This past winter we were in the middle of planning a weekend in the Adirondacks to knock off a few more high peaks. We were going to stay at the Johns Brook Lodge with our eyes on hiking Haystack, Basin and Saddleback, commonly referred to at HABSA in the 46er lingo. John Brooks Lodge is operated by the Adirondack Mountain Club and during the summer season there are caretakers on site who prepare your meals for you. A friend reached out at this same time inviting us to a weekend at Camp Peggy O’Brien with them and some friends. We jumped at the chance. Peggy is located on the Johns Brook property and rentable for groups. Unlike JBL we’d have to prepare our own meals but we didn’t mind and loved going with a group.
The weekend arrived and we loaded up our packs and headed up to the ADK looking forward to good times with friends on the trail and at the cabin. I’m short on vacation as always so I take a half day on Friday and we drive up that afternoon. In my usual manner of over planning I ask Joe to drive past our dinner spot and up to the parking lot so we can see if there are parking spaces available. The Garden Parking Lot has a FULL sign at the bottom of the long windy road but we head up anyway. There are clearly at least 3 spots and we figure we will be ok. I wanted to have the opportunity to figure out what we would do while eating if needed rather be surprised after eating. We head back to the Ausable Inn to get some dinner (great burgers!). When we get back to the Garden Parking Lot there are even more spaces available and the attendant is back. We ditch the car, strap on our packs and head off toward Peggy O and our friends who would have arrived earlier in the afternoon.
Weighted down by our 46 (ME) and 43 (Joe) pounds packs we take two just under two hours to hike the 3.4 miles to Peggy. Peggy is a large cabin in the woods with a metal roof and the typical brown and green trimmed building you find in the ADK. Its large and inviting with a kitchen that includes a propane stove and “sink”, indoor privy, bunkhouse that sleeps 10, propane lights and drying racks that hang from the ceiling that you can move up and down with a rope. No running water or fridge. One of the couples has brought a solar shower and they have it rigged up on the front porch. There is a plastic water bag hanging from the porch ceiling and into the plastic sheeting that makes up the shower stall. Then they’ve draped a tarp a few feet in front of the shower to make a changing room. Its perfect!
We enjoy a night of camaraderie and head to bed early so we can get on the trail at 8:30 the next morning. Morning arrives and Joe and I ask each other, did we come this weekend to “bag peaks” in our 46er quest or did we come to hike with friends. We abandon our plans to work on HABASA and opt for hiking with the group. We head out for Saddleback and Gothics. Saddleback is the SA of HABASA and Gothics we have hiked before but from a different direction. Our fearless group leader says Gothics is ‘interesting’ that way.
We hike off chatting and climbing. We are headed to the Orebed trail. The Orebed is basically an old slide caused by a storm at some point and its a bed of ore. When we get to the Orebed we find a staircase up the side of the slab of steep stone and start climbing. I count 378 stairs give or take a few. After the staircase we carry on climbing over boulders and make our way to the col between Gothics and Saddleback where there is an intersection with trails leading to each mountain. We notice that its 0.5 miles to Saddleback and 0.6 miles to Gothics in the other direction.
We all head up Saddleback. Its steep and rocky, typical of an ADK high peak. Not much memorable about this summit from this direction. Had we come from Basin like we had planned we’d be climbing up the Saddleback cliffs, handhold to handhold for about 100 feet. Here it was brutal but pretty straightforward and everyone made it without a problem. We all have break and few pictures on the top and Joe and I enjoyed being past the halfway point to our 46er finish at 24 peaks completed.
We all head back down to the col. Once there our fearless leaders announce they are going back to the cabin. They are both in their mid-sixties and the woman wants to make sure she can hike the next day with everyone. I ask Joe if he wants to go back to the cabin or do Gothics. He asks what I want to do. I say my preference is to go back to the cabin but I’d do Gothics with him if he wants to. He does.
So we head off with the other five to do Gothics. We climb what turns out to be a trail straight up. The first bit is a slab of rock that no one is comfortable walking upright on. So we crouch and walk along the edge of the delicate alpine vegetation which we regrettably cling to for safety. Its a hard, hard climb. One of the other women who is right in front of me is having a really hard time of it. Mostly mental I think as she has not had much experience in the high peaks. Plus she is huffing and puffing and trying to control her breathing from the combination of exertion and stress. I suggest to her to keep her feet on the dry slab further from the vegetation, less slippery even though it feels safer closer to the thin strip of vegetation that we cling to. Onward we crawl at a snails pace all of us dragging our hiking poles from the straps on our wrists as we crawl, stopping frequently while the woman in front of me catches her breath and her courage. The three guys are bringing up the rear behind me.
Finally we arrive at an, if possible, steeper section of slab. There is a cable that has been attached to the rock slab by these giant eye fasteners. We gratefully cling to the cable. The hiker in front of me isn’t much comforted by the cable. I am and hang on like my life depends up on it, which it might. We carry on at a snails pace. The guys behind me I’m sure are having troubles going so slow but the poor woman in front of me can’t go any faster. At times the pull of Joe and the men behind me on the cable to the left almost send me flying but I hang on with a death grip and somehow my feet stay in contact with the rock.
In a few places the cable ends and we scramble to an edge to grasp the endangered alpine vegetation till we can get to the next cable. One of the guys goes ahead and tries to help the hiker in front of me. In some places the steel cable is covered with what looks to be your standard issue rubber garden hose. The stretchy feel of the hose over the cable sends a shiver down my spine. At one point the end of the cable and our scramble to the next piece ends in another ‘cable’ that is just the hose part, no steel cable inside of it. I’m a bit more cautious of this but can’t help but put pressure on it anyway.
