Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Sawteeth... almost

Two deer on the Lake Road.

The dam at the end of the Lake Road.

Raindbow Falls.

New growth on the slide to Sawteeth.

Signs at the col between Gothics and Sawteeth.

I believe this is Pyramid from Sawteeth.

The Great Range from Sawteeth. From left to right is Marcy in the far distance, Basin and then Saddleback.

Icy trail conditions. This is about where I turned around.

The Lower Ausable basked in sunlight.

I still get nervous before hiking one of the high peaks; I usually don't get much more than six hours of sleep. And when the mountains come into view on the drive down in the morning, my heart races. They don't look like places where people belong. And perhaps they don't. Afterall, it's a rather unnatural act to climb a mountain just for the sake of standing on top of it and then climb back down. To some degree, it seems like an arrogant large scale game of king of the hill where I'm competing against the earth itself. Yet, I still do it and I'm hardly the only one.

So why do people hike mountains? It's good exercise, there's a bit of adventure to it and there are great views. But the majority of the time it spent looking down at the ground, partially to plan out your foot steps and partially becuase of the unnatural weight of the pack on your back. I'm not so sure what portion of the will to hike a mountain is driven by a desire to get to the summit, and what portion is driven by a desire to get away from something else. Elevation gain seems to change much more than just a person's visual perspective on the world below.

So on the morning of November 12th, I slept in past sunrise to try to get 6 hours of sleep. Ironically, the forecast called for temperatures in the 50's, about the same temperature it was the morning I set off for Marcy in July. I got to the trailhead well after sunrise and walked in to the Adirondack Mountain Reserve gate. The gravel of the Lake Road was frozen solid and a thin layer of icy snow covered the ground. I was sliding around a bit already and I hadn't even climbed anywhere. At the end of the long, monotonous hike down the Lake Road, I was rewarded by seeing two deer standing in the road just beyond where it becomes private property.

I hiked down to the dam and across the bridge, mindful of my footing. Then I started the immediate uphill climb of the Alfred E. Well trail to the col between Gothics and Sawteeth. At this point, I still wasn't sure which peak I'd attempt. Earlier I wanted to do Sawteeth, Pyramid and Gothics but I probably wouldn't have enough time with my late start.

The trail was messy. It wasn't quite snow or quite ice covering the ground and because it was so thin it would break and slide around. It was a bit like climbing up sand. Knowing I was planning a rather ambitious hike by my standards, and wanting to be back to the Lake Road by sundown so at least I'd be on flat ground in the dark, I had written down all the distances listed in the guide book so I could track my progress. I knew it was only 0.3 miles to a lookout above Rainbow Falls.

I arrived there much sooner than I expected and enjoyed the great view and the humorous sign warning, "Stay back from edge, don't be a dropout". When I came to the "old grown-in side" it did not look like a slide at all as it was completely covered in dense, thin newgroth trees. At this point the snow was a few inches deep, making footing much more secure. At the slide the trail evens out a bit but it was mostly a steep hike to the col between Sawteeth and Gothics.

I came to the col and there were signs pointing to Sawteeth and Gothics. Sawteeth was only 0.5 miles away with 500 feet of elevation gain and Gothics was labelled as a mile away with about 1.000 feet of elevation gain. Eager to get at least one peak in before heading back down to the Lake Road, I decided for Sawteeth.

Quickly the trail to Sawteeth got quite steep and the snow filled trail turned to a flowing river of ice. With the help of some tree branches, I slowly made my way up the steep pitches, slipping a bit even with microspikes. I stood sideways, and quickly snapped a picture of the great range as the footing was not great. Then I came to a cleft with cascading ice and no solid tree branches to hold on to. I stood here and contemplated things for a bit.

If I slipped back down, I would probably umble for a while. There was a bit of blowdown which I would have to climb over, and if it gave way and slid down the ice while I was on it, I would be going for quite the ride. I went back and forth on whether or not to attempt it. I had hiked nearly 7 miles and I couldn't be much more than 0.2 miles away from the summit. I took my pack off and set down my hiking poles. Then I grabbed hold of a chunk of ice and rocked myself back and forth, readying myself for a lunge forward. Then a thought hit me.

