhacked from the wrong trail to the summit and this made the effort worth it.
We were able to find our way from the dead-ended ski trail to the summit. At the termination of the trail, I climbed through some water laden pines over a series of step boulders. After I almost fell in a crevice and scared the shit out of myself, I reached the top of a rock and saw the mountain peak less then fifty yards away. I hollered down to the fellas to work their way around and up. I walked to the top and yelled again for them, but they could not hear me and I could not hear them. I waited a bit and then wandered around. They had a strenuous climb up the crevice that I had almost fallen in and made their way to the top and we found each other.
While I was searching for the boys, I found more wreckage. We all went to investigate and we found a plaque that explained that four airmen died in the crash of a B-47 in 1962. The details are here.
You can see the view was tremendous. Like a steamy bathroom without the warmth.
After descending Wright Peak, we discussed what to do next over PB&J's. We had originally planned to hike the Algonquin, New York's second tallest mountain, and it would have been a failure not to do so. Matt and Jer took off up the trail and Erik and I followed. The climb was relatively easy over lots of flat rock. Soon we met at the US Geological marker that marked the highest elevation. Sitting in the clouds, the mist formed a fuzz of tiny droplets on our coats and faces. We stayed long enought to claim the land for our own and started the long trek down.
Down battered our bodies more than up. Unceasing rain and loads of foot traffic rendered the trails in terrible condition. Walking from rock to rock across mud holes for five miles inflicted pains to every part of our bodies. During the whole day, we had never paused for more than a few moments and the pace over such rugged terrain kicked our asses. When we stopped at that waterfall, almost halfway down, we were running on nothing but hunger.
Erik dutifully marked waypoints on my GPS and by the end, after surmounting two peaks, we knew we had covered almost 11 miles and 4500 vertical feet.
Camp greeted us with dry clothes and a warm fire. Spry Jerry showered, but the rest of us were too lazy/slovenly. When he returned, clean and warm, I was jealous. Five minutes after dinner, he was snoring in his sleeping bag. Ten minutes after that he silently slept in an exhausted coma. The rest of us whimpered into beers around the fire.
For dinner, we skewered bacon-wrapped asparagus and grilled it over the fire. We also made BBQ pork sandwiches. Later, sitting by the fire, Matt carved the letter F into his hatchet, so that the handle now reads "RUF". He named the hatchet "Rufus" after a story a crazy cliff jumping local told us when we hike Mount Washington. Ever since then, he carves one letter per trip.
In the last photo, an olympic hopeful launches himself into a bubbling swimming pool at the training center in Lake Placid. The stars appeared over the lake before we went to bed Saturday night and Sunday greeted us with ideal weather, so we checked out the Olympic Training Center in Lake Placid.
Atop a gigantic hill, accessible by ski-lift, sits two towers, visible for miles. Although we were denied a view the previous day, the ski-jump stations gave us a pretty good approximation of what we missed. For a quarter, we could use the viewing scope and see most of the terrain we had trudged up on Saturday. Some jumpers were practicing and we could observe form both above and below. Matt was able to get a shot of the best jumper right before lift off. The towers are really, really tall and the slope extremely steep. The skiers land on a near vertical surface covered with plastic mesh. Real Olympic sports are so much more extreme than the X-games.
The weather sucked and we hiked a little further than is healthy, but the weekend still beat the hell out of being at work. Next trip is either in a canoe or at a fishing lodge.