Winter Blues

You might say winter blues? But it's spring. Yes, according to the calendar it is spring but not according to the weather outside in Rochester. Last week we had great weather in the 40's and 50's during which we dog sat for my professor. It was great! We took the dogs out about every two hours and it was nice and warm. NOT THIS WEEK. The weather has plummeted back to winter around here, along with most of the Northeast. All the snow had melted and then on Tuesday we got a couple of inches. This weather has made us a little gloomy as we were hoping to start some warm spring hikes around town.

Our first camping trip is a little less than 30 days away and I'm starting to get worried that it isn't going to be warm enough. At least our first trip isn't to the Adirondacks so it might be a little warmer. Our first trip of the season is to Cooper's Town so Jessica can see the Baseball Hall of Fame and Howe Caverns for the first time. We're super excited and have been using extra money in the paychecks to stock up on needed camping gear for this year. The purchase I'm super pumped about is the new ax Jessica let me get. The one we had last season could chop a twig. There is a purchase that I'm even more excited about for camping but Ford/NYS has put it on hold so I'll update about that later.

One way that we are trying to fight this week’s weather blues is by trying to become better versions of ourselves. This doesn't directly relate to hiking or camping but it will help our bodies. We have recently read Skinny Bitch and we are attempting to try eating like Vegans. We haven't taken the complete plunge off of dairy yet but we have cut out meats. We are sick of putting junk in our bodies and with the long line of cancer in both of our families this is our latest attempt of avoiding the fate of our relatives (keep up the good fight Mrs. Akers.) By switching away from meat and highly processed food we are hoping to avoid additives that have been connected to cancer. We have switched to soy/rice milk (we are still trying to find our brand) and have cut out cheese. Along we no animal products we are shooting for an organic diet that is free of refined sugar and high fructose corn syrup. We'll see how long this lasts but for now we are super excited. Back in college I attempted to be a vegetarian for a while but really I just ate bread and junk the whole time. With the focus of cutting out white flour and highly processed food I think this time may stick.

It's that time of year again

It's that time of year again. No it's not hiking season; we are still receiving snow everyday, doing taxes and stressing about grad school. It is however the second most exciting time of the year and that is PLANNING SEASON!!!!!!

Since we did not reach our lofty goal of 10 peaks last summer (only 4) and the wedding, planning season has been scaled back. So far we only have two hiking trips planned, one for May and one for June and it includes 6 peaks. The reason it includes more than we completed last year is because we are going to attempt our first overnight trip this year. We were very blessed this Christmas and received lots of overnight gear including a tent, stuff sacks, and a bear canister. We also just scored a Steripen with an awesome L.L. Bean sale. All the new gear and slow times at work, during which I mentally shop for the rest of the gear, is getting us excited for the snow to melt and spring to come. We are also getting back on the workout bandwagon to make sure that we are in tiptop shape for our hikes this year.

The hikes are in May and June to get them in before the crazy month of July.

May Hike:
Dates: 5/13-5/15 (a week later than last years tent fiasco)
Campground: Lake Placid-Whiteface Koa Kampground (state ones will not be open yet)
Peaks: Whiteface and Ester

June Hike:
Dates: 6/23-6/25
Campground: on the trail
Peaks: Gothics, Armstrong, Upper Wolfjaw and Lower Wolfjaw

We'll be sure to post a gear update soon.

We hike less like the Hare & more like the Tortoise

Dail & Nippletop - August 13, 2010

It had been entirely too long since we had been to the Adirondacks. So, needless to say, we were very excited about a week long stint. We had planned a stay at the Lake Harris Campgrounds in Newcomb, NY. We had also planned 2 days of hiking, but only 1 day materialized... as documented below:

Because we had bagged 2 of the 46 high peaks in May, we felt a little more prepared this time. We knew to get our packs all ready & loaded in the car the night before, we knew to get up early, we knew to eat lots of carbs the night before, we were feeling like pros! On Friday morning, we got up around 4:30 am, got the coffee started & had arrived at the trail parking site by 6:50 am. Although we had planned to be there around six, we were still impressed with ourselves.

We took off quickly down the road, as we knew we had about 2 miles to hike before hitting the official trail head. About 5 minutes into our walk, we paused for a quick "before" picture.

