Spring Vacation Part 3, Trip, Day 1

We were soaked after a tough day of hiking. Disappointment hung over us as we crouched miserably under our tarp. The day had beaten us like a housewife beats her rugs. Our legs were tired and our moral was low. We had covered a fraction of our goal and were pooped.

We woke up to our alarms at 4:14 AM. Although still tired, we were excited to go. We were about to set off in winter to backpack in the Adirondacks! We got dressed, ate breakfast, grabbed the cheese from the fridge, pooped in a toilet one last time and hit the road. The plan was to leave my pickup at one trailhead and have Mom drop us off several miles down the road. This would eliminate the need to backtrack and give us a sense of direction and movement.

After dropping off my pickup, we arrived at the trailhead at about 8:00AM. Surprisingly, unlike most of the other pull off points along this road, the trailhead parking spot was not plowed. This was not too bad though, as Mom was only dropping us off, but it did suggest that we would be breaking trail.

Register at the trail head, Usually we can stand and use these

The temperature was warm, but it was drizzling slightly. We said goodbye to Mom and started donning our snowshoes. This was the first time that Nate or Raf had used snowshoes so they were just learning how they felt on their feet. They were about to get crash course in the toughest snowshoe conditions I have ever experienced.

Charlotte, being carried by Nate

After locating the trail, we confirmed that it would be unbroken. On Monday, it had snowed several feet of fresh powder. Now however, the snow was a mushy, icy slush. Breaking an untracked trail is mentally and physically tormenting. Since the leader of the pack has to do most of the work, we decided to switch off every 200 paces or so (although someone took it super literally at first, Raf). Breaking trail is tough for a number of reasons. The first is that it is sometimes hard to tell where the trail goes. Once we lost the trail for about 15 minutes as we were skirting around Round Pond. The major reason why it is so tough, though, is the dead drag on the snowshoes. Whenever we put our snowshoes down; heavy, wet, sticky snow would fall on top of the snowshoe deck. When we picked our feet up we would also lift the several pounds weight. Needless to say, our hip flexors were having the workout of their lives. The third and final reason why it was tough was the time and effort it took to transfer weight from one shoe to the other. When walking down a sidewalk, we put our feet down and they stay there as we put our weight on it. When snowshoeing in these conditions, after putting our feet down, we would have to push it through the snow another six inches to a foot to get a solid grip. This added a leg press to each step that we wouldn’t normally have to deal with.

In spite of the trail breaking and slow time, we were in high spirits. Even though it was drizzling and barely 40 degrees, I was soon in a t-shirt, although after an hour, when we had settled into a slower pace, I put on a long sleeve shirt again. The trail was grueling. Our legs were aching. We had gone two miles and it was time for lunch, so we ate.

This is the Trail marker

We are pressing on, not thinking, but listening. Listening to what? The wind? Yes, it must be the wind. But why has it been getting louder? It sounds more like water… it is water. There is a stream in the path. No, not a stream, but flowing slush, or rather water flowing through slush. Not only is it over 20 feet wide, but the slush is four feet deep. No way are we going to get across this here.

This is the Trail

The rain and warm temperatures had conspired against us, causing this stream to grow to its gargantuan size. We dropped packs and went scouting up stream. Fortunately, there was a deadfall across a skinnier section of the stream. We retrieved our packs and set up a bucket brigade for the packs, the person on one bank handed them to the person on the deadfall, who then passed it to the person on the other bank. We were passed the stream!!!

Bucket/Pack Brigade

After another little while we crossed another stream. This one had a solid snow bridge that the water went under for about forty feet. However, the next brook we need to cross was what defeated us. Scouting up stream only revealed ever steepening banks with only two possible and very precarious cross over points, and downstream a spreading swamp. We joked about using our p-cord and ice axes as grappling hooks to make swings from the trees. Instead, we turned around.

Crossing back over second time

This decision was actually quite fortunate. The snow bridge that we had crossed over less than an hour before, had shrunk from its previous size, to a mere 10 feet or so across. Quite relieved at getting back in time, we quickly crossed over and continued backtracking. If we hadn’t been able to cross over safely, on either that snow bridge, or a deadfall, we would have had to camp there and wait for it to refreeze over night or bushwhack up high enough to where it was small enough to cross. Fortunately, we didn’t have to do either of those options.

We crossed back over our first stream and made decent time back to where we had eaten lunch. The itinerary was for us to have continued on the track we had started down, set up camp in the lean-to there, and climb Dix Mt. Tomorrow, we would have backtracked to where we were now and hike through the pass between Noonmark and Round Mountain. However, we were here today. It was 3:00PM, we had gone five miles and we were tired. We decided to walk up the path about as far as we could and make camp. We made it pretty far. It was probably about 150 yds before we found the first promising camp sight.

Packing our camping area

We dropped packs, and stomped around, packing down the snow. We set up the tarp to cook under and erected our tents. As soon as we were ready we made our dinner of spaghetti and zucchini. It was quite delicious and boosted our spirits as we crouched under the tarp, slurping away. After we finished dinner, we crawled into our sleeping bags and waited for Raf.

Waiting for dinner and hot water

One of the many ongoing jokes at are always the fruits of such trips was the amount of time Raf takes to get ready. He is the one to look to when one wants to gage how prepared the group is to; move, eat, or sleep. If he is ready, the rest of us are ready. He isn’t lazy or careless, but just the opposite; he is precise and careful. It also didn’t help that he had two sleeping bags to line up. The reason we had to wait for him, was that we were reading Life of Pi out loud to each other. We decided it would be a cool idea to use our camp time to read a good and interesting book.

After reading one chapter though, we decided that it we were too tired, turned out the lights and fell into a delighted sleep. It was 6:30PM.

I woke up again sometime around 11:00PM. I thought I heard something walking around but I knew that couldn’t be. A little while later I was almost sure I heard sometime like a crinkling plastic bag. I whistled a loud clear pitch. Nothing. I put my boots and gaiters on and went to investigate. Sure enough, there was something out there that scampered away. It was too light to leave footprints in the now frozen surface of the snow. However, I found our bag of wheat thins on the other side of the tarp. I knew this was not the wind since it had been moved ten feet and a couple of the wheat thins were scattered about on the snow.

We had known that bears would still be hibernating, but we had not figured in the smaller varmints who were active all winter long. I picked up the wheat thins and put the one that were on the snow in the garbage. I collected the rest of the food and put it in my pack, hoping that I had scared the animal away for the night. I relieved myself and stuck a stake from Nate and Raf’s tent that had come out of the snow back in. I guess I scared Nate, but after telling him what was up, I returned to my sleeping bag, and snuggled in, warm and cozy for a good night sleep. 

Again, all photos courtesy of Nate Mori