|
|
The dogs of course had little or no problem. |
|
|
At the bottom of Gothics where the ADK Range trail, State Range trail and Orebed Brook trail come together, we stopped for some lunch. We were almost half way through our day of seven peaks.
This picture is looking back up to the top of Gothics where we just came down the cable trail.
While we were sitting her eating our peanut butter and bagels swatting flies, some dude came traipsing through wearing bright orange socks with sandles and a tennis racket in his backpack. It was very odd. He acknowledged us with a nod, then headed downhill off the path. Not sure where he came from or where he was going, but at least he left us alone.
|
|
|
From this point things got a little blurry.We hit Saddleback, Basin (has some cool slides off the southern face), and Little Haystack, but I don't remember too many of the details. We were all getting tired and hungry, but we had a ways to go before we could camp.
To top it off we could tell some weather was moving in. We had to get up and over the last peak (Haystack) before things got bad weather wise, so we kept pushing forward.
|
|
|
Finally we made it to Mt. Haystack, but it kept going and going. It was just one pile of rocks after the other (obviously above treeline).
|
|
|
You can see Mike has his pack cover on. It had either started to drizzle or the rain was eminent.
Then in the middle of our ascent (the seventh for the day and tallest at 4960'), these two girls come scrambling over the top headed in the opposite direction of us. They didn't have packs and they were wearing mostly cotton. This makes them day hikers, but there's not a whole lot to see the way we were going. It was totally bizarre like some kind of hallucination.
|
|
|
It started raining down the backside of Mt. Haystack and pretty much rained the rest of the night. We had fantasies of the lean to in Panther Gorge being unoccupied because of it's remoteness, but that wasn't the case. The entire camping area was nearly full. We barely had room to find a dry spot between to pine trees and setup camp.
Setup and dinner was fast. We didn't bother carrying the entire tent, which made putting up the rain fly and crawling in a snap.
After 12 or 14 hours on the trail, we all slept well in the rain that night.
|
|
|
Breakfast the next morning was also fast. I think only one other group was up and gone before us. Most of them were still rolling around in their sleeping bags as Mike and I were heading out.
We decided going up and over Mt. Marcy would be the quickest and easiest way to back to the car. Though the tallest mountain in New York at 5344, it was the best route.
|
|
|
Though up and moving early that morning it wasn't without pain. My feet ached for a while before they went numb and the blisters on my heels were nasty. The other issue was my fingers. They were rubbed raw from all the scrambling over the granite (feels like a cheese grader in the wild).
Gretchen wasn't without injury either. Her one claw had actually been cut to the quick and periodically bled. It didn't slow her down any, but made me cringe everytime she went running through some stagnet nasty mud. |
|
|
Here we are on the summet shortly after 7am I think? I don't know maybe it was later, but it was still pretty early. |
|
|
We were completely in the clouds. Coudln't see a thing except for the plack and the Indian name for Marcy - Tahawus - Cloud Splitter - no shit? |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
- More
-
|
|