After a short walk on a back road, we came upon a seemingly private country club getaway type place. There was a golf course, multiple unique cottage units (with very nice cars parked in their driveways), tennis courts, and a fancy lodge. We were slightly perplexed at to the type of people who would patronize such a place. During our quite morning walk, we guessed that maybe it was a sort Camp David for non-presidents. Recently George W. & Laura Bush were spotted mountain biking in the Adirondacks, we briefly joked that some of their friends, or even they would stay at a place like this. We further assumed that many of the residents were republicans as we giggled at their "Obummer" bumper stickers. Although, we did see a few legitimate Obama supporter stickers. Shortly we found ourselves at the sign in:

After signing in, we headed down the private road, toward "the gate". According to all of the trail material we read before our trip, "the gate" is were the mileage calculations begin for the trail. We reached it shortly:

After the gate, we knew the trail head to be about 0.7 miles away. We walked quickly at this point as we were eager to hit the trail. We passed a morning jogger & saw another group of hikers on the road to the trail head. We guessed they were staying at the Rich Republican getaway as we didn't see that anyone but us had signed in. Upon reaching the "H.G. Leach Trail" head, we changed into our hiking boots, and of course, took a picture:

I just briefly attempted to google whoever H.G. Leach was, but I have very little to report back to you. H.G. stands for Henry Goddard Leach, however that's about all I've got. Google did "suggest" that I search for "Henry Goddard Leach New York Secretary", which provided this tidbit from the New York Times archives circa 1919:

COPENHAGEN, Dec. 29.--It is reported here that Dr. Henry Goddard Leach of New York, Secretary of the American-Scandinavian Foundation, has been designated as American Minister to Denmark, in succession to Norman Hapgood.

But anyway, back to the trail: The first part of the trail (through the private land belonging to the Rich Republicans) was excellent trail hiking! We clipped along at a great pace & even coined a phrase we used through out the hike & will for years to come, I'm sure. When one of us wants to hike a little faster, say on a flat section of trail, they will say "CLIP!" indicating they want to clip along at a faster pace. Stephanie first used this word & we started using it all day. For example we would use it as a question or to describe a certain section of trail as clip-able.

We had smooth sailing trails for about 2 hours and then entered the public New York State land which was less maintained and very overgrown. We reached the "W Shoulder Lookout" around 10 am and looked around at the remnants of a forrest fire some 10 years ago.

After reaching the W Shoulder, we headed down a slight desent & were passed by a group of three. They were on the same path as us, looking to reach Dial & Nippletop. They were clipping along quicker than us, but we kept pushing. The trail after the W Shoulder was long, we knew we had to cross another, non-46 peak (Bear Den, which I kept mis-pronouncing as Beer Run), before hitting Dial. It was a grueling 2.1 miles from the Shoulder to the Dial summit. We were loosing steam & our spirits were dwindling down with every step we took. We were passed by a pair of young men, clipping along very quickly. I remember one said, "see you at the summit" and I was thinking "yeah, right". Another time, we saw someone descending. This man took pity on us and encouraged that the Dial summit was just 200 feet away. I was overjoyed, Stephanie later called him the biggest liar she'd ever met. Upon reaching the Dial summit & having a lovely lunch & break we were able to laugh at our exhausted selves. We were just glad to have another of the 46 peaks done. A few pictures from the Dial Summit:

After lunch, we were in much better spirits. Stephanie was leading and we were hiking at some of our best speeds. The trail to the Nippletop Summit was about 2.1 miles from the Dial summit. I can't recall what time we reached the Nippletop, but it was raining. I was excited about this for 2 reasons: 1. it was cool & refreshing my hot skin and 2. we got to use our pack ponchos! But the rain made it very difficult to hike without my glasses being a HUGE problem. Eventually I just pushed them up to the top of my head as I was too tired to keep pushing them back on my face. The last little bit of trail before the Nippletop summit was very steep. At one point on the trail, we got a glimpse of the summit and I was shocked, it was all rock and looked so steep. But Stephanie just kept on pushing, she was relentless & and with her fast pace I barely even had time to dread it. The view from the Nippletop summit was beautiful:

The descent off the mountain was absolutely brutal. It was a steep decline within a one mile section of trail. It was all rock and very difficult. Stephanie was very encouraging to me as I was convinced that the mountain was "making personal attacks on my dignity". She just laughed at my silly antics. Somehow, we finally made it back to the nice trails of the Rich Republican lands and then eventually their private road that led back to "the gate". Our feet, muscles, and joints were screaming at us by the time we reached the road. We paused to eat an energy bar & rejoiced as we changed out of our hiking boots and into our regular shoes for the over 2 mile walk back to the car. At this point we were able to make good time as we were walking on flat even land. We made it back to the car around 8 pm, making our hike a total of a little over 13 hours. However, it was somewhere around the 10 hour mark that we decided we didn't want to attempt the next hike 2 days later. We both agreed that lazy time campsite would serve us much better!

