A different Jake from other stories will appear here: to distinguish the two, the Jake here will be called Brosky.
This trip started out in a very typical SUOC fashion: some people showed up late, some super early, and one bailed at the last minute via text message, most likely due to a severe hangover from Thirsty Thursday night activities.
JT, Chris, Brosky, Abbe, and I all managed to get to our meeting place and piled into my car. Five people. Five winter backpacks. One normal sized Toyota Matrix. Oh yeah.
We set off later than we wanted while snow came softly down like it seemed to do every day in Syracuse. Abbe found herself squished between Brosky and Chris in the backseat where they had their leg room restricted even more by five pairs of snowshoes under their feet while JT had shotgun and his pack between his legs. This is the benefit of driving! I only had the things I needed outside of my pack, conveniently in a small cloth grocery bag to the left and under my left leg.
Needless to say, we took four short stops at various gas stations, none of which included buying gas, to stretch, caffeine up, get our snack on, and buy dinner. We had all decided to eat dinner on the way since we left late and none of us wanted to hike 4.7 miles without dinner late at night. Dinner varied from my own beans, rice, and veggie combination that I had cooked the night before to gas station pizza, gas station junk food, to dinning hall meal plan food in a Styrofoam take-out container from lunch. Yum yum!
And since wonderful winter had come at us full blast, we had to drive slower than normal the whole way to avoid skidding out on the freshly snow dusted roads over to the trailhead. JT and I seemed to have deja vu the whole way over to upper Works because that’s exactly where we ended up the weekend before but decided against the long trip due to cold weather. This weekend, the temperature forecasts predicted highs in the high teens and low twenties! Balmy!
By the time we reached the trailhead, everyone practically fell out of the car they seemed so rejoiced to get out and move. I felt fine. Hmm. We packed our things up and headed down the familiar Calamity Brook trail to Lake Colden. That trip solidified the fact that I much prefer that trail in the winter as opposed to the muddy, swampy, stream-spilling-over-into-the-path trail that I had previously experienced.
The five of us put on our head lamps and set out. Abbe and Brosky set a rigorous pace ahead while JT, Chris, and I followed. We had to stop at the bridges where the trail steadily rises about 600 feet to take a layer off. At about 15 degrees, we found it too hot. When that flattened out a bit more, we checked the map and noticed we should arrive at the Calamity of Calamity Brook very shortly; from there, we only had about a third of a mile to the first lean-to.
Descending slightly to the sharp right turn, we paused to let Chris, Abbe, and Brosky see the Calamity monument. From what I remember, the guidebook tells the story of the early miners who worked in the area. One of them went up toward Calamity Pond and accidentally shot himself dead, commemorated in a six-foot monument.
Pressing on, we soon came upon the first of the Flowed Lands lean-to’s at the end of Lake Colden. We saw one tent near the back and an assortment of gear on a sled to one side of the shelter. We assumed it was just one or two people, but they had obviously already gone to sleep behind the lean-to, so we moved in and set up quickly and as quietly as we possibly could. The five of us left as much room as possible for one or two people to sneak in if needed.
We woke up in the morning with a long day ahead of us. The agenda began with hiking about two and a half miles to the Uphill Brook Lean-to at the base of the herd paths for Cliff and Redfield, then dropping the sleeping gear and hiking up both trail-less peaks. Lucky for us, a bit of sun shone through and gave us a bit of motivation although it did pass in and out the whole day with an annoyingly thick cloud cover slowly moving in over the mountains.
Our tent neighbor woke up a bit after we did and came to see who came in after he fell asleep. A pleasant older man, he had come in with a large pack and a sled full of gear to mainly go along aways in the valleys and possibly Mt. Colden. After eating breakfast, we headed out, over the dam, and up to the second lean-to destination. The ladders proved interesting in snowshoes, but we managed.
When we got to the lean-to, we ran into a boisterous group of middle-aged men who wanted to day hike up Cliff and Redfield as well and had already hiked in from none other than Adirondack Loj…where else. They seemed nice enough and we mentioned that we were putting sleeping bags and whatnot in the lean-to and heading out to do the same thing.
After we unloaded the extra stuff, we put the sleeping pads down so other people could gage how many people would sleep there and if there was enough room for them. None of us had summited any of the mountains we planned to hike, which made all of us anxious and excited to get started after the long approach to the inner peaks.
We looked at the snowshoe tracks and saw that the other group of middle-aged men had gone up to Redfield. Neither path had been broken out, so we opted to break out Cliff so then each group of us would have an easier time finding the summit of the second mountain. As there is no trail between the summit, we knew we would meet them again at some point. Excited that we only had to locate one herd path that day, we charged forward.
Abbe and Brosky led both finding the path and knocking all the snow off the trees. I kept edging Brosky on, “You know you get stronger by breaking trail?!”
“Yeah?” he looked back, “Sweet!”
