Vacation Day 5: A Mountain with a Heart (Lake)
Thursday, August 2, 2012
For my 40th birthday, I climbed Algonquin, New York's second highest mountain and the only other one that tops out at more than 5,000 feet. Forty might have arrived, but I wasn't going to let it conquer me. I was prepared for my forties to be a strong decade of running PRs and mountain conquests. One week prior to that birthday I had set my official mile PR. A couple of weeks later, I set an official PR for the 5K. Yes, my forties were going to be great!
Little did I know that my forty-year-old body had other thoughts.
I spent most of that decade limping around with plantar fasciitis -- an inflammation of the large tendon that runs along the bottom of the foot -- four years in my left foot, and then, after four months of blessed relief, another four years in my right foot.
When I was 49, I "cured" it by running a 200 meter race all out and tearing it, and in the process breaking up all the adhesions that were causing all the pain. I limped in to the finish line, but I did not DNF. Then I drove straight to my physical therapist's office, spent a week on crutches, and the next year rehabbing. In retrospect, tearing the plantar fascia was the best thing I could have done. I should have tried it years earlier.
So by the time birthday number 50 rolled around, I was capable of walking through a grocery store without being in agonizing pain by the time I got to the front door from the parking lot. I was actually able to walk several miles without significant pain. I'd worked up to three to four miles of as challenging hiking as it gets around here, which is to say, not very much, living in an area where a 900-foot vertical drop consititues a ski hill. Maybe I should have trained for hiking in Lake Placid by hiking up ski hills. There's a thought...
Fiftieth birthday year was propitiously a year we were scheduled to vacation in Lake Placid. And I decided that although I couldn't hike a high peak toshake my fist at celebrate 50, I could choose to do a lower peak that had long been on my list but I'd not gotten to in my quest of higher summits -- Mt. Jo. It is described most often as "the greatest view for the least amount of effort."
Mt. Jo is a bump among giants, rising above the little jewel of a lake known as Heart Lake, on Adirondack Club property, surrounded by high peaks, many of which I have climbed, others of which are on my"will probably never do" "yet to do" list.
We had just gotten on the waiting list to be matched with a child back then in early August of 2009, so Lake Placid, and climbing Mt. Jo, was a nice diversion. I highly recommend to anyone waiting for their referral to take up mountain hiking. Among other things, getting in that kind of shape will prepare you for adding a little one to your home, if you don't already have one or two or many, running around. And, if you will be heading to Addis, it will give you much needed conditioning for that city's 8,000-foot elevation.
I huffed and puffed up Mt. Jo that year. The "long trail" is supposedly easier than the "short" trail, but I'm somewhat convinced that it's simply because you walk level for at least a half a mile before you start the up part. The short trail starts right away. The long "easy" trail takes you around to the side of the mountain, and then once you turn right past the rock-climbing cliff, then you start the up part with about a half mile to go. I'd gamely hoof up a pitch, then stop for a rest when the trail turned a corner, catching my breath and feeling my age. Finally, after an ascent of 790 feet, we topped out and were able to revel sitting in the middle of high peaks, looking from left to right at Cascade, past Porter, then Phelps, then Tabletop, then Marcy, then Colden, then Wright, then Algonquin and Iroqouis, then Wallface, and after that I don't know the names. I felt a tweak of regret that the big ones were off my list permanently, but also gratful to have been able to get up Mt. Jo, however strenuous the effort was. A year previously I would have thought Mt. Jo was permanently off my list too. We got photos of me pointing to Cascade, Porter, Phelps, Marcy, and Algonquin, which were the five high peaks I'd managed to climb before my feet gave out.
So, on day five of our Lake Placid vacation, we decide to bring T and Bearie up Mt. Jo, a mountain with an ascent that is 240 feet higher than Owl's Head. It will be fitting, I think, to hike a mountain I climbed as a diversion while waiting for T. And we bring along Bearie's little sister, Piggyback, and their Uncle, Long Legs. He'd carried Piggyback most of the way into and back from Indian Falls on their failed attempt to summit Mt. Marcy the day before, but he's young and fit, and Mt. Jo is, for the young and fit, an easy jaunt.