We are off again

We are off on another camping trip and another attempt to bag some peaks on Thursday. This trip is very much anticipated and Jessica and I are looking forward to getting away from life and into the woods again. We will be gone from Thursday to Tuesday and it will be the first time, in far too long, that we have gotten to spend so much time together without CPA tests, Grad school studying and work. We will be heading out early Thursday, with a stop at bean to replace our camera and grab some other stuff, to Newcomb. We will be camping at NYS campground Lake Harris. Our site is right on the water and we are hoping that we will be able to rent kayaks when we aren't hiking.

We will be hiking on two out of the 5 days that we will be there. We are going to tackle Nippletop and Dial on Friday and Colvin and Blake on Sunday. Both of these hikes take off from the same spot and are fairly long. We are looking at 14.4 miles on Friday and 13.8 miles on Sunday. Hopefully we will survive since we haven't had a ton of time to work out lately and by a ton I really mean we haven't been working out at all. If we can get these four peaks we will have a total of 6 done (we lost 3 to our count when we canceled our June trip) and only have 40 to go. We are also planning on a trip in September and in October for my birthday. In September we are planning on getting some of the peaks we missed in June and we aren't sure what October will bring.

We will be sure to update when we get home and post pictures from our snazzy new camera.

Sad News

We have decided to cancel our upcoming camping/hiking trip as real life has gotten in the way. Jessica is busily studying for her upcoming CPA exam and I am swamped with school work. We are sad about our decision but we think it will be best since we can hike and camp for the rest of our lives but we need to get school and the CPA stuff out of the way now.

One benefit to canceling this trip means that we do not have to spend 4 nights in a tiny tent, as you may remember ours broke. Since I have recently secured a job at the soon to open L.L. Bean in the area we will be using my discount to get a new one but it has not kicked in yet. So we won't be crossing off any peaks until August and that might mean a lull in the blog. We will soon start updating our wedding blog http://weddingwandering.blogspot.com if you're longing for some of our crazy antics.

2 down, 44 to go!

Our first trip to the Adirondacks was eventful!! I don't even know where to begin...

Wednesday night we packed, and it was pouring rain here in Rochester. That was a sign, but we didn't know that at the time. So we finished packing the car on Thursday morning and headed off at a decent hour. We stopped in Syracuse at the L.L. Bean outlet. We didn't really need anything there, but we can't resist that place! We ended up getting some socks (those came in very handy later!) and Stephanie got some of those explorer sandal thingys (ya know the ones, the sandals that kind of look like shoes).

Driving through the Adirondack park was beautiful! I had never been that far north in New York State and Stephanie hadn't been since she was younger. We marveled at the views and watched the looming clouds with apprehension. Nevertheless, we were excited to finally be in the Adirondacks; we'd been planning since well before the new year.

When we arrived at the campsite it was very windy. Setting up the tent was a challenge, but it presented many laughs. I don't think either of us knew our tent poles could bend in so many ways! It rained off and on, but we eventually got set up and huddled around the fire. Getting the fire lite in the extreme wind gusts was difficult, but somehow Stephanie did it. I went in the tent to put on every layer of clothing I could find & when I came out, it was blazing! The wood we picked up about a mile from the campgrounds was very dry! For dinner that night we had spaghetti and went to bed early in anticipation of the hikes of the next day.

Friday morning we woke early but snoozed later than we had hoped. In the end, we decided we could stay snoozing in the tent a little later in hopes of trails warming up. They did indeed! The 40 minute drive to the trail head took us through Saranac Lake and Lake Placid. It was awesome to drive through both towns, but I found myself most intrigued by all the "Olympic" signs. There were signs for Olympic training centers & signs directing traffic to various Olympic activities, such as the ski jump or hockey arena. It was really neat to see the effects left on the town almost 30 years later.

