Of the Summits of the Forest

Climbing the Ore Bed trail
The mountains in the distance are Porter and Cascade
But I had to look at a map to tell you that

From the time I was 12 until I was 19 my life revolved around summer camp. I attended Camp Pok-O-MacCready every summer for each of those years, except 2002, when I was 17, and stuck in the gray area between being a CIT and being a counselor.

I grew by leaps and bounds during my years at camp, bolstering my already-strong independence, and learning to interact with a whole new range of kids, most of whom were vastly different from those I knew from Brooklyn. Pok-O gave me the chance to expand my horizons beyond the asphalt jungle, and I would never trade my summers in the northern Adirondacks for anything.

Although there were many important aspects of camp, the longest-lasting impression has been the time I spent hiking and climbing in the Adirondacks with my summer camp fellows. Camp taught me to enjoy the woods, and for that too, I will be forever grateful. At camp, I spent countless nights sleeping under the stars at Slide Brook, at Marcy Dam, at Bradley Pond, at Ward Brook and the Flowed Lands. There was a point, when I was 16, when I could stand on any one of the Adirondack's 46 peaks above 4,000, and point to all of the peaks, saddles, cols, slides, rivers, and streams and call them all by name. That skill has since lapsed a bit.

There was a good reason for this deep understanding. By the time I was sixteen, I'd climbed each of the 46 peaks at least once, and some of them many more times. To this date, I've climbed Wright Peak 7 times, and I've climbed Mount Marcy, the tallest peak in the Adirondacks at 5,344 above sea level, five times, including once in a New Year's Eve blizzard that left me and two friends pushing through 5 feet of snow near the summit.

OK, so I'm no Sir Edmund Hillary, but I've done my share of climbing, and the Adirondacks have been a favorite playground since I was 12. But then I went to college, and started taking my bike racing a lot more seriously (Incidentally, I also got started bike racing at summer camp, but that's a story for another post), and started spending less and less time hiking.

So this weekend was time for one of those periodic revivals. Dante called me on Wednesday, and though he was in Vermont, and I was in Troy, I could almost see the glint in his eye: "Wanna go hiking on Saturday." Well of course I did. So at the crack of dawn on Sunday morning, Tom and Dante and I left my car at a Keene Valley trail head called the Garden to begin a 15 miles assault on a chain of four mountains known as the Upper Range, encompassing the peaks Gothics, Armstrong, Upper Wolf Jaw and Lower Wolf Jaw.

I knew the revival was complete when, near the beginning of our hike, we crossed baths with Jack "Sharp" Swan, owner of Pok-O-MacCready, my former counselor and employer, the man who taught me how to use snow shoes. Although I have not spoken to Sharp since I left camp after spending a miserable summer working there in 2003, he remembered me well, and was as excited to see me as I was to see him.

Sharp is now an older man, but in his day, he and a friend set the record for the fastest ascent of the 46 peaks, completing the task in something like four days and ten hours. His record has since been eclipsed by "Cave Dawg," but he made up his own rules, like accepting aid from a support team, and ending his climb on the summit of the last peak, rather than at the bottom of the last peak as Sharp did. Sharp and his friend also slept 6 hours out of every 24 on their climb. Cave Dawg didn't sleep at all.

In short, Sharp is the man, it was awesome to see him. It turned out that he'd been camping with a bunch of friends from camp, of course, but while they were all climbing, he had to go to a camp show in Boston, so he was headed out on his own. But enough of that...

Tom climbing the Ore Bed
Like I said, wickedly steep
You wouldn't want to fall here...

We hiked south through a snowy valley along John's Brook, and then uphill along the Ore Bed Brook, climbing the wickedly steep Ore Bed trail. The trail heads up the northern flank of Gothics, before heading east along it's summit ridge. The trail along this route is so step that the Department of Conservation has installed thick black cables in the rock to give hikers purchase as they make their summit bid. We clung to these through warm gloves as we kicked our crampons into the crusted snow. We stopped for lunch at a col bellow the mountain's summit, where a chilling wind kept us hunkered behind a rock for shelter.

Lunch time!
Tom shivers in the breeze
Dante cools off in the snow.

After lunch we hiked quickly over the summit, and dropped down into a narrow cwm between Gothics and Armstrong. Before we'd even had a chance to catch our breath, we were heading back up toward Upper Wolf Jaw. It was time for a quick snack on top, and then down again. The decent off of Upper Wolf Jaw was steep enough that we were able to do an improvised shuffle-slide down the snowy trail. Finally, we arrived at the final col of the day, a saddle between Upper and Lower Wolf Jaw. I'd been hoping to climb both the halves of the Wolf's Jaw, but but it was getting late in the day, and there was a river to cross back down in the valley, so we turned downhill, leaving the last peak for another day.

Tom and Dante on Armstrong,
pointing at a hot chick on Algonquin
What a great day!

Night fell as we were walking out of the valley. The lively banter that we'd enjoyed all day slowly dropped off as our tired legs overcame satisfied hearts. Covered in a blanket of snow, the woods glowed in the starlight, and our headlamps illuminated the trail in front of us.
Eventually, we arrived back at the car, where we parted ways... until the next adventure.