We start out early in order to get a spot in the High Peaks Information Center's parking lot, since those who dally get to park in the overflow lot a mile and a half away. My feet only have so many miles in them per day -- adding a three mile round trip to an already strenuous outing is not high on my bucket list. The day is forecast to be hot, but it is cool when we start out and younger ones are complaining about why we didn't let them wear warmer clothes.
We are the first to sign the trail register for the day -- score! I love being the first one to the summit. I can't put my finger on why, particularly when it means you'll be the one breaking the trail cobwebs that formed overnight. In this case we have three youngsters who get the lion's share of that job, since they insist on leading our group. It's actually a constant battle between the three as to who gets to be first. They never seem to make the connection between being trail leader and chief cobweb breaker. Being slightly taller than the three of them, I get the occasional strand in the face, and have to laugh when Long Legs finally gets one that is about six feet off the ground.
Again, Bearie is the one calling for breaks, so I don't have to. And I'm not particularly out of breath or desperate for water when she does call for one. There was a day, back in the summer after I turned 40, that I hiked up Phelps -- at 4,160 feet, number 32 in height of the 46 high peaks -- without a single break. It was just a walk up a long jumble of rocks staircase. I do believe I could have done that with Mt. Jo on this day. Piggyback asks several times to be carried. Today Long Legs declines. She's on her own. The trail isn't long enough or steep enough to justify carrying her, and everyone else, including the six-year-old, is hoofing up on their own two feet.
We break out on the summit and find that we indeed are the first humans at the top that day. Our company is several hundred dragonflies darting to and fro with a speed that's impossible to capture purposely on still camera or video. They are eating the blackflies, we think. Blackfly season in the Adirondacks is May/June, but they never totally go away until nighttime temperatures drop below freezing. Hiking in the winter does have its advantages.
The kids are again thrilled at the view. And, being able to see Marcy, they renew their campaign to summit her. And ask endless questions relating to the mountain we are on vs. Marcy -- and Mt. Everest. Is this a high peak? How much higher is Marcy than Everest? Ok then, how much higher is Everest than Marcy? What's that mountain? Is that a high peak? Can they climb that? Is it higher than Marcy? We finally put a kabosh on any more Marcy/Everst/high peaks questions. There are only so many ways to phrase the fact that Mt. Marcy is the tallest mountain in New York State; there are none in this state that are higher. But that very far away in the Himalayas is a mountain known as Chomolungma/Everest that is the highest in the world; even higher than Marcy. And we're done answering every permeation of question around those facts.
We eat our snacks -- of which we have plenty, and drink our water -- of which we have plenty -- note the foreshadowing here, and then, after a lot of photography and disturbing the peace and quiet for others who have arrived at the summit, we begin our "are we going to the beach?" descent.
All three kids turn it into a race. There is nothing like watching three youngsters racing down a steep rock-filled slope, knowing how far down it is when you fall when you are hiking down a mountain. You reach hoizontal, and then keep going. It's a hard hit when you fall that far, and harder yet on rocks. They get ahead of us and suddenly we hear a cry, "T just pushed me!" from Bearie, who had been leading.
Ah yes. Developmental trauma-rooted behavior. The Need To Be First rearing its head again. Just like on the gondola ride. Just like the complaint we received from daycare a few weeks ago and just like the complaint we received from kindergarten. We are discouraged, but not surprised. This is deeply rooted survival behavior. If I am not first at the food/at the water/in the arms of my ama, I might not survive. If I'm not the strongest in the orphanage, I might not survive. Understandable, but discouraging nonetheless. If he's going to push people out of the way in order to be first, he is not going to have many friends, regardless of the understandability of the cause.