We arrived at the trail head around 10 am & we were ready to get out of the car! We signed in, did a quick stretch, and started our way up the mountain. The trail was muddy and steep for a long distance. For a good portion of the ascent, as my legs burned, it kept running through my mind that many 46ers had said Cascade was the easiest of the 46 high peaks. It was a pretty difficult climb for us. Once or twice on the ascent I wondered if the path every really ended. The trail was not smooth, it was rocky with large boulders placed just so to preserve the path. Where there were no boulders or rocks to walk on, there was mud or snow to trek through. At varying points along the trail, the path would flatten out, just enough to keep you going. We knew there was a "fake summit" on Cascade Mountain & when we reached it, we paused to look out. It was beautiful & I felt very accomplished. I threw my hands in the air & let out a yell; Stephanie just laughed at me. We continued the trek up the trail and eventually hit the fork in the path off to Porter Mountain. We passed the fork, knowing we'd take the quick detour on our decent to bag the other high peak. Once we passed the fork we knew the real summit was getting closer. Eventually we reached a clearing in the trees and saw the alpine summit ahead. We paused for a quick picture, then packed the camera away in order to climb some rocks, to the very (windy) top! Once at the actual summit we took some more pictures, then climbed down a bit to find a nice spot for lunch.

On the decent of Cascade we were flying. I was amazed at how much faster we could go on the way down. It was fun, we even cracked a few jokes, which was a nice change from all the panting. We quickly reached the Porter side trail and began High Peak #2. The Porter trail was more muddy and had more snow on the path than Cascade. We could tell there were no fresh foot prints in the snow and we were the first to walk the trail in a while. It was a steep decent, followed by a twisty climb back up to the other summit. Porter's summit was unmarked, so we had to consult our trail guides to confirm we had reached the summit. Porter provided a nice view of the Cascade peak we had just left. We headed back to the main trail to begin the complete decent back to the car. We cracked more jokes and wondered how we ever made it up the trail. On our decent it seemed longer than I remembered on the way up. It was fun to reflect on the hike on the way down, we each learned a lot about ourselves and each other.

Once we arrived back at the car around 5 o'clock, we took our boots off right away. Thanks to Stephanie's foresight, we had sandals waiting in the car. The car was warm and we enjoyed the drive home (back to the campsite) with the windows down.

Back at the campsite we got our fire going just before the rain started. We joked that it must have been a nice sunny day at the campsite while were gone. But, we were glad we spent the sunny day on the mountain. We sat in the rain, wrapped in all the clothing we had brought with us, marveling in our accomplished day. The rain and cold could not break out spirits, we were officially on our way to becoming 46ers!

Saturday was cold and rainy, so we headed back to see the sights in Lake Placid. We had a lovely day strolling along Main Street and visiting every shop we felt inclined to stop in. Around 3pm, the weather broke and the sun came out, we quickly jumped in the car and headed back to our campsite in hopes of enjoying some lazy sun at our site. But fate would have other plans! As we got closer and closer to our campsite, the clouds got darker and darker. The wind was bucking the car all over by the time we arrived, and our campsite was looking pretty beat up. We assessed the damaged and discovered our canopy was badly bent and the tent had been ripped. The portion of the tent which stakes to the ground had ripped loose and was flapping in the wind. We quickly decided to throw everything in the car and head home to a warm bed. Wouldn't ya know, as soon as we had the car all loaded, the wind calmed and the sun came out! Ahhhh... I sure love the Adirondacks! =)

Once we were in the car, Stephanie pointed out the Rochester was 5 hours away, but Albany was only 2 hours. Albany also presented more opportunities such as, spending time with Mama Nevins for Mother's Day, playing with Gabby (Stephanie's 4-year-old niece), and a basement where we could dry out all of our wet gear!

All in all, we had a fun adventure! However, I'm pretty sure next year we won't be taking any camping trips this early in May!!

It's been awhile

So we haven’t updated in a while but we have been hard at work preparing for our soon approaching trip. We have been doing local hiking ranging from 3 miles to 6 miles at both Mendon Ponds Park and by Irondequoit Bay:

Also this past weekend we had our first camping trip at Stony Brook State Park. The weather was beautiful if not a little hot and muggy. We got some great campfire time in and we got the chance to test all the gear we acquired over the winter out. It didn’t rain so we couldn’t see if it will hold up in it, but so far everything is working great. We also did some more hiking with great views of some awesome waterfalls. Unfortunately when we arrived at the campground we realized that our battery for the camera was dead so we don’t have any pictures of our hike. We have decided to try to get back to Stony Brook later this summer and hopefully we will remember to charge the camera then.

This weekend we will be headed off on our first trip to the Adirondacks to hike our first two peaks, Cascade and Porter. Currently the weather forecast is looking a little scary with cold temperatures and rain. There is even a hint at snow for Saturday night into Sunday morning. Despite the weather we are excited since we have been waiting for this all winter. According to the DEC website the trail conditions are looking good but the recent snow in the area may stop us from reaching our goal of bagging both peaks on Friday. We will be sure to update next week after we get back with pictures and tales of the trail.