dangergirl
Active member
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kfolcik/sets/72157624200777903/
On Friday night I left work and headed out to the Adirondaks to hike the Great Range Traverse with a bunch of people I met online. They were: (forgive me if I mess up names or forgot anyone!) Doug, Laura, Guy, Frank, Scott, Jessica, Gillian, Jay, Rob, and myself. I was a bit nervous to be doing such a big hike with a group I never met before, but I really wanted to do this hike so I went. I was tired so I stopped at McDonalds to get a burger and fries so that I would get an upset stomach...that way I would not fall asleep while driving.
I found the campground at around 9:30pm and saw a couple of people sitting around a campfire ring with no fire in it. Soon more people began to show up and I started to meet everyone around our campfire which consisted of a light on a cooler. It was warm out so it didn't matter. Everyone seemed really nice and definitly had a sense of humor. I crawled into my car around 11pm and could not sleep because I was so afraid of not keeping and then having people never want to hike with me again. I finally fell asleep around 1am and woke up to my alarm at 4:00am. I was exhausted. I forced down some poptarts and made myself a cup of tea. I finished meeting everyone and was so nervous but excited!
That morning a racoon got into a cooler and helped himself to some food and then tried to drink some beer but it wasn't a twist top and he didn't have a bottle opener so he just settled for food. He left his footprint on a piece of paper.
At 5:30am we hopped in the cars and the fun began.
We started out from the Adirondak Loj at 6:08am and went over to Marcy. When we came around a corner before a bridge over a swamp, Jason was rummaging through the woods looking for sticks. We all wondered what he was doing when he started to hand out hiking sticks. We found out why when we saw that the bridge was under about a foot of water. We hopped across a log to get to the other side. At Marcy Dam we were treated to some really nice views of Colden. Rob and Jay ran up to tag Phelps while the rest of us kept moving towards Marcy. The weather was really nice and I was starting to lose the butterflies. Everybody was really nice and I didn't wonder anymore if I was going to be left behind to get eaten by a bear or something.
We summited Marcy under blue skies, nice weather, and a cool wind. We took a break up there and checked out the views. There was a concern about some naked hiking but fortunately everybody arrived with their clothes on!
Next stop was Skylight which gave us a nice view of Haystack. The trail was so wet that it had water running from the summit all the way down. Suprisingly the traction was pretty good. We went down to Panther Gorge and after some Giardia discussions most everybody filtered their water. I was so excited to find out that my Nalgene bladder screwed onto my filter!
It was really hot and humid by this point and things were quite muddy. We were all getting pretty dirty by this point, but still having fun! Soon enough we stood on top of Haystack and the views just kept getting better! I spied some nice looking rock on the back of Marcy and hope to go back to climb it sometime. We made the easy trot to little Haystack before descending again.
After Haystack we went to Basin and then my favorite part of the hike began! The slabs going up Saddleback were so much fun! Awesome handholds and very cool! The only problem was there there was blood all over the place! Someone must have been gushing pretty good all the way up the climb. I was pretty scared of catching some bloodborne pathogen and tried to avoid touching the blood at all costs.
The next mountain was Gothics which was pretty cool! It had some nice grippy slabs and some old garden hoses cabled to the rock. At this point the sky was getting pretty dark and there were some interested but non threatening clouds forming. It did drizzle a bit but it wasn't bad and it kept things a bit cooler than they were earlier in the day.
After Gothics we popped out Armstrong and Upper Wolf Jaw. There was one other bump with a view that Frank had given some odd name. It was really getting late in the day so some people decided to take off down to the Garden parking lot and three of us continued on.
I am a wimp when it comes to the dark so I was motivated to get out of there before the evening critters started to come out to eat me. We hurried up Lower Wolfjaw and then started to run towards Hedgehog. The trails actually got pretty nice after Lower Wolfjaw. When we got to Roostercomb the sign said it was .5 miles away. The three of us looked at each other and then Rob figured we were there so why not go for it. We ran to the summit and it was definitly worth doing! The views were awesome! We snapped a few pictures. I soon realized I lost the tube to my pee funnel and was devistated! Luckily I found it running down off of Roostercomb. At that point we only had 2.2 miles to go so we took off running and got out of the woods just as it got dark!
The frogs were loud and the bugs were hungry so we didn't hang out too long. We were out there for 15 hours, summitted 12 peaks and did 11,200 feet of elevation gain.
We got back to the campground and met up with everyone again. We had a real campfire this time and shared some interesting stories about zombies, telescopes, Brooklyn, and creepy guys snorkeling in portolets. I had a blast with everyone and hope to go hiking with them again sometime! Thanks for inviting me and not scaring me away!