We relegate him to the position of last in line. Suddenly Mr. Zipping Down the Mountain becomes Mr. Slowpoke. Fine with me. I'm slow anyway, with my bad knees and needing to place each step carefully.
We finally reach Heart Lake at the base of the mountain. It is always so refreshing to take off hot sweaty socks and bulky hiking boots and wade on its sandy bottom, letting the cool waters soothe one's feet. The kids find and terrorize a salamander. They're just looking and curious about their find, but the salamander is probably terrified for his life. After everyone has had a chance to look/hold, we make them put him back in. I watch some women swim from one end of the lake and back. It is a bittersweet reminder that I was supposed to do a triathlon this year -- before my knees took me out. At least I made it up a couple of mountains, even if I couldn't do the swim, bike, run thing.
We dry off our feet and climb back into our socks and boots and head around to the docks so we can get photos of the kids in front of the mountain they just climbed. It looks so small from here. Just a little bump. It seems much bigger on the way up -- and from the top.
We drive back to the village and eat a hearty lunch at the Downtown Diner, and then Long Legs and Piggyback have to leave this magical place to make the four hour drive back home. T, Bearie, S, and I head for Mirror Lake to rinse off some sweat and mountain grime. After dinner we hit the miniature golf links, and spot a bear running across the road on our way back into the main part of town. A bear! We saw a bear! Our vacation is complete.
Almost.
Just below treeline on Algonquin, April 30, 1999.
For my 40th birthday, I climbed Algonquin, New York's second highest mountain and the only other one that tops out at more than 5,000 feet. Forty might have arrived, but I wasn't going to let it conquer me. I was prepared for my forties to be a strong decade of running PRs and mountain conquests. One week prior to that birthday I had set my official mile PR. A couple of weeks later, I set an official PR for the 5K. Yes, my forties were going to be great!
Little did I know that my forty-year-old body had other thoughts.
I spent most of that decade limping around with plantar fasciitis -- an inflammation of the large tendon that runs along the bottom of the foot -- four years in my left foot, and then, after four months of blessed relief, another four years in my right foot.
When I was 49, I "cured" it by running a 200 meter race all out and tearing it, and in the process breaking up all the adhesions that were causing all the pain. I limped in to the finish line, but I did not DNF. Then I drove straight to my physical therapist's office, spent a week on crutches, and the next year rehabbing. In retrospect, tearing the plantar fascia was the best thing I could have done. I should have tried it years earlier.
So by the time birthday number 50 rolled around, I was capable of walking through a grocery store without being in agonizing pain by the time I got to the front door from the parking lot. I was actually able to walk several miles without significant pain. I'd worked up to three to four miles of as challenging hiking as it gets around here, which is to say, not very much, living in an area where a 900-foot vertical drop consititues a ski hill. Maybe I should have trained for hiking in Lake Placid by hiking up ski hills. There's a thought...
Fiftieth birthday year was propitiously a year we were scheduled to vacation in Lake Placid. And I decided that although I couldn't hike a high peak to
Mt. Jo is a bump among giants, rising above the little jewel of a lake known as Heart Lake, on Adirondack Club property, surrounded by high peaks, many of which I have climbed, others of which are on my
We had just gotten on the waiting list to be matched with a child back then in early August of 2009, so Lake Placid, and climbing Mt. Jo, was a nice diversion. I highly recommend to anyone waiting for their referral to take up mountain hiking. Among other things, getting in that kind of shape will prepare you for adding a little one to your home, if you don't already have one or two or many, running around. And, if you will be heading to Addis, it will give you much needed conditioning for that city's 8,000-foot elevation.
