This sojourn had jinx written all over it from the start. I hoped to get 24 peaks in ideal circumstances and ended up with 15, still very pleased averaging 3peaks per day over five days. My first sign of trouble was that I might be catching a cold. That was Thursday evening in the EconoLodge at exit 19 off the Northway. Then when I went to bed I noticed an inexplicable right anterior rib pain. The next morning I decided I wanted to listen to some chanting music. The CD wouldn't go in. The tape player still worked, the radio still worked, and the CD had played Rod Stewart only an instant before, but now nothing
The first day of hiking went fine inspite of a late start which was my own fault. Sawteeth-Gothics-Armstrong-UWJ-LWJ. I signed in at 11:33 and signed out at 8:52, quite a bit slower than PinPin Jr did the same hike a few days later. I lucked out because the trail from the col to Gothics had not been recently broken, but as I came down off of Gothics around 4ish I ran into a couple who had just done LWJ-UWJ-Armstrong. So my path would be easy to find by head light. I was on schedule. Inspite of my late start I would get a good nights sleep and then bag Phelps-TableTop-Marcy-Skylight-Gray.
I got to my car only to find the car doors were frozen shut from the drive up in the rain the night before. All except the back driver side door which was frozen unlocked. After idling about fifteen minutes the front windows could open. So I headed to Saranac Lake to stay the night. Crawling in and out of my car through the driver side window to get gas and something to eat. AAA informed me they could not help me get into my car since I already could get in. I got to bed around 2:00am after trying to figure out what I was going to do about transportation. With the motel's help we tried blasting the side of the door with a jet heater. We tried a bunsen burner, my personal favorite, but the maintenance person's bunsen burner couldn't burn steadily in the near zero degree temperature. Finally after the car idled for about 1.5 hours the car doors opened.
Day 2: Left at 12:40pm. After solving the car door problem I bagged Phelps and Table Top then headed on to Marcy. I heard that a couple of hikers had come up from the 4Corners to Marcy wearing crampons. I did not hold out much hope of finding there path at night. I reached Marcy summit at 8:30p.m. This was my first time above treeline in the DAX. I didn't see a single cairn. What I thought were cairns were tree branches with rime ice. So the situation was a little confusing. I should have at this point worked from the summit sweeping east to west at fifty foot intervals steadily moving downward looking at every thing that could possibly be a cairn. I am sure I would have found one by doing this. Did I mention it was snowing and my MSR tracks had been quickly covered up. I looked at my GPS. I was about 0.35miles from Gray as a bird flies. I could bushwack there in hopes the trail had been broken to Gray and then might be able to follow their tracks to Skylight and maybe the Opalescent trail would also be discernible. But this was too risky without overnite gear when I knew I had a well packed trail going back to the Loj if I could find it. I looked at my GPS and saw I was 0.68miles from the Phelps trail junction. I decided Lord knows why to bushwhack from above treeline to the Phelps junction. Apparently I needed to wander through deep and abiding snow. It was agony but also ecstasy. I crossed the trail just below the juntion at 11:30pm. It had taken me 2.5hours to go the 0.68miles. I still had 7miles to the Loj. But I was right where I wanted to be, a little worse for wear, but high up in the mountains for bringing in the new year which I toasted with a sip of water.
Day 3: Needless to say I got to bed around 5:00am. My start time for Dial-Nippletop-uh maybe not-Colvin and Blake was 3:17pm. I had relocated my gear to Keene Valley from Saranac lake as well as sleeping til 10:00am. I came out off of Nippletop about 1:30am. The hike between Dial and Nippletop had been broken by two hikers and those were the only tracks. I saw no blazes after the Bear's Den. About 0.7miles from Dial the hikers had gotten seriously lost and looked in several different directions for something approximating a trail. Stay to the left of the maze at that point. They did much better between Dial and Nippletop staying on trail most of the time and quickly getting back on trail after the occassional complicating blow downs. As I went by the junction where the trail goes up to Colvin I saw it was packed out, but figured I wouldn't get back til 6:00am so I headed back to the Gate.