Joe thinks the stretch with the cable went on for 150 feet or so. Seems longer to me. At the end of the last cable there was a short scramble to a flat ledge about two foot wide if that. We sat there, caught our breath and contemplated the last 100 feet of climb which was a steep slab with no vegetation or cables to cling to. I decided to wait there and not ascend the last bit. I’d already been to the top of Gothic and thinking about the long slog home and not wanting to waste one more ounce of energy and needing a rest.
Joe left his pack and poles and two of the other ladies left one of their hiking poles behind with me. They head up the slab. One of the women is about 20 feet up the slab and freezes. She starts yelling that she can’t move, needs help. Joe is already about 30 feet above her and the other guys are even further. I climb up and put my hand on her back and tell her to put her feet flat on the rock, she’s basically standing on her tip toes and has little grip. She can’t. I turn over and sit and try to brace myself but suddenly realize I can’t and start to slide. Joe heads down and pulls her up the rock and I head back down to my little ledge to wait.
I’d love to lay down and take a nap but there is no where so I perch on a rock as best I can, nibble on some food and drink some water. Within 20 minutes Joe is headed back down in a backbend crawl toward me. I snap a couple of pictures. We chat and wait for the others who appear and he tells the women to get down and crab walk down like he did. Everyone makes it down without incident.
Now its time to make our way down the slab we crawled up earlier. Going down steep parts are always harder than going up steep parts. The human body is balanced to lean forward and climb up not face down and climb down. I’m not looking forward to this descent.
I’m first in line and I make my way to the first cable. I try to walk down forwards holding the cable but its unnatural and awkward. So I turn around and basically repel down. So easy! And on the way the up the guys realized that they were pushing me around when they tugged on the same cable I was on so Joe is waiting for me to get off a cable before he gets on it. We make our way down quite quickly, at least Joe and I. The other two guys are behind helping the three other women down. Joe and I periodically pause and wait for them to catch up.
At one point past the cables we reach an impossibly steep section of rock. There’s a thin section of vegetation running down the middle, a wet section to the right of the vegetation and a crevice about three feet to the left of the vegetation. We decide the best course of action is to butt walk down with a foot wedged into the crevice. The crevice ends about 15 feet from the bottom at about the same time that the rock becomes vertical, its impossible to make a controlled descent. Joe is first and launches off and into a tree but he’s fine. I’m next and I tell him to get into his catchers position. He laughs. I say I’m serious. So he suggests I extend my pole and he’ll push back on it to give me some leverage. It works and I manage to get down without flying into the trees or rocks in front of me. Then we wait for everyone else and Joe helps everyone down with an extended pole.
The rest of the descent is fairly uneventful. We keep getting far ahead of the others and stop and wait to catch up. When we have about two miles left we decide to tell the others we are going to book ahead and take showers so the shower will be free when they get there. I give one of the ladies my head lamp because we plan to be back to the cabin long before sunset. We take off happy to be free to move at our own pace.
Once back the JBL property we retrieve the home brew that I had stashed in the brook that morning before leaving and take our turns in the shower and enjoy some beer. After a dinner of pulled pork we break out the cards and play a little pitch.
That night Joe suffers from acid reflux that sends him flying from the top bunk so quickly and noisily that one of the guys wakes up and asks if there is bear outside. Then after a brief time back in bed Joe is stumbling from the top bunk again this time with a massive leg cramp. I get up and help him find some vitamin I and he paces trying to ease the cramp.
After a night of little sleep for both of us and Joe still suffering from the leg cramp he tells me he doesn’t think he can hike that day. I say that’s fine with me. We go about getting breakfast and everyone is getting their bodies moving again. The other group readies themselves for a hike up Big Slide, another mountain we’ve already done and hope to do again some day but not this day. Meanwhile Joe’s been studying the map and decides he’s ok to hike that day. We decide on heading out to do Haystack and Basin or at least Basin. I’m tired from two nights in a row of little sleep and the exertions of the day before but I say nothing.
We are walking along at a fairly good clip and I start lagging a bit. Joe puts me in front and suddenly I fall, all the way down on my right side. I say just bad judgment, put my foot where I shouldn’t have. Joe says sure but that’s what happens when you are tired, are you sure you want to do this? I say yes, I’ll be fine but I’m not so sure. All I want to do is go sit down somewhere. We get to a cross roads where we leave the yellow trail for the red. I sit and rest while Joe goes to the bathroom. After a bit we get up and start moving again. At about 2.5 miles, down I go again. Joe says he’s really not interested in climbing a mountain with me like this today. With tears in my eyes I say ok let’s go back. I hate giving up. But I’m relieved to be headed back to the relative comfort of camp.
On the way back we talk about Scotland and I express concern about the 80 mile hike we are signed up for next June. I vow to get into shape, lose that ten pounds, get ready for Scotland. I’ve been slacking on the exercise. My neck, back and work have become convenient excuses not to exercise. No more, this weekend was a wake up call and I am determined to get myself ready for next year starting now.
We hang out at the cabin, nap and play pitch all afternoon. Its our night to cook but we aren’t really sure what time everyone is getting back so we wait. First to arrive back are the friends that invited us, the trip leaders. They are concerned about the reason we turned back but I say I’m fine, just tired. Shortly everyone makes their way back and we make our burritos, clean up and have another night of chatting and pitch.
The next day we pack up, clean up and head out. We are at the Noonmark Diner having breakfast by 10AM. Now I’m home and trying to stay focused on getting this almost 50 year old body back in shape and ready to do a cross Scotland hike next June.
Words of Wanderers 