I started to write this a few weeks ago at a quarter to 2 in the morning after I had had to much black tea so I need to do something that would start to wind me down, so I figured I would post about my hike on the weekend…. I’m finishing the editing of this post a couple weeks later after a great trip back to Calgary sitting in the apartment taking a break from the work that awaits me… So this is written as it was the second week in August.
Background:
This week was most certainly a travel week. I was off to presentation in Philly on Wednesday morning, which resulted in a couple of late nights getting things ready and messing around with the system and presentation. Russ and I took the train to Philly on Wednesday and had a successful day, from there I jumped on a plane to Chicago, while Russ was back off to Fairytale land. Upon landing in Chicago I met up with the team at a great little Asian Fusion restaurant. I’m not sure why everything needs to be fusion these days, it is a bit silly but it’s hip and I simply don’t get ‘hip’. Thursday and Friday were spent in meetings and general work in Chicago.
Warning Aside:
We stayed in downtown Chicago to allow my colleagues the opportunity to see the city. They had never been to the windy city and the clients office was out in the suburbs which are so I figured with suburbs being the same everywhere we would stay in one of America’s ‘great’ cities. Well, this turned into an exercise in how I don’t want to live my life. The commute at the best of times was 45 minutes, and one day took 1 hour and 30 minutes to get home! I don’t understand how people live this way, it is not for me and God forbid I had a family or something meaningful to do with my time other than work.
I wonder what the effect on society would be if each person that chooses to spend 2 hours of their day pent up in anger in there car, spent that time instead with their children, spouse, reading, volunteering, or doing something that would be beneficial to society as a whole. Instead these folks get home late, leave early and are pissed off by the time they come home and tired when they leave. That is simply not living and I wish our governments, businesses and city planners would try to solve this - or at least recognize that there might be a better way.
One idea I’ve thrown around is to ditch the campus concept unless they can achieve a certain percentage of their work population to use public transit. I think it would be an interesting experiment if we forced places that are going to have more than 1,000 people work there live by a certain non car means, especially single occupancy cars. Would 50% be achievable?
Aside complete, back to the story.
I arrived in NYC after my flight from Chicago at 10:05 pm. I did not want to spend the weekend in NYC as that was unlikely to provide me with a lot of new new things and I had a craving for some real ‘wilderness’. I tried Van Cortland park in the Bronx the previous weekend but it is still just a city park and you need more land if your going to run for a couple of hours. My goals were to attempt to get out to the ‘mountains’, and what better way than to try and bag the highest peak in New York state, Mt. Marcy.
Arriving late and not having any formalized plans I jumped on the laptop and search for cars to rent - once you have a car the world is your oyster… (Ouch; the hypocrisy bleeds) Well there were no cars in the city, just at the airport, or trains to Lake Placid, which would be the destination to start the hike from. The best I could do was to jump on an 11:45pm train to Albany and then rent a car at the airport at the Albany airport in the morning. The problem with this plan was that it was already approaching 11pm and I had not unpacked from the business trip and didn’t know what I needed for the hiking trip. Having received this from my great buddy DeAnn, I figured the worse thing that I could do was get to Penn station and miss the train but I would try. I got the suitcase packed with what I had and ran out of the building to catch a cab to Penn station, I made it with minutes to spare.
The train arrived in Albany at about 2:30 am, not knowing Albany I figured I would need to splurge for a hotel room, but not too nice a hotel room. I found an Econo Lodge online just as I was stepping out the door and printed off the address. Once I arrived in Albany I tried to walk to it but got disorientated and had to head back to the train station. Walking around with a back pack pulling my carry on suit case at 3am in a new city lost was not exactly what I had planned and for a fleeting moment I thought about just finding a park and doing some urban camping. The thought of something happening to $2000 worth of camera gear and my precious laptop made the urban camping seem like less of a good idea, so I called a cab and got a ride to the Econo Lodge.
Upon arriving at this fine establishment I started to dicker with the man behind the counter on price, it was 3am and I just needed a bed to sleep in - nothing fancy sir. All he had were rooms with jacuzzi tubs, and we got to a price but he informed me he would need to turn the jacuzzi off. I was quite confused as I certainly had no time for a jacuzzi or desire. Once we entered the room we found this:
Well I’m staying at a flop house! All of a sudden the bed sheets seemed less clean and the room seemed a bit ‘dirty’. Oh well, I took advantage of the tv for a few moments and got some rest.
I was able to get out of bed and into a cab before 9 the next morning, I needed to head to the airport to get the car that I had rented. I rented an economy car the previous night from the train, knowing that 90% of the time I get upgraded… not today Mr. Lopez! Nope, today to you get to cruise in a white cavalier. I had hoped to turn my car into a mobile home, but I had also hoped for a Lincoln like I had in Chicago, or a Taurus, or something bigger than a shoe box, oh well it was going to be good on gas.
