pinquond
New member
I hesitate to start a thread, this being my first time. It's a little intimidating. I don't have a spectacular trip to report nor do I have one planned. Though I did manage to conquer 8 peaks last week (Seymour, Seward, Whiteface, Esther, Marshall, Giant, Rocky Peak, and Tabletop), or, in the words of someone I met on one of those hikes, "knocked the b*$#&es out!" Last week I completed my first ever solo peaks on Tabletop and Rocky. Very proud of myself for that. I am now left 4 short of the esteemed 46. (Sawteeth, Gray, Blake, and Allen)
It’s more of a report of my last five years in the mountains because I'm moving out of the area on the 9th of September and am having a tough time with the emotional part of it. I’ve really come to feel a kinship with the mountains and the time that I spend there with my father. I had originally planned a serious peakbagging frenzy (some of which has already been posted in trail conditions by my dad, Jim B.), but realized that the mountains probably aren't going anywhere. It saddens me to think that I will now be farther away than my usual 4 or 5 hour drive when I'm on the west coast and that I may never be able to sacrifice the time or money to come back "home." I know that Portland is 40 miles from Mt. Hood and St. Helens, and numerous other famous, impressive mountains, but there is no place more peaceful and beautiful than the Adirondacks. There is no place I would rather be sit and enjoy spectacular views, be eaten alive by black flies, cling to a rock and wait for the lull in the gale force winds to make my next move so as to avoid being blown off into the foggy abyss, or be in absolute agony for hours on end just so I can feel like I had a good time tomorrow.
I climbed Marcy in ’98 in an ice storm in June and decided that my dad just had to see this. I didn’t know that it was going to slowly develop into an addiction and become the thing that dominates my thoughts for years to come. We did Algonquin and Wright in 2000 and were all but consumed by the black flies at Lake Colden while pumping water then spent the evening in our sleeping bags with our bug nets on.
That winter, my dad and I attempted our first winter outing to Wallface lean-to. Having read every piece of literature about Antarctic exploration, Jim thought it would be a good idea to load our gear on sleds, not unlike the sledges Shackleton used. We fabricated them in my dad’s garage and tied hundreds of pounds of gear on them knowing that we were ready to conquer the world, or at least wherever we were going to walk in the days to come. Jim’s magnesium, army issue snowshoes never even saw the snow but for the near ten thousand times his sled rolled over onto its top halting progress. After the four hours it took to get to the lean-to, we crawled into our sleeping bags and watched the clock for the remaining 7 hours until it made sense to go to sleep. The next morning, a very important decision had to be made. Do we leave or do we leave? We chose the obvious choice and hauled the mangled wrecks that were once our sleds back to the parking lot, hopped in the car, and drove straight to the pizza shop where we consumed a large pizza and four gallons of root beer, only to stop ten miles further down the road to consume mass quantities of Burger King’s finest cuisine. Many lessons learned on that trip that lead to many other miserable winter outings.
So with 3 peaks done in two years, my dad and I made a decision to increase the effort a little bit and even began to accumulate some “acceptable” gear. Now, outfitted with real winter bags, snowshoes with crampons, nylon pants and jackets, and even a strip of Gore-Tex here and there we “knocked out” 21 peaks in the next year and even successfully summited in the winter. Our accomplishments now included some serious fun and adventure. We braved 30 below zero nights, clung to the side of Saddleback in a torrential downpour unable to see each other or how steep it was, and crossed Indian Pass Brook in April after losing all of our snowshoes in the Spring melt flood, watching ice chunks the size of Volkswagens rush by threatening to take us with them. We slogged through the Santanonis, made Marshall on the third try (our first trail less attempt), effectively used our Seward Range compass bearings (up and down), and managed not to die in the winter (Redfield), always anticipating our next opportunity to go back for more.
