king tut
New member
I had spent a while looking at maps, trying to decide exactly how to tackle Skylight and Gray in the Adirondacks. Turns out that they are just in the middle of frickin nowhere. I originally planned to go in via Upper Works, until I realized while riding the ferry over to New York, that the trail from Upper Works was just as long or longer than the trails from the trailheads at The Garden or ADK Loj. I decided on going in from the Garden in Keene, since I had no ambition to drive all the way to ADK Loj, even though it would be an easier hike. I arrived at the parking lot just prior to 7:30 and turned on my GPS and noticed that it read about 1600 feet. I roughly did the math and realized that Marcy was a lot higher than this current point. The trail from the Garden to Marcy is approximately 9.1 miles, and gains around 3700-3800 feet or so. I made pretty good time going up, the only thing that slowed me down where the groups of Adirondack guides who were bringing up about 15 or so younger kids each. Now, for this hike, I decided to wear my Chicago Cubs breathable long sleeve baseball shirt, which is a wick away awesome shirt, great for hiking. My girlfriend is from Chicago, so on my trip last year to the Mother Land, I decided to buy this souvenir from a place they call "Dick's Sporting Goods". Anyhow, each of the groups of guides and kids made fun of me, I believe they said " Watch out kids, this guy coming up from behind us is wearing a Cubs jersey, he must be a loser or like losing" So I quickly passed them in shame, trying to convey the message that i was dating into the Cubs fan base, not actually a pathetic Cubs fan. I believe it was to no avail. Short side story, on the way down, I passed the same group of kids again, and they gave me some shout outs, and told me I was cool. I like those kids much better than their guides.
So I huffed and puffed a little, stepped in lots of mud, and stepped over about a dozen blow downs across the trail, and made it to the top of Marcy in about 3 hours and 45 minutes. I checked out the 55 foot views of mist and clouds, and decided to head on down towards Skylight. I had never been down the back side of Marcy before, and I judged by the way people were huffing and puffing and looking real pissed off, that ascending from this side was either not fun or these dozen or so of people were just angry people, who were mad at life. I got to 4 corners at some point in time, who knows when. It was when the sun was half past not visible in the sky. I climbed to the top of Skylight and took in the non views again. Pretty spectacular in a milky viewish kind of way. I chatted with a couple of nice guys, ate a roast beef sandwich, and headed back down into the soup.
At this point in time, I had received pretty good instructions as to where the herd trail to Gray started. So i went to the end of Tearof the Lakes Pond and decided whether phoenetically it was pronounced "Teer" or "TARE". I decided it was "Teer", then climbed the muddy mess of mountain. At some point I may have lost my leg in a few mud patches, but I was able to extracate it and continue climbing. I hit the peak after maybe 25 minutes or so, and I actually had views of Marcy. WoW! So i think I took some pictures, can't remember too much, most of this time was a blur.
I briefly considered hiking from 4 corners to Mt Haystack, but then decided that this might be a stupid idea, so I climbed back up to Marcy again to check out the non views. And a funny thing happened on the 1,000 vertical foot climb back up the hill. Partial views came out!!! Wow! I could almost see lots of peaks, it was semi breath taking. This was tempered by the fact that my lengs and lungs were burning on the climb back up Marcy. Here is a sadistic view of the climb back up,
I reached the top of Marcy, and then climbed 9.1 miles back down to The Garden. I will skip the details of this section of the hike. I will just use action verbs. Sucked, hurt, illusions, scrapes, falls, more singing kids. Hmm, i think i threw some nouns in there. I suck at English, and all other languages.
The hike was about 22 miles, and a little over 6,000 vertical. Although my altimeter said 7,000 so i will go with that and sound more tough. If you feel tough enough and dumb enough to want to do what i did, here is the elevation change chart of the trip.
So I huffed and puffed a little, stepped in lots of mud, and stepped over about a dozen blow downs across the trail, and made it to the top of Marcy in about 3 hours and 45 minutes. I checked out the 55 foot views of mist and clouds, and decided to head on down towards Skylight. I had never been down the back side of Marcy before, and I judged by the way people were huffing and puffing and looking real pissed off, that ascending from this side was either not fun or these dozen or so of people were just angry people, who were mad at life. I got to 4 corners at some point in time, who knows when. It was when the sun was half past not visible in the sky. I climbed to the top of Skylight and took in the non views again. Pretty spectacular in a milky viewish kind of way. I chatted with a couple of nice guys, ate a roast beef sandwich, and headed back down into the soup.
At this point in time, I had received pretty good instructions as to where the herd trail to Gray started. So i went to the end of Tearof the Lakes Pond and decided whether phoenetically it was pronounced "Teer" or "TARE". I decided it was "Teer", then climbed the muddy mess of mountain. At some point I may have lost my leg in a few mud patches, but I was able to extracate it and continue climbing. I hit the peak after maybe 25 minutes or so, and I actually had views of Marcy. WoW! So i think I took some pictures, can't remember too much, most of this time was a blur.
I briefly considered hiking from 4 corners to Mt Haystack, but then decided that this might be a stupid idea, so I climbed back up to Marcy again to check out the non views. And a funny thing happened on the 1,000 vertical foot climb back up the hill. Partial views came out!!! Wow! I could almost see lots of peaks, it was semi breath taking. This was tempered by the fact that my lengs and lungs were burning on the climb back up