I drove up to the Lake Placid where the hike allegedly starts and proceeded to find a mountain shop to get trail maps and food. The warned me about starting the hike so late in the day. I then proceeded to get a bit lost and finally find my way to Adirondack Loj. where the hike begins. The gentleman that I paid for parking looked at me like i was an idiot thinking I was going to get up Marcy starting at 1pm. I let him know I planned to run 
, which then also seemed to provoke the ‘he is also delusional’ look.
By the time I got started and got ready to go it was 1:30. This was a bit concerning for me as the hike was still somewhat material as it covered 14 miles (22.5 km) and gained over a 1000m in elevation, the trail description I had read listed it as strenuous and 8-10 hours to complete. This could mean anything as some books are meant for grandma and others are a gauge for those looking to compete in the Ironman. At 6 hours that would have me back at 7:30 which gave me some spare sun, but by 8:30 it gets pretty dark and I had no headlamp, or light of any sort give my hurried preparation. Oh well, thinking about it wasn’t going to help so off I went. I really wanted to get some pictures so I brought my not so small camera (Nikon D70) and 2 liters of water, 3 packs of gum, a trail map, 2 apples, 2 Cliff bars, 1 power gel and a mini tripod. I wasn’t going super light but I wasn’t heavy either.
I had hoped to bring the iPod shuffle, incase I hit the wall and needed something to zone me out, although I had hoped to take in as much nature as possible so it was just a back-up. About 1 hour into the hike I realized that I left the shuffle on the top of the car in a parking lot with at least 100 other cars. No sense letting that bother me, but it was $80 I didn’t need to waste as there was little hope it would not get swiped!
The hike was amazing, I was able to run the first 2 miles, then it got to rocky and steep mostly but I kept a fast walking pace and was up to the top in 2 hours and 20 minutes. I hung out up top for 45 minutes, it was stunning and warm. I met a couple folks and even had a dinner invitation to a group staying at campsite 4 (where-ever that was).
Dam site 2 miles in:
Top of the peak:
Creek on the way down (feeling tired at this point):
The most prevailing thing about hiking Mt. Marcy was how accessible and well marked it was. Even for me there was no way I could get lost. The Adirondack’s are full of peaks that are all seem quite attainable and reachable with well marked and traveled trails . Every peak you look at is something that you can get to without exposing yourself to a lot of risk. While I am sure there are some more tricky peaks it is nothing at all like the rockies, which is neither good nor bad, simply very different. It still seem strange to me how accessible everything there was and the number of people out doing something about it. It was like a ‘mountain’ playground for families.
After hanging out up top for about 45 minutes I started down. I wanted to run as much as possible, I was able to get down in just under 2 hours but my ankles were quite sore from the terrain and the rolling as I attempted to run stuff I was too tired to run.
Once I arrived at the car, I found a very pleasant surprise:
I always like to think that people are generally honest and no doubt a lot of people would have walked by and could have had my iPod as well as some good tunes .
After getting down I need to find lodging, I went to the front counter of the Adirondack Loj hoping they might have something in the Loj. (yup that is the correct spelling). They had a lean-to available so I took it. For those out west, think large woodshed. When I think of a lean-to I think of something quite rustic and on the dirt, not a building structure that looks like the woodshed for a large cabin. Either way, it was my home and now I needed to get something soft to sleep on and something to cover me up at night. My assumption was that it would stay quite warm at night so a sheet would work. I went to the EMS in Lake Placid and picked up a thin fleece liner for a sleeping bag, which I can use in the future, a head lamp, and a terma-rest. This event is now the start of my East Coast Gear collection!
Home sweet home:
I also managed to get some dinner in Lake Placid, but upon setting up my new home I figured I would attempt to be social and see if I could find campsite 4 and possible have some human interaction for the evening with the friendly folks I met at the top of the peak. I found the campsite and enjoyed an evening of some pretty good laughs and company. A couple of the guys found a very practical use for the electric air mattress pump…. it works unbelievably well as a method to get more air onto a struggling fire while avoiding burnt eye brows and smoke asphyxiation.
After my enjoyable visit it was time to go to my 40 star accommodations (I got bored after counting the 40 stars). In anticipation of the cooler than expected evening I put on my jeans (very technical mountain jeans), tucked them into my socks to avoid heat loss and put on a few of my t-shirts thinking that would suffice to keep me warm. Well…. my sleep was pretty awful, it got cold at night (go figure) and I had no jackets except my shell with me, no fleece, no sweaters, just polypro. At 3 am I woke up to chattering teeth and high levels of discomfort; so much for just needing a sheet. I put on as much remaining clothes as possible, pulled the hood of my jacket over my head, assumed the fetal position and just stuck it out in my woodshed. I was moments away from warming up the old cavalier, fortunately I manage to warm up enough and woke up to a great sunny day.
The next day I took it easy and drove the old stallion into the city. A very very successful weekend trip and better than running in a city park.
Some addition photo’s:
The lake where I took my bath after the hike:
Algonquin (also known as McIntyre), with the much smaller Mt. Jo in the foreground:
Millennium Park in Chicago:
Frank Gehry building in the park:
Chicago Tribune Building:
