Adirondack Trip

From June 29th-July 1st 2009 Coach Hughes took me, Kevin, Dan and Eric (pictured above) to the Adirondacks as  a fundraiser to buy new equipment for our team. We left pretty early on Monday and were then blessed with Dan's beautiful rendition of "Cheeseburger in Paradise" for about 6 hours. When we got to the Adirondack Loj we dropped off our stuff and drove up Whiteface Mountain to see kind of where we would be the next day and to see what its like to look out over a peak more than 4000 ft high.

The second day was even better. Coach woke us up at 5:30 and were at the trail head by 6:20. The weather was really nice and there werent too many complaints getting up the mountain. The picture above is of Kevin, Coach, Dan and Eric at Indian Falls; an anti-climactic waterfall somewhere along the Mt Marcy trail. The view from here was really nice despite the waterfall's lack of spectacularness. We then spent the next few hours climbing to the summit of Mt Marcy the highest point in New York State. Dan was generous enough to pack us all a Twinkie wich probably wasn't the best thing for us but we all had one anyway, even coach. After hours of climbing over relatively small rocks for the area and following a nice trail we eventually reached the last 400-500 feet from the summit where the "trail" turns into bareface rock at about a 40-60% grade by my guess. All of us were scrambling to get to the top over the rocks as the coulds moved in quicker and quicker. When we finally reached the summit some overcast clouds had moved in but the view was still more than I can describe you really have to see it in person. We reached the summit around 10:30 putting us an hour and a half to two hours ahead of when Coach predicted we would be there. On top we took a few pictures and had our Bacon and Peanutbutter sandwiches. After lunch Coach showed us the way we would be going back through Avalanche Pass. From the top of a mountain things don't look that far away or very long. THEY ARE! Avalanche pass is not on the other side of Marcy it is about 4 hours from it actually.

We began our descent down the backside of Marcy soon because the clouds were moving inand we had to be below the tree line before it started raining. The backside of Marcy is worse and steeper than the side we came up. Coach showed us Lake Tear-of-the-Clouds which is the highest source of the Hudson River. It doesn't look very far away from the backside of Marcy... We finally got there after about and hour of intense descending on slippery rock on a trail narrower than I am wide. From the lake we continued down an incredibly difficult and muddy trail asking coach every 20 minutes if we were in Avalanche Pass yet. We never were and Dan and Kevin got pretty upset at the pain they were getting in their feet... me too, but i lived with it. Anyway we eventually reached Lake Avalanche and got a spectacular view of one of the faces of Mount Colden and the Lake. Also on lake Avalanche are some Hitch-up Matildas which are like bridges that are attached to the side of a shear cliff and are suspended out over the water. After hours of climbing down steep slopes on wet trail, climbing over rocks bigger than my car and steping in mud as deep as my feet we finally reached Avalanche pass. It was a trail where a side of Mt Colden collapsed in 1991 filling a valley and burying the trail beneath it. According to Coach the trail we were on was next to the old one which used to be about 30-40 feet lower and farther to the right of us. Thats how much debris came down the mountain and crashed into the valley. Then it started to rain, and we were still about 1.5-2 hours from the Loj. Eventually, after much complaining from Dan and Kevin and almost helping a French-Canadian couple catch their loose dog, we made it back to the Loj around 5:18. The entire trip (almost 20 miles) took about 11 hours. An hour shorter than coach had hoped. After we got back and dried off we got to try coaches famous Gouly Gouly sauce (or some spelling like that) wich isnt that bad actually. I have never in my entire life had foot pain even similar to how they felt after that hike.

On Wednesday morning Coach again woke us up at 9:30 and we left the Loj. We went and saw the Bobsled track from the 1980 Winter Olympics, and then made our way to Rich Lake. At Rich Lake, Eric and I swam to a large rock in the middle of the lake and back. I think by Coach's estimate it was about 1000-1200 yards total of a swim. That kind of swim sucks in open water especially off-season and after a hike like the one we did. At least we can say we've done it though. We then followed pretty much the same way home stopping at McDonalds were we all ate our weight in food.

This trip, for me, was one of the most memorable and fun trips I've ever been on, and it benefieted the swim team. I really hope this continues to be a tradition for our swim team and even if it doesn't atleast I can say I did it the one time we did.

Thanks to Coach Hughes for organizing this whole fundraiser and giving us the opportunity to see what you see every time you climb a mountian.

To see some pictures of the trip click HERE!