Now that I feared and respected the mountains I was determined to “own” them. Well, I didn’t want to own them but I did want to become part of them. To spend my time there and not think about any of the things that annoy me elsewhere and just be in another place where the things that bother you are hot, cold, pain, frustration, bugs, mud, and psychological agony. All such beautiful things. All things that I will deeply long for in the way that only the Adirondacks can offer. But, I know the thing I will miss the most is the time I spend with my dad in the mountains and the amazing memories that each successive trip leave with me.
It’s more of a report of my last five years in the mountains because I'm moving out of the area on the 9th of September and am having a tough time with the emotional part of it. I’ve really come to feel a kinship with the mountains and the time that I spend there with my father. I had originally planned a serious peakbagging frenzy (some of which has already been posted in trail conditions by my dad, Jim B.), but realized that the mountains probably aren't going anywhere. It saddens me to think that I will now be farther away than my usual 4 or 5 hour drive when I'm on the west coast and that I may never be able to sacrifice the time or money to come back "home." I know that Portland is 40 miles from Mt. Hood and St. Helens, and numerous other famous, impressive mountains, but there is no place more peaceful and beautiful than the Adirondacks. There is no place I would rather be sit and enjoy spectacular views, be eaten alive by black flies, cling to a rock and wait for the lull in the gale force winds to make my next move so as to avoid being blown off into the foggy abyss, or be in absolute agony for hours on end just so I can feel like I had a good time tomorrow.
I climbed Marcy in ’98 in an ice storm in June and decided that my dad just had to see this. I didn’t know that it was going to slowly develop into an addiction and become the thing that dominates my thoughts for years to come. We did Algonquin and Wright in 2000 and were all but consumed by the black flies at Lake Colden while pumping water then spent the evening in our sleeping bags with our bug nets on.
That winter, my dad and I attempted our first winter outing to Wallface lean-to. Having read every piece of literature about Antarctic exploration, Jim thought it would be a good idea to load our gear on sleds, not unlike the sledges Shackleton used. We fabricated them in my dad’s garage and tied hundreds of pounds of gear on them knowing that we were ready to conquer the world, or at least wherever we were going to walk in the days to come. Jim’s magnesium, army issue snowshoes never even saw the snow but for the near ten thousand times his sled rolled over onto its top halting progress. After the four hours it took to get to the lean-to, we crawled into our sleeping bags and watched the clock for the remaining 7 hours until it made sense to go to sleep. The next morning, a very important decision had to be made. Do we leave or do we leave? We chose the obvious choice and hauled the mangled wrecks that were once our sleds back to the parking lot, hopped in the car, and drove straight to the pizza shop where we consumed a large pizza and four gallons of root beer, only to stop ten miles further down the road to consume mass quantities of Burger King’s finest cuisine. Many lessons learned on that trip that lead to many other miserable winter outings.
So with 3 peaks done in two years, my dad and I made a decision to increase the effort a little bit and even began to accumulate some “acceptable” gear. Now, outfitted with real winter bags, snowshoes with crampons, nylon pants and jackets, and even a strip of Gore-Tex here and there we “knocked out” 21 peaks in the next year and even successfully summited in the winter. Our accomplishments now included some serious fun and adventure. We braved 30 below zero nights, clung to the side of Saddleback in a torrential downpour unable to see each other or how steep it was, and crossed Indian Pass Brook in April after losing all of our snowshoes in the Spring melt flood, watching ice chunks the size of Volkswagens rush by threatening to take us with them. We slogged through the Santanonis, made Marshall on the third try (our first trail less attempt), effectively used our Seward Range compass bearings (up and down), and managed not to die in the winter (Redfield), always anticipating our next opportunity to go back for more.
Now that I feared and respected the mountains I was determined to “own” them. Well, I didn’t want to own them but I did want to become part of them. To spend my time there and not think about any of the things that annoy me elsewhere and just be in another place where the things that bother you are hot, cold, pain, frustration, bugs, mud, and psychological agony. All such beautiful things. All things that I will deeply long for in the way that only the Adirondacks can offer. But, I know the thing I will miss the most is the time I spend with my dad in the mountains and the amazing memories that each successive trip leave with me.
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