Jay H
New member
8-11-2007
Well, since I did Marcy way back when I wasn't a peakbagger, I had it left in my agenda and didn't get a chance to bag Gray this past winter so hey, why not at Spencers? A midnight curfew came along and we somewhat drifted off to bed for a 6am rise and a 8am meeting time at the Loj, supposed to meet Harry K, our Kanadian Kontingent at the Loj to do Gray, Skylight, and Marcy, in that order.
Hey, I've got priorities so figuring if the weather was bad, we could do Gray and out but figured while we're there, better do Skylight and since I don't like out and backs, might as well go over Marcy and out... So the day started when we literally followed Tmax and her friend Janet (the food queen), into the Loj parking lot. Not recognizing Janet from my Sewards trip, I'm commenting what idiot doesn't realize her own licence plate number.... Oh, that idiot..
Anyway, Ajtiv, 7summits, Gillian, Tmax, Ajtiv, and I are at the Loj when all but Al and I leave figuring we'll catch them up at the Dam or so. No Harry K, so we leave a few bit and catch up to them just before the Dam, after passing small trains of young hikers heading out.
Anyway, the trail before Feldspar as I've read was flooded, but we only had a short bushwack to go over one deep section, the rest was on floating boards that wasn't over my boots... I didn't see any dead hikers below (ala Lord of the Rings) and didn't notice any piranha. Leanto was empty but surprisingly devoid of graffitti but evidence of illegal fires. Some funny journal entries as we rested for a snack and/or lunch.
Hiking up the trail towards 4corners and the herdpath to Gray, I noticed a small cairn on the left but as we were not at lake Tear, didn't know what that was for... slide? campsite? It was about 1/3 mileish from the actual herdpath which was obvious and the cairn is there..
Passed a few people, including two guys with huge packs heading into Panther Gorge and out for 8 days...
Gray summit sign doesn't seem to be on the highest point but got a picture of the sign there and walked back to the big rock just before it... Looking out towards Colden and the Macintyres... Back down towards 4corners we run into 2 ladies (Obvious fit cyclists who copied my idea of wearing cycling jerseys to hike) who told ajtiv that the Loj said it was OK to whack from Gray to Marcy but not vice versa ??!? Anyway, we would later see them going up Skylight in a time frame that it was obvious they didn't try it.
Off of Gray and onto Skylight, we found the summit pretty windy and had to sit behind the cairn to get a little cover.. Gillian prompted took a nap or at least pretended too. Got a little cool with the wind, put my rain shell on and watched clouds blow over towards Panther Gorge and got some cool silouhettes of hikers on Little marcy going up and a bunch at the summit.
After the usual summit shots and dropping off our rocks on the cairn, we headed down and up to Marcy. Passing a person who reminded me of Gallagher, the watermelon smashing comedian guy) going up Marcy, we get to the summit. In 10 minutes the summit steward would leave and we would have the summit to ourselves for a bit while others came and went.
Off out, we made some good time going down to Indian Falls where we stopped for some photos and trying to picture the old leanto there. And then out around 6:55ish with Al and I kind of booking out way out (ice cream beckons) and the rest finished a bit later and proceded to get in line for the shower (singular, the 2nd shower isn't done yet) that is 25cents per minute! Needlesstosay, I'm a poor schmoe so I take a patented brown towel shower in the men's room and procede to find the cheapest most value orientated ice cream in the Loj store (King Cone I think).
http://picasaweb.google.com/cycleslug/Gray_Skylight_Marcy81107
You'll have to excuse some of the photos which didn't come out due to a sticky shutter button on my Canon digicam, the shutter is stuck in the focus mode which means it sets the exposure and shutter speed based on whatever it was pointed at power up... some photos didn't come out well because of that or was a bit unfocused...
Jay
Well, since I did Marcy way back when I wasn't a peakbagger, I had it left in my agenda and didn't get a chance to bag Gray this past winter so hey, why not at Spencers? A midnight curfew came along and we somewhat drifted off to bed for a 6am rise and a 8am meeting time at the Loj, supposed to meet Harry K, our Kanadian Kontingent at the Loj to do Gray, Skylight, and Marcy, in that order.
Hey, I've got priorities so figuring if the weather was bad, we could do Gray and out but figured while we're there, better do Skylight and since I don't like out and backs, might as well go over Marcy and out... So the day started when we literally followed Tmax and her friend Janet (the food queen), into the Loj parking lot. Not recognizing Janet from my Sewards trip, I'm commenting what idiot doesn't realize her own licence plate number.... Oh, that idiot..
Anyway, Ajtiv, 7summits, Gillian, Tmax, Ajtiv, and I are at the Loj when all but Al and I leave figuring we'll catch them up at the Dam or so. No Harry K, so we leave a few bit and catch up to them just before the Dam, after passing small trains of young hikers heading out.
Anyway, the trail before Feldspar as I've read was flooded, but we only had a short bushwack to go over one deep section, the rest was on floating boards that wasn't over my boots... I didn't see any dead hikers below (ala Lord of the Rings) and didn't notice any piranha. Leanto was empty but surprisingly devoid of graffitti but evidence of illegal fires. Some funny journal entries as we rested for a snack and/or lunch.
Hiking up the trail towards 4corners and the herdpath to Gray, I noticed a small cairn on the left but as we were not at lake Tear, didn't know what that was for... slide? campsite? It was about 1/3 mileish from the actual herdpath which was obvious and the cairn is there..
Passed a few people, including two guys with huge packs heading into Panther Gorge and out for 8 days...
Gray summit sign doesn't seem to be on the highest point but got a picture of the sign there and walked back to the big rock just before it... Looking out towards Colden and the Macintyres... Back down towards 4corners we run into 2 ladies (Obvious fit cyclists who copied my idea of wearing cycling jerseys to hike
) who told ajtiv that the Loj said it was OK to whack from Gray to Marcy but not vice versa ??!? Anyway, we would later see them going up Skylight in a time frame that it was obvious they didn't try it. Off of Gray and onto Skylight, we found the summit pretty windy and had to sit behind the cairn to get a little cover.. Gillian prompted took a nap or at least pretended too. Got a little cool with the wind, put my rain shell on and watched clouds blow over towards Panther Gorge and got some cool silouhettes of hikers on Little marcy going up and a bunch at the summit.
After the usual summit shots and dropping off our rocks on the cairn, we headed down and up to Marcy. Passing a person who reminded me of Gallagher, the watermelon smashing comedian guy) going up Marcy, we get to the summit. In 10 minutes the summit steward would leave and we would have the summit to ourselves for a bit while others came and went.
Off out, we made some good time going down to Indian Falls where we stopped for some photos and trying to picture the old leanto there. And then out around 6:55ish with Al and I kind of booking out way out (ice cream beckons) and the rest finished a bit later and proceded to get in line for the shower (singular, the 2nd shower isn't done yet) that is 25cents per minute! Needlesstosay, I'm a poor schmoe so I take a patented brown towel shower in the men's room and procede to find the cheapest most value orientated ice cream in the Loj store (King Cone I think).
http://picasaweb.google.com/cycleslug/Gray_Skylight_Marcy81107
You'll have to excuse some of the photos which didn't come out due to a sticky shutter button on my Canon digicam, the shutter is stuck in the focus mode which means it sets the exposure and shutter speed based on whatever it was pointed at power up... some photos didn't come out well because of that or was a bit unfocused...
Jay