I might be able to get up this cleft, but how would I get back down? The microspikes were doing little for traction on the steep ice and I they were all I had. If I tried to butt slide down it, there was a good chance I'd get tangled in the blowdown or tumble end over end when I attempted to slow myself down. I sat there for a moment, struggling to come up with some kind of excuse to keep going - some nonexist piece of mountaineering knowledge or piece of equipment that I didn't have which would make the descent safe. Then I turned around.

I'm usually a pretty optimistic person, but I was upset with myself. I was tired from the lack of sleep and the anxiousness as well as the climb itself. Even though I had turned back before the steep cleft, I was still struggling to make my way down the steep, ice chutes of the trail. I fell a couple times, only adding to my frustration. At first I started to feel sorry for myself. This was the third time in my last four trips that I did not summit. But the more I thought about it, the more I felt like I had made the right decision.

I thought about how it was only a couple hours from nighttime and then the temperatures would plunge into the 20's. If I was stuck injured near the summit, it would be windy with temperatures nearing 0 and even though I had left instructions on where I was going and signed in at the trailhead, I wasn't sure how long it would take someone to find me.

My emotions went from one end of the spectrum to the other. I became nostalgiac about my other hikes and contemplative about all of the major life changes I've experience since July: blessings and curses and blessings in curses. I thought about how fortunate I was to be where I am now and where I would be when I completed the 46 peeks. I was in a daze and didn't pause for a rest until I was at the lookout over Rainbow Falls.

I was surprised to see that the snow below Rainbow Falls had mostly melted. The trail looked much different with tree roots and leaves. I stopped at the dam and had something to eat. The sun was low in the sky and it covered Indian Head and Blake Peak in golden sunlight. The Lower Ausable was so still that if I looked at it upside down, it would look as if the reflection of the mountains were the mountains themselves. I could make out individual clouds in the water.

Then I set out back down the Lake Road. Less than a mile from the gate I came across the only people I saw all day. When I singed out at the trailhead I saw that they had listed "a short hike" as their destination. Walking through the Ausable Club, I saw 5 more deer on the golf course. Deer are smart and they probably know that hunters aren't allowed there. I had read that elk out west migrate towards forest preserves where hunting isn't allowed in the winter.

The walk back to the car didn't feel any different than it would have it I had summited. On the way up a mountain my senses are always heightened and my muscles strain. On the way back down, everything is easy and my senses are free to wander. It's a very peaceful and gratifying feeling. What's a couple 10ths of a mile anyways? It just means I'll get to come back.

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Adirondack Toughness

That was the topic of a recent article in the Adirondack Almanack by North Country historian Lawrence P. Gooley. It details harrowing stories of survival by everyday people in the early 1900's Adirondacks. One such story:

In most jobs where dynamite was used (mining, farming, lumbering), it was kept frozen until needed, since freezing was said to render it inert. Thawing the explosives was extremely dangerous—accidents during the process were frequent, and often deadly. A “safest” method was prescribed by engineers (slow warming in a container that was placed in water), but many users had their own ideas on how it should be done.
In November 1901, Bill Casey of Elizabethtown was thawing dynamite to use for blasting boulders and stumps while building logging roads on Hurricane Mountain. Fire was his tool of choice for thawing, and the results were disastrous. From the ensuing explosion, Casey’s hat was blown into a tree; his clothes were shredded; his legs were lacerated; his face was burned and bruised; and he was temporarily blinded by the flash and deafened by the blast.

Then came the hard part. He was alone, and nearly a mile from the logging camp, so Casey started walking. When he encountered other men, they built a litter and began carrying him from the woods. The discomfort for both Casey and his rescuers must have been extreme. There were eighteen inches of snow in the woods, and when he couldn’t be carried, they had no choice but to drag him along on the litter.

When they finally reached the highway, they were still five miles from the village. A doctor tended to his wounds, and Casey was brought to his home in Elizabethtown where his wife and five children helped nurse him back to health.

The rest of the article can be found here.