ADK Rick
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Well, my uncle (46r #1387) always said that the only acceptable way to do the Range was from Rooster Comb to Haystack with a full pack all the way. And I'm not talking about one of our internal frame suspension waist belt chest belt hydration system jobs, either, but a real Adirondack Pack Basket. Alas, I find that in my somewhat advanced state of decomposition that this method of attacking this jagged spine of rocky peaks will not be an option for me during my current lifetime. So I am attacking them in onesies/twosies, and boy did I pick a day to do the Star of the Show - Gothics via the Pyramid.
Photos here
Some of you kind readers may recall that I did LWJ/UWJ and Armstong 3 weeks ago, on a perfect bugless and nearly mud free day. I got even luckier this time, as I watched the advance weather forecast with widening eyes each day...68°F, ultra low humidity, no clouds...wow! And a predicted low of 36 over night just to keep the bugs sluggish.
On this trip I had the pleasure of getting together with my old friend Dave G from Buffalo, who brought along another friend of his that I had never met. I live in CT now, so its harder for us to get together. When they arrived late tuesday at the Northwoods Inn, the first thing I said, even before "Hello", was, "Dave, you SOB, you brought a LONG LEGGED hiker? Are you crazy?"
Dan turned out to be a great guy, though, and in fact set such a great pace going up Gothics the next day that literally, for the first time I can ever remember, the summit arrived sooner than I expected. You know how it is, its always the other way around...the incredulousness that you aren't there yet...surely feeling like I do this must the summit here, right? More on this later.
Thursday dawned just like expected, spectacular. I threw open the drapes and got the stupendous view of Whiteface from across Mirror Lake to greet me, with full sunshine flooding the room. By the way, sorry for not warning you first, Dan! We packed up and took our time getting down to the Ausable Club, stopping for coffee along the way.
At the gate the gatekeeper (cant help but think of Ghostbusters here...."Are you the Gatekeeper? I am the Keymaster!") quizzed us a little but we must have looked competent because he left us alone pretty quickly. Following Shadowcat's lead from that other thread, I thought about telling him that we intended to camp somewhere on that nice dirt road (or perhaps telling him that I was the Keymaster), but he was a nice old guy and probably wouldn't appreciate such a lame attempt at humour. We left the gate at about 8:00. Only one other car in the lot, and they were signed in for Colvin and Blake....hurray!
The road miles flew by. The temperature was warmer than predicted, I dont think it cracked 40 overnight. A few lazy skeeters flew around, but not energetically enough to be a hassle. We were all down to shorts and tshirts in no time. The lake came up quickly enough, and we stopped for a quick snack before heading to Rainbow Falls. If you have never seen it please take the extra couple of tenths of a mile to do it, its beautiful.
The climbing begins immediately on the Weld Trail. During my solo trip 3 weeks previous I think I was over anxious and prone to walking too fast, thus having to take too many breaks where I puffed and wheezed. Dan, however, set a perfect pace that saw us climbing the whole distance to the col with only taking a couple of very short breaks. I couldnt believe how good I felt, and how easy the climb felt. We thought briefly about tagging Sawteeth, but we wanted to focus on the objective and spend the extra time on lounging on the summits instead.
The climbing gets very steep after the col, with lots of great little scrambles. I should mention that the trails were quite dry...I was not expecting this after all the rain, but they were in GREAT shape. We continued making slow but steady and not terribly tiring progress. The views back to the east started to blossom. Giant, Noonmark with its very visible fire damage, the Nippletop ridge.
The arrival at the summit of Pyramid is the best I have ever experienced. Its just a fantastic combination of events all at once. First, the view hits you...you are coming up the east side of the Pyramid, so you are limited with views only to the east. All of a sudden, and I mean that quite literally, you are confronted with the view straight to the huge hunk of rock that is Basin...and its just stupendous. At the very same instant, you get a cool westerly breeze in the face, that was lacking while you were on the east side of the peak. While it wasnt hot, the air was still and we were working fairly hard, so that puff of breeze felt like it came straight from Hudson Bay. The combination literally struck me dumb. I held my arms straight out and just stared slack jawed. Dan came up behind me a few seconds later and was similarly rendered mute.
We ate a nice long grazing lunch at the summit, took lots of photos, and reveled in the moment. A few bugs came along to try to spoil the fun, but not enough to be too bothersome. I am particularily interested in getting a composite panorama made of the 7 shots that comprise about 240 degrees of the view from the Pyramid, I'll get around to it soon.
The descent to the Gothics-Pyramid col took what seemed like 10 seconds, especially since it looks so imposing from the Pyramid summit. The climb up Gothics was not bad at all, and soon we were at the summit. We arrived at 1:30 pm, for the record. My 36th peak. We took another long break, reluctant to leave this place. Although we never saw any other hikers the whole day on the trail, we did hear some hikers coming up from the direction of Saddleback. This got us going, and we headed back down the Beaver Meadow Falls trail.
Although we felt great all the way up, the descent was long and pounding. The upper half of this trail, which I had just done 3 weeks before coming off Armstrong, is steep and slow...lots of time and care needs to be taken on several slabs and other tricky spots. The second half is easier, and after a while we arrived a Beaver Meadow Falls. This is also a beautiful site, and so well positioned for a well earned rest after a climb. We decided to take the East River Trail out instead of the road, and this trail goes by some nice falls and other pretty spots before coming out on the Road just up from the Gate. But it does add some pounding to the knees and takes more time. We got back to the car just about 5:00.
