This past weekend Ryan and I finally got to a hike we've been talking about for years. Ryan's friend, and I guess mine too since I've hiked twice with him now, Fuji joined us for the trip to the Adirondacks to climb to the top of New York in winter. It's a long ways away (took us 5 1/2 hours of drive time) to get to, but that's about the only downside to the place. It's a beautiful area with big mountains, rivers, lakes and winding roadways pretty much like the White Mountains, but it was new to us and therefor very exciting. Probably exciting anyhow, as I still get excited to go to the Whites even after hundreds of trips there over the years, but this was even more so because, like I said, it was all new. New peaks to see, new trails to hike, different colored signs, blazes etc etc all brand new. We felt like kids in a candy store to tell you the truth. For Fuji it was also his first winter hike/camping trip so he had the added fun of all that newness.
After driving through Vermont we crossed into Crown Point, NY where there was a Revolutionary War fort historic site so after 4 hours of driving at that point we stopped to stretch our legs and check it out. Pretty neat, and the way I read things it was a French Fort, who surrendered it to the British, who then blew it up accidentally and finally lost it to the colonists in the war. After that we drove through some scenic but depressed areas of New York, which I figure was what the White Mountains looked like 50 years ago or so before all the ski and tourist spots were developed. This place will probably stay that way however as there's nothing around to be developed because it's all part of the biggest park in America, the Adirondacks.
We ate in Lake Placid, where we split some alligator bites (think chewy chicken) and had a locally brewed Lake Placid Brewing Co. UBU beer. Both new and I feel quite certain I was the only person on earth to have that combination that day. After that we headed off into the 10 degree night to hike 2.5 miles out to the Marcy Dam Interior Outpost and set up camp for the night around midnight. We got up with the sun and hiked the remaining 5 miles to the top of New York. The final climb to the top was about at harsh weather wise as we have hiked in. It was zero degrees with 40 mph winds which means wind chills of 30 below. We needed all our gear to get up the last half mile of alpine summit ridge in biting cold and blowing snow but we did make it up just as the clouds cleared out and gave us wonderful views around the park.
Once back in the trees we took off the goggles and masks and made our way 7 miles back to the car so we could then drive 5.5 hours home. All that from Saturday at 1 o'clock until 11:30 Sunday night. 11 hours driving, 10 hours hiking, 7 hours sleeping and a few eating and site seeing. It was a full but very fun weekend. The mountains were beautiful and if they weren't so far away we'd probably go back often. As is however it'll probably just be a couple times a year since it really involves an overnight trip to make it worth it. We were glad we finally got there to do this hike however and are looking forward to going back in the future.
There are a lot of pictures from the trip, The long version of the pictures/trip in a slide show can be found here. The shorter version, which is still pretty long and probably more than enough for most of you, can be found here.
That's about it for now but Easter is on it's way and it looks like we just may see every single person on my side of the family as well as a bunch from Jens I'm sure so check back soon to see if anything else happens around here or we'll see you then, whichever comes first!