JT, Chris, and I chuckled in the back and they leaped and bounded upward. Cliff had some very interesting trail direction choices with a lot of the put-your-foot-to-something-higher-than-your-waist-and-lift-yourself-up numbers. I found the ice beneath the snow to make those much more difficult, yet I did not particularly want to take the snowshoes off, put on the crampons, and strap the snowshoes to my backpack for them to knock snow off the trees and onto the back of my neck. That did not seem appealing to me.
By the time we reached the summit, we couldn’t really see anything, but no more snow fell and Abbe and Browsky had arrived about five minutes or so before us and already wanted to descend to stay warm. We took a short break and did just that. As much as we could we just butt-slid one at a time so no one got snowshoe spikes in them and when we had almost reached the bottom, we came across the large group of middle-aged men seeming a little tired.
“You might need crampons in a bit,” Chris said.
“Yeahhhup, got ‘em,” one said, taking the moment to grab an extra few deep breaths.
Then we, once again, caught up to Abbe and Brosky at the bottom where I could feel my snow pants dig straight into my hips rubbing off nice swaths of skin. I paused at the junction and quickly changed the dressing to new ointment soaked gauze pads and duct taped them back over my hips to prevent chaffing.
Onwards! At that point, I had started to drag a bit more as we headed up Redfield which really was just a long uphill slog for a mile and a half. It did not have any more weird body finagling moves, just walk uphill at about 1000 feet of elevation per mile. As per the theme of this trip, Abbe and Brosky surged ahead, seeming to feed off of the other’s competitiveness to reach the goal as quickly as possible. Chris went some pace between theirs and mine and JT’s. When we reached the top, which had a small would be view if the clouds hadn’t completely taken over, Abbe and Brosky headed back to the lean-to while Chris, JT, and I had a snack, then headed back down.
“Outrageous!” screamed Brosky as we approached the lean-to after meandering down at a pace just fast enough to keep us warm.
“No,” Abbe started, “They wouldn’t have? Would they?”
“I am going to punch someone!” Brosky angrily raised his voice, “If I see them, we’re getting them back!”
JT, Chris, and I exchanged glances before we rounded the corner to the lean-to.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“My cookies are gone!” Abbe said, still searching for them in our pile of extra gear.
“Those guys took them!” Brosky accused.
“Where did you leave them, Abbe?” Chris asked as we all began to take off our snowshoes to help look for them.
She pointed, “Right there by the tent fly. The whole bag is gone!”
JT looked pensive, “Well, they were the only ones out here. We could ask them if they haven’t already left. To get back to Adirondack Loj, they have to pass by the lean-to.”
“They better give them back!” JT said pacing back and forth and swaying, his arms by his sides, occasionally balling his hands.
“The problem is,” Abbe said, pausing her search, “that those were nutritional cookies. They were basically energy bars in the shape of cookies…and they were a good portion of my food.”
“Ohhh no,” I said, inventorying my own food in my head, “I’m sure we all have a bit of extra we could toss you if we can’t find them.”
“Maybe an animal took them, somewhere right around or under the lean-to?” JT thought out loud. We all looked around the immediate area. Nothing.
Then we realized that we all felt extremely cold and that the temperature had probably begun to drop since the sun should set in about an hour and the forecast predicted a high of 21 degrees fahrenheit that day. Crawling into our sleeping bags, we listened, hoping the group of middle-aged men would come out boasting they stole cookies and we could confront them. They never came. If they did take them, they made the smart move of getting out faster than we did because Brosky still fumed for hours afterward.
“I feel like that’s hiker etiquette not to take other hiker’s food,” I said which made me think some animal smelled it and took them.
“I swear there were a few more tracks here than when we left,” Abbe replied, still in disbelief.
We cooked dinner from our sleeping bags and ate sitting in them, leaning our backs against the back of the lean-to. Right as we finished, we heard snowshoes. All of us went deathly quiet, waiting to hear boisterous voices, yet all we heard were snowshoes and a murmur which we could not understand.
Two people approached the lean-to and peered in at us. Not middle-aged men. A very fit, lean couple in matching gear stops.
“Hi,” I said, trying to be friendly.
“Hello,” the woman starts. “We just wanted to see what shape the lean-to was in on our way out.”
The guy murmured something to the woman. French. Figures. They’re both decked out in Arc’Teryx.
“Did you guys break out Cliff and Redfield?” the woman asked.
“Yes,” Abbe replied first, “We broke out Cliff and some other guys broke out Redfield. Then we switched.”
“Nice,” she said thinking.
“Where did you guys come from today?” I followed up.
“Gray, Skylight, and Marcy,” she began, “we’re heading to the car now.”
Now that would be a very long day in the winter, with not that much daylight, and strenuous. But, on the plus side, they broke out Gray for us, which means less work tomorrow!
As we began to get ready for bed, Brosky smirks and laughs boyishly. We turn to look at what he has up his sleeve. A water bottle full of shitty vodka.
“How many shots do you guys think is in here?” he said staring at it.
The consensus ended up coming to five by eyeballing it. Eyes gleaming, he knocked back all of it. The smell of shitty vodka permeated the air just from exposure.
Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuurp!