So lets recap, shall we? Perfect weather, little mud, hardly any bugs, no other hikers, (arguably) the best single view from any point in the high peaks, and great companions for the trip. How much better can it get? How much better would anyone have a *right* to expect it to get! Literally the perfect dayhike.
ADK Rick
Photos here
Some of you kind readers may recall that I did LWJ/UWJ and Armstong 3 weeks ago, on a perfect bugless and nearly mud free day. I got even luckier this time, as I watched the advance weather forecast with widening eyes each day...68°F, ultra low humidity, no clouds...wow! And a predicted low of 36 over night just to keep the bugs sluggish.
On this trip I had the pleasure of getting together with my old friend Dave G from Buffalo, who brought along another friend of his that I had never met. I live in CT now, so its harder for us to get together. When they arrived late tuesday at the Northwoods Inn, the first thing I said, even before "Hello", was, "Dave, you SOB, you brought a LONG LEGGED hiker? Are you crazy?"
Dan turned out to be a great guy, though, and in fact set such a great pace going up Gothics the next day that literally, for the first time I can ever remember, the summit arrived sooner than I expected. You know how it is, its always the other way around...the incredulousness that you aren't there yet...surely feeling like I do this must the summit here, right? More on this later.
Thursday dawned just like expected, spectacular. I threw open the drapes and got the stupendous view of Whiteface from across Mirror Lake to greet me, with full sunshine flooding the room. By the way, sorry for not warning you first, Dan! We packed up and took our time getting down to the Ausable Club, stopping for coffee along the way.
At the gate the gatekeeper (cant help but think of Ghostbusters here...."Are you the Gatekeeper? I am the Keymaster!") quizzed us a little but we must have looked competent because he left us alone pretty quickly. Following Shadowcat's lead from that other thread, I thought about telling him that we intended to camp somewhere on that nice dirt road (or perhaps telling him that I was the Keymaster), but he was a nice old guy and probably wouldn't appreciate such a lame attempt at humour. We left the gate at about 8:00. Only one other car in the lot, and they were signed in for Colvin and Blake....hurray!
The road miles flew by. The temperature was warmer than predicted, I dont think it cracked 40 overnight. A few lazy skeeters flew around, but not energetically enough to be a hassle. We were all down to shorts and tshirts in no time. The lake came up quickly enough, and we stopped for a quick snack before heading to Rainbow Falls. If you have never seen it please take the extra couple of tenths of a mile to do it, its beautiful.
The climbing begins immediately on the Weld Trail. During my solo trip 3 weeks previous I think I was over anxious and prone to walking too fast, thus having to take too many breaks where I puffed and wheezed. Dan, however, set a perfect pace that saw us climbing the whole distance to the col with only taking a couple of very short breaks. I couldnt believe how good I felt, and how easy the climb felt. We thought briefly about tagging Sawteeth, but we wanted to focus on the objective and spend the extra time on lounging on the summits instead.
The climbing gets very steep after the col, with lots of great little scrambles. I should mention that the trails were quite dry...I was not expecting this after all the rain, but they were in GREAT shape. We continued making slow but steady and not terribly tiring progress. The views back to the east started to blossom. Giant, Noonmark with its very visible fire damage, the Nippletop ridge.
The arrival at the summit of Pyramid is the best I have ever experienced. Its just a fantastic combination of events all at once. First, the view hits you...you are coming up the east side of the Pyramid, so you are limited with views only to the east. All of a sudden, and I mean that quite literally, you are confronted with the view straight to the huge hunk of rock that is Basin...and its just stupendous. At the very same instant, you get a cool westerly breeze in the face, that was lacking while you were on the east side of the peak. While it wasnt hot, the air was still and we were working fairly hard, so that puff of breeze felt like it came straight from Hudson Bay. The combination literally struck me dumb. I held my arms straight out and just stared slack jawed. Dan came up behind me a few seconds later and was similarly rendered mute.
We ate a nice long grazing lunch at the summit, took lots of photos, and reveled in the moment. A few bugs came along to try to spoil the fun, but not enough to be too bothersome. I am particularily interested in getting a composite panorama made of the 7 shots that comprise about 240 degrees of the view from the Pyramid, I'll get around to it soon.
The descent to the Gothics-Pyramid col took what seemed like 10 seconds, especially since it looks so imposing from the Pyramid summit. The climb up Gothics was not bad at all, and soon we were at the summit. We arrived at 1:30 pm, for the record. My 36th peak. We took another long break, reluctant to leave this place. Although we never saw any other hikers the whole day on the trail, we did hear some hikers coming up from the direction of Saddleback. This got us going, and we headed back down the Beaver Meadow Falls trail.
Although we felt great all the way up, the descent was long and pounding. The upper half of this trail, which I had just done 3 weeks before coming off Armstrong, is steep and slow...lots of time and care needs to be taken on several slabs and other tricky spots. The second half is easier, and after a while we arrived a Beaver Meadow Falls. This is also a beautiful site, and so well positioned for a well earned rest after a climb. We decided to take the East River Trail out instead of the road, and this trail goes by some nice falls and other pretty spots before coming out on the Road just up from the Gate. But it does add some pounding to the knees and takes more time. We got back to the car just about 5:00.
So lets recap, shall we? Perfect weather, little mud, hardly any bugs, no other hikers, (arguably) the best single view from any point in the high peaks, and great companions for the trip. How much better can it get? How much better would anyone have a *right* to expect it to get! Literally the perfect dayhike.
ADK Rick
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