Day 4: I headed out to finish off Colvin and Blake. I met a George in the parking lot who had vast hiking experience especially in the Adirondacks, had done the hundred highest, etc. etc. He couldn't believe I would want to try to go from Colvin to Blake, that nobody went that way and the trail probably wasn't packed out. He suggested I walk across the Lower Ausable then go up to the col between Blake and Colvin. But I knew the trail was well packed out to Colvin and maybe to Blake, so I headed up to Colvin. The trail was indeed nicely packed out all the way to Blake. This was my earliest start time by the way, 11:00am(6hrs sleep again). I was surprised to see the hikers had not gone down to the lake from the col after hiking Blake but had returned via Colvin which is rather a steep climb. There were barely discernible tracks down to the lake, probably 2 to 3 weeks old. But the trail was well blazed. The usual number of numerous blow downs. I got down to the bridge and needed to take a moment to realize I didn't need nor want to cross the bridge. I could see the tracks I had followed walking along the edge of the lake here and there disapearing because of ice melting. Let me repeat that. The tracks disappeared because of significant meltage, probably due to the Thursday Deluge. So George's idea though good in theory was not so good in practice. Now I am no expert when it comes to ice on a lake. Oh I've been ice fishing with the pros who know for a certain lake where the coldsprings are underneath that can thin the ice, but in those conditions in the northern Vermont the ice was 9inches thick anyway. You could have landed a 747 on it. I walked along the shore through the woods hoping the ice would improve as I got further away from the river. I thought maybe the two areas of water I saw near the shore were due to springs flowing into the lake at those points and maybe the ice would be better out in the middle. So I ventured out...no cracks, seemed ok....I approached a large dead tree laying flat frozen halfway up in the ice. I wondered if the ice would break more easily near the tree. I broke through a step away from the tree. Somehow, I have no idea I quickly grabbed for the frozen tree and only wet one of my boots and my right leg up to my thigh. Getting my boot wet was no bother. I did that following a tiny stream to get to the Owls Head slide last winter. I was only wearing bergalene long under wear with running shorts over that, gators of course. So that part of my clothing dried quickly with body heat. The boot was soaked. That was it for the ice. I retraced my steps oh so gingerly back to the shore. I now had to reclaim the 1500feet of altitude back to the col, then over Colvin. At this point I was only going to deal with known quantities.
I got out late again when a walk across the lake would have gotten me back to the inn by 9:00pm. I got back to my car at 12:19 am.
Day 5: The MacIntyre range. Finally a clear beautiful day, another suberbly packed trail as with the trail up to Marcy and I got started at 11:39. I had to check out of the inn, load up my car and drive up to the Loj from Keene Valley. I thought about doing a tamer Cascade-Porter just to show I could be tame, but knew I wanted to jump back into the saddle more vigorously after nearly drowning in the Lower Ausable by going after Wright-Algonquin-Iroquois. Finally a great decision. It was a perfect day. I didn't even bring goggles. I had crampons because I was considering going down to the flowed lands and back to Loj. The parking attendant who was obviously an avid hiker who worked for the Adirondack Mountain Club said the trail from the col was very steep. But I would end up going back over Algonquin. I was taking so many pictures I left my glove shell near the summit of Algonquin. I reached Iroquois just after sunset but had caught the last quarter of the setting sun as I came over the second rise before the final climb to the summit of Iroquois. Now as I went back toward Algonquin the stars started coming out. I was enraptured. Low and behold my glove shell was right in the path, creased just enough over the snow so the wind hadn't taken it. Orion's belt was so close to the horizon the right most star looked like it could be a house light shining in the valley. A planet, probably not Venus was visible above the horizon shortly after sunset. Anybody know which one? I'm guessing Jupiter for no good reason other then it's usually Jupiter when it's not Venus and I didn't think it was bright enough to be Venus. The new crescent moon hung above and just to the left of the planet. No problem with direction with the stars to go by, with Lake Placid serving as a line of target coming down from Algonquin. If I had gone according to my pre-planned 5day schedule I would have hiked the MacIntyre range on a cloudy day. And I would have missed this exquisite day and evening.