I huffed and puffed up Mt. Jo that year. The "long trail" is supposedly easier than the "short" trail, but I'm somewhat convinced that it's simply because you walk level for at least a half a mile before you start the up part. The short trail starts right away. The long "easy" trail takes you around to the side of the mountain, and then once you turn right past the rock-climbing cliff, then you start the up part with about a half mile to go. I'd gamely hoof up a pitch, then stop for a rest when the trail turned a corner, catching my breath and feeling my age. Finally, after an ascent of 790 feet, we topped out and were able to revel sitting in the middle of high peaks, looking from left to right at Cascade, past Porter, then Phelps, then Tabletop, then Marcy, then Colden, then Wright, then Algonquin and Iroqouis, then Wallface, and after that I don't know the names. I felt a tweak of regret that the big ones were off my list permanently, but also gratful to have been able to get up Mt. Jo, however strenuous the effort was. A year previously I would have thought Mt. Jo was permanently off my list too. We got photos of me pointing to Cascade, Porter, Phelps, Marcy, and Algonquin, which were the five high peaks I'd managed to climb before my feet gave out.
I climbed that! I'm pointing to Algonquin, which rises almost a mile above sea level. Underneath my watch is the summit of Wright. It is a half-mile side trip on the way to or from Algonquin. I've always regretted that we didn't summit it as well on that day in April, 1999 -- a high peak I'd missed and would likely never get another shot at -- but we'd decided at the trail junction to see how we felt on our way back down. My crampon strap broke on the way off of Algonquin and the going was precarious and slow, ending the hope of a quick zip on Wright too. I've heard many times that the trail in the summer is a beast -- with huge boulders that make the going tough -- much more arduous than the snow-covered carpet we hiked up. I have not had a huge desire to tackle such a notoriously difficult trail in the summer, with my aging and increasingly fragile knees and feet. But still, it beckons as that "just out of reach" mountain.
Oh, and dragonfly bonus -- trying to take pictures of them was fruitless, but we discovered they magically appeared in many photos in which we were focusing on other things!
We start out early in order to get a spot in the High Peaks Information Center's parking lot, since those who dally get to park in the overflow lot a mile and a half away. My feet only have so many miles in them per day -- adding a three mile round trip to an already strenuous outing is not high on my bucket list. The day is forecast to be hot, but it is cool when we start out and younger ones are complaining about why we didn't let them wear warmer clothes.
We are the first to sign the trail register for the day -- score! I love being the first one to the summit. I can't put my finger on why, particularly when it means you'll be the one breaking the trail cobwebs that formed overnight. In this case we have three youngsters who get the lion's share of that job, since they insist on leading our group. It's actually a constant battle between the three as to who gets to be first. They never seem to make the connection between being trail leader and chief cobweb breaker. Being slightly taller than the three of them, I get the occasional strand in the face, and have to laugh when Long Legs finally gets one that is about six feet off the ground.
Again, Bearie is the one calling for breaks, so I don't have to. And I'm not particularly out of breath or desperate for water when she does call for one. There was a day, back in the summer after I turned 40, that I hiked up Phelps -- at 4,160 feet, number 32 in height of the 46 high peaks -- without a single break. It was just a walk up a long jumble of rocks staircase. I do believe I could have done that with Mt. Jo on this day. Piggyback asks several times to be carried. Today Long Legs declines. She's on her own. The trail isn't long enough or steep enough to justify carrying her, and everyone else, including the six-year-old, is hoofing up on their own two feet.
We break out on the summit and find that we indeed are the first humans at the top that day. Our company is several hundred dragonflies darting to and fro with a speed that's impossible to capture purposely on still camera or video. They are eating the blackflies, we think. Blackfly season in the Adirondacks is May/June, but they never totally go away until nighttime temperatures drop below freezing. Hiking in the winter does have its advantages.
The kids are again thrilled at the view. And, being able to see Marcy, they renew their campaign to summit her. And ask endless questions relating to the mountain we are on vs. Marcy -- and Mt. Everest. Is this a high peak? How much higher is Marcy than Everest? Ok then, how much higher is Everest than Marcy? What's that mountain? Is that a high peak? Can they climb that? Is it higher than Marcy? We finally put a kabosh on any more Marcy/Everst/high peaks questions. There are only so many ways to phrase the fact that Mt. Marcy is the tallest mountain in New York State; there are none in this state that are higher. But that very far away in the Himalayas is a mountain known as Chomolungma/Everest that is the highest in the world; even higher than Marcy. And we're done answering every permeation of question around those facts.