On Friday night I left work and headed out to the Adirondaks to hike the Great Range Traverse with a bunch of people I met online. They were: (forgive me if I mess up names or forgot anyone!) Doug, Laura, Guy, Frank, Scott, Jessica, Gillian, Jay, Rob, and myself. I was a bit nervous to be doing such a big hike with a group I never met before, but I really wanted to do this hike so I went. I was tired so I stopped at McDonalds to get a burger and fries so that I would get an upset stomach...that way I would not fall asleep while driving.
I found the campground at around 9:30pm and saw a couple of people sitting around a campfire ring with no fire in it. Soon more people began to show up and I started to meet everyone around our campfire which consisted of a light on a cooler. It was warm out so it didn't matter. Everyone seemed really nice and definitly had a sense of humor. I crawled into my car around 11pm and could not sleep because I was so afraid of not keeping and then having people never want to hike with me again. I finally fell asleep around 1am and woke up to my alarm at 4:00am. I was exhausted. I forced down some poptarts and made myself a cup of tea. I finished meeting everyone and was so nervous but excited!
That morning a racoon got into a cooler and helped himself to some food and then tried to drink some beer but it wasn't a twist top and he didn't have a bottle opener so he just settled for food. He left his footprint on a piece of paper.
At 5:30am we hopped in the cars and the fun began.
We started out from the Adirondak Loj at 6:08am and went over to Marcy. When we came around a corner before a bridge over a swamp, Jason was rummaging through the woods looking for sticks. We all wondered what he was doing when he started to hand out hiking sticks. We found out why when we saw that the bridge was under about a foot of water. We hopped across a log to get to the other side. At Marcy Dam we were treated to some really nice views of Colden. Rob and Jay ran up to tag Phelps while the rest of us kept moving towards Marcy. The weather was really nice and I was starting to lose the butterflies. Everybody was really nice and I didn't wonder anymore if I was going to be left behind to get eaten by a bear or something.
We summited Marcy under blue skies, nice weather, and a cool wind. We took a break up there and checked out the views. There was a concern about some naked hiking but fortunately everybody arrived with their clothes on!
Next stop was Skylight which gave us a nice view of Haystack. The trail was so wet that it had water running from the summit all the way down. Suprisingly the traction was pretty good. We went down to Panther Gorge and after some Giardia discussions most everybody filtered their water. I was so excited to find out that my Nalgene bladder screwed onto my filter!
It was really hot and humid by this point and things were quite muddy. We were all getting pretty dirty by this point, but still having fun! Soon enough we stood on top of Haystack and the views just kept getting better! I spied some nice looking rock on the back of Marcy and hope to go back to climb it sometime. We made the easy trot to little Haystack before descending again.
After Haystack we went to Basin and then my favorite part of the hike began! The slabs going up Saddleback were so much fun! Awesome handholds and very cool! The only problem was there there was blood all over the place! Someone must have been gushing pretty good all the way up the climb. I was pretty scared of catching some bloodborne pathogen and tried to avoid touching the blood at all costs.
The next mountain was Gothics which was pretty cool! It had some nice grippy slabs and some old garden hoses cabled to the rock. At this point the sky was getting pretty dark and there were some interested but non threatening clouds forming. It did drizzle a bit but it wasn't bad and it kept things a bit cooler than they were earlier in the day.
After Gothics we popped out Armstrong and Upper Wolf Jaw. There was one other bump with a view that Frank had given some odd name. It was really getting late in the day so some people decided to take off down to the Garden parking lot and three of us continued on.
I am a wimp when it comes to the dark so I was motivated to get out of there before the evening critters started to come out to eat me. We hurried up Lower Wolfjaw and then started to run towards Hedgehog. The trails actually got pretty nice after Lower Wolfjaw. When we got to Roostercomb the sign said it was .5 miles away. The three of us looked at each other and then Rob figured we were there so why not go for it. We ran to the summit and it was definitly worth doing! The views were awesome! We snapped a few pictures. I soon realized I lost the tube to my pee funnel and was devistated! Luckily I found it running down off of Roostercomb. At that point we only had 2.2 miles to go so we took off running and got out of the woods just as it got dark!
The frogs were loud and the bugs were hungry so we didn't hang out too long. We were out there for 15 hours, summitted 12 peaks and did 11,200 feet of elevation gain.
We got back to the campground and met up with everyone again. We had a real campfire this time and shared some interesting stories about zombies, telescopes, Brooklyn, and creepy guys snorkeling in portolets. I had a blast with everyone and hope to go hiking with them again sometime! Thanks for inviting me and not scaring me away!