Shitty vodka now got its way into every air molecule for a mile. Fantastic thing to fall asleep to. Then, “Hey Mandy?” JT asked, “Can you check that bite I think I have but can’t see?”
I looked. Yup. That’s pretty infected. We’re about 8 miles in, with full packs, and a solid drive from a hospital. It definitely needs antibiotics. After having one poisonous spider bite, an infected spider bite, and a tick bite, I could tell infection when I saw it. We drug out the med kit and I drained a considerable amount of puss and nastiness out then bandaged it up. He said it didn’t hurt too bad unless he put pressure on it or had the backpack come down on it. We decided to see how he felt in the morning and how much the swelling had increased. If he could stick it out to do Gray, we would. If not, we’d hike out.
Waking up, we saw a glimmer of what could possibly turn into sun and Abbe got us motivated as she deals much better with mornings than the rest of us do, even in the cold weather. The forecast had only predicted a high of 17 that day which made the rest of us want to sleep longer and not leave the warm and cozy sleeping bags. Checking JT’s spider bite, we decided that since it had not swelled more than last night, we would try to hike Gray since the summit was so close and none of us wanted to hike all the way back in there for just one mountain that supposedly seemed more like an arm off Marcy.
We packed up as much as possible to make grabbing the extra stuff easier on the way out and we set off. Before we knew it, we hit the half mile mark where we changed trail markers and made a sharp right turn to continue climbing toward Lake Tear of the Clouds, or the source of the Hudson River. No surprise here, Abbe and Brosky ran ahead and promised to stop at the herd path off to Gray before the tiny lake, JT and I took up the rear because my hips chaffed and JT’s pain killers had not kicked in for the spider bite yet while Chris hiked up between us somewhere.
When we got to the herd path, Abbe and Brosky had their packs off and had started to jog in place, as much as one can in snowshoes. Chris had sat own on his pants and had his boots off while he rubbed his feet.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“I can’t get my feet warm. They’re almost numb,” Chris replied.
“I gave him some hand warmers,” Brosky said jogging more, “but we’re getting cold and we hiked back to find him for a few minutes and then hiked back up.”
“Ah, gotcha,” I said. “Sorry we’re slow.”
I knelt down and let Chris put his bare feet on my stomach to get them warmer faster since the hand warmers probably did not get as much oxygen exposure before ending up crammed into his socks. JT began eating a bar of some sort.
“Why don’t Abbe and I go hike up Skylight, just right over there,” Brosky began, “while you guys take care of his feet and hike Gray, then we’ll meet you somewhere on Gray?” Since he had twenty something peaks down, he wanted to catch the last one in the area that he didn’t have as well, Skylight, the summit of which lay only half a mile down the trail. I had been up Skylight in September and felt fine with that and since the cone on top is so exposed, I felt like Gray would be enough for today and they seemed so incredibly chipper about the idea.
They set off while Chris’ feet stayed on my stomach for a few more minutes until all of us began to get a bit chilly and decided that hiking up the rest of Gray would probably get our blood flowing enough to get warm. It mostly worked. JT and I hiked up just a bit, and Chris followed suit right after he put on his boots. Mostly broken out from other people, the herd path did not prove hard to find, and we reached the summit in not too long. We decided to take our time because Abbe and Brosky had to summit Skylight and run all the way back up there. On the summit, we took a short snack break and headed back down.
Abbe and Brosky caught up with us part way up Gray and we decided to meet at the lean-to if they didn’t catch up with us before then since we went toodleling along trying not to irritate JT’s bite more.
They did manage to catch up right before we hit the lean-to and we all packed up and out. This time, the 8 miles out seemed much less strenuous and Chris’ feet had warmed up in the downhill pounding. We took lunch at the Marshall lean-to since no one occupied it, and then kept going out since the trail mostly went steadily downward. We passed the same guy with the sled at the same lean-to we found him in. As we passed we waved to him and trotted out the last four and a half miles to the car. Part way through Chris asked me how much further we had to go downhill because he remembered when I mentioned that the last mile is a bit flatter and just slightly uphill.
I knew we didn’t have too much more, but as it was the first time I’d hiked up this way in the winter, I didn’t have all the landmarks as clear in my head. When we hit the 1.6 mile bridge from the car a few moments later, I laughed and pointed.
“I think I’m getting blisters on my baby toes,” he said. We paused.
“Do you want to fix them? I have plenty of stuff in the med kit,” I offered.
He thought, “No, we’re not too far.”
“The snowshoes do that to me when I hike too long in them, we can wait if you want to take care of them,” I offered again.
“Nope, I’m good,” he said again.
We pressed on. By the time we hit the 1.2 mile bridge, I gave Abbe and Brosky the keys and said they could go out to the car, just watch the last two left turns and follow the signs for “parking lot” since they seemed to want to walk faster. Excited, they ran off, still with plenty of energy.
The three of us just went onward, and then, before we knew it, we reached the car and we examined Chris’ feet. He did have blisters as they bled out into his socks. Apparently, he lost three toenails from that trip. Good carnage. Way to go Chris! Then all five of us managed to cram back into my Matrix and we set off for Syracuse.
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