The hiking party. Left to right: Piggyback, Long Legs, Bearie, T -- with Tiggy, me, and S. It became quite a busy day on the summit, but in the beginning we were able to enjoy the solitude of the mountaintop -- or as much solitude as you get with three kids along!
Tiggy, our summit mascot, also enjoying the view. He has his sights set on Marcy, just over his left shoulder (to his right from our vantage-point).
Another view from the top, this time to the southwest and Wallface (center of photo). Heart Lake just visible in the lower left. I could easily post 20 summit photos -- the mountain truly lives up to the hype of "the greatest view for the least amount of effort."
We eat our snacks -- of which we have plenty, and drink our water -- of which we have plenty -- note the foreshadowing here, and then, after a lot of photography and disturbing the peace and quiet for others who have arrived at the summit, we begin our "are we going to the beach?" descent.
All three kids turn it into a race. There is nothing like watching three youngsters racing down a steep rock-filled slope, knowing how far down it is when you fall when you are hiking down a mountain. You reach hoizontal, and then keep going. It's a hard hit when you fall that far, and harder yet on rocks. They get ahead of us and suddenly we hear a cry, "T just pushed me!" from Bearie, who had been leading.
Ah yes. Developmental trauma-rooted behavior. The Need To Be First rearing its head again. Just like on the gondola ride. Just like the complaint we received from daycare a few weeks ago and just like the complaint we received from kindergarten. We are discouraged, but not surprised. This is deeply rooted survival behavior. If I am not first at the food/at the water/in the arms of my ama, I might not survive. If I'm not the strongest in the orphanage, I might not survive. Understandable, but discouraging nonetheless. If he's going to push people out of the way in order to be first, he is not going to have many friends, regardless of the understandability of the cause.
We relegate him to the position of last in line. Suddenly Mr. Zipping Down the Mountain becomes Mr. Slowpoke. Fine with me. I'm slow anyway, with my bad knees and needing to place each step carefully.
We finally reach Heart Lake at the base of the mountain. It is always so refreshing to take off hot sweaty socks and bulky hiking boots and wade on its sandy bottom, letting the cool waters soothe one's feet. The kids find and terrorize a salamander. They're just looking and curious about their find, but the salamander is probably terrified for his life. After everyone has had a chance to look/hold, we make them put him back in. I watch some women swim from one end of the lake and back. It is a bittersweet reminder that I was supposed to do a triathlon this year -- before my knees took me out. At least I made it up a couple of mountains, even if I couldn't do the swim, bike, run thing.
The pristine waters of Heart Lake. If you look closely, you can see two swimmers returning from the far shore. Triathletes? Or just enjoying a morning swim? I would like to join them, but one year I'll need to remember to bring my bathing suit along on this hike!
We dry off our feet and climb back into our socks and boots and head around to the docks so we can get photos of the kids in front of the mountain they just climbed. It looks so small from here. Just a little bump. It seems much bigger on the way up -- and from the top.
We climbed that! (Not sure the bathers knew they were going to be captured by the mountain climbing paparazzi!)
We drive back to the village and eat a hearty lunch at the Downtown Diner, and then Long Legs and Piggyback have to leave this magical place to make the four hour drive back home. T, Bearie, S, and I head for Mirror Lake to rinse off some sweat and mountain grime. After dinner we hit the miniature golf links, and spot a bear running across the road on our way back into the main part of town. A bear! We saw a bear! Our vacation is complete.
Almost.
“I have found a dream of beauty
at which one might look all one's life and sigh.”
Heart Lake and many high peaks from the summit of Mt. Jo.
Beautiful photos. Almost makes me want to be a mountain person instead of a beach person.
ReplyDelete