Just to show the jinx was still with me a giant ball of snow careened down from a hillside as I was driving home in Winchester, CT and smashed my windshield.
The first day of hiking went fine inspite of a late start which was my own fault. Sawteeth-Gothics-Armstrong-UWJ-LWJ. I signed in at 11:33 and signed out at 8:52, quite a bit slower than PinPin Jr did the same hike a few days later. I lucked out because the trail from the col to Gothics had not been recently broken, but as I came down off of Gothics around 4ish I ran into a couple who had just done LWJ-UWJ-Armstrong. So my path would be easy to find by head light. I was on schedule. Inspite of my late start I would get a good nights sleep and then bag Phelps-TableTop-Marcy-Skylight-Gray.
I got to my car only to find the car doors were frozen shut from the drive up in the rain the night before. All except the back driver side door which was frozen unlocked. After idling about fifteen minutes the front windows could open. So I headed to Saranac Lake to stay the night. Crawling in and out of my car through the driver side window to get gas and something to eat. AAA informed me they could not help me get into my car since I already could get in. I got to bed around 2:00am after trying to figure out what I was going to do about transportation. With the motel's help we tried blasting the side of the door with a jet heater. We tried a bunsen burner, my personal favorite, but the maintenance person's bunsen burner couldn't burn steadily in the near zero degree temperature. Finally after the car idled for about 1.5 hours the car doors opened.
Day 2: Left at 12:40pm. After solving the car door problem I bagged Phelps and Table Top then headed on to Marcy. I heard that a couple of hikers had come up from the 4Corners to Marcy wearing crampons. I did not hold out much hope of finding there path at night. I reached Marcy summit at 8:30p.m. This was my first time above treeline in the DAX. I didn't see a single cairn. What I thought were cairns were tree branches with rime ice. So the situation was a little confusing. I should have at this point worked from the summit sweeping east to west at fifty foot intervals steadily moving downward looking at every thing that could possibly be a cairn. I am sure I would have found one by doing this. Did I mention it was snowing and my MSR tracks had been quickly covered up. I looked at my GPS. I was about 0.35miles from Gray as a bird flies. I could bushwack there in hopes the trail had been broken to Gray and then might be able to follow their tracks to Skylight and maybe the Opalescent trail would also be discernible. But this was too risky without overnite gear when I knew I had a well packed trail going back to the Loj if I could find it. I looked at my GPS and saw I was 0.68miles from the Phelps trail junction. I decided Lord knows why to bushwhack from above treeline to the Phelps junction. Apparently I needed to wander through deep and abiding snow. It was agony but also ecstasy. I crossed the trail just below the juntion at 11:30pm. It had taken me 2.5hours to go the 0.68miles. I still had 7miles to the Loj. But I was right where I wanted to be, a little worse for wear, but high up in the mountains for bringing in the new year which I toasted with a sip of water.
Day 3: Needless to say I got to bed around 5:00am. My start time for Dial-Nippletop-uh maybe not-Colvin and Blake was 3:17pm. I had relocated my gear to Keene Valley from Saranac lake as well as sleeping til 10:00am. I came out off of Nippletop about 1:30am. The hike between Dial and Nippletop had been broken by two hikers and those were the only tracks. I saw no blazes after the Bear's Den. About 0.7miles from Dial the hikers had gotten seriously lost and looked in several different directions for something approximating a trail. Stay to the left of the maze at that point. They did much better between Dial and Nippletop staying on trail most of the time and quickly getting back on trail after the occassional complicating blow downs. As I went by the junction where the trail goes up to Colvin I saw it was packed out, but figured I wouldn't get back til 6:00am so I headed back to the Gate.
Day 4: I headed out to finish off Colvin and Blake. I met a George in the parking lot who had vast hiking experience especially in the Adirondacks, had done the hundred highest, etc. etc. He couldn't believe I would want to try to go from Colvin to Blake, that nobody went that way and the trail probably wasn't packed out. He suggested I walk across the Lower Ausable then go up to the col between Blake and Colvin. But I knew the trail was well packed out to Colvin and maybe to Blake, so I headed up to Colvin. The trail was indeed nicely packed out all the way to Blake. This was my earliest start time by the way, 11:00am(6hrs sleep again). I was surprised to see the hikers had not gone down to the lake from the col after hiking Blake but had returned via Colvin which is rather a steep climb. There were barely discernible tracks down to the lake, probably 2 to 3 weeks old. But the trail was well blazed. The usual number of numerous blow downs. I got down to the bridge and needed to take a moment to realize I didn't need nor want to cross the bridge. I could see the tracks I had followed walking along the edge of the lake here and there disapearing because of ice melting. Let me repeat that. The tracks disappeared because of significant meltage, probably due to the Thursday Deluge. So George's idea though good in theory was not so good in practice. Now I am no expert when it comes to ice on a lake. Oh I've been ice fishing with the pros who know for a certain lake where the coldsprings are underneath that can thin the ice, but in those conditions in the northern Vermont the ice was 9inches thick anyway. You could have landed a 747 on it. I walked along the shore through the woods hoping the ice would improve as I got further away from the river. I thought maybe the two areas of water I saw near the shore were due to springs flowing into the lake at those points and maybe the ice would be better out in the middle. So I ventured out...no cracks, seemed ok....I approached a large dead tree laying flat frozen halfway up in the ice. I wondered if the ice would break more easily near the tree. I broke through a step away from the tree. Somehow, I have no idea I quickly grabbed for the frozen tree and only wet one of my boots and my right leg up to my thigh. Getting my boot wet was no bother. I did that following a tiny stream to get to the Owls Head slide last winter. I was only wearing bergalene long under wear with running shorts over that, gators of course. So that part of my clothing dried quickly with body heat. The boot was soaked. That was it for the ice. I retraced my steps oh so gingerly back to the shore. I now had to reclaim the 1500feet of altitude back to the col, then over Colvin. At this point I was only going to deal with known quantities.
I got out late again when a walk across the lake would have gotten me back to the inn by 9:00pm. I got back to my car at 12:19 am.
Day 5: The MacIntyre range. Finally a clear beautiful day, another suberbly packed trail as with the trail up to Marcy and I got started at 11:39. I had to check out of the inn, load up my car and drive up to the Loj from Keene Valley. I thought about doing a tamer Cascade-Porter just to show I could be tame, but knew I wanted to jump back into the saddle more vigorously after nearly drowning in the Lower Ausable by going after Wright-Algonquin-Iroquois. Finally a great decision. It was a perfect day. I didn't even bring goggles. I had crampons because I was considering going down to the flowed lands and back to Loj. The parking attendant who was obviously an avid hiker who worked for the Adirondack Mountain Club said the trail from the col was very steep. But I would end up going back over Algonquin. I was taking so many pictures I left my glove shell near the summit of Algonquin. I reached Iroquois just after sunset but had caught the last quarter of the setting sun as I came over the second rise before the final climb to the summit of Iroquois. Now as I went back toward Algonquin the stars started coming out. I was enraptured. Low and behold my glove shell was right in the path, creased just enough over the snow so the wind hadn't taken it. Orion's belt was so close to the horizon the right most star looked like it could be a house light shining in the valley. A planet, probably not Venus was visible above the horizon shortly after sunset. Anybody know which one? I'm guessing Jupiter for no good reason other then it's usually Jupiter when it's not Venus and I didn't think it was bright enough to be Venus. The new crescent moon hung above and just to the left of the planet. No problem with direction with the stars to go by, with Lake Placid serving as a line of target coming down from Algonquin. If I had gone according to my pre-planned 5day schedule I would have hiked the MacIntyre range on a cloudy day. And I would have missed this exquisite day and evening.
Just to show the jinx was still with me a giant ball of snow careened down from a hillside as I was driving home in Winchester, CT and smashed my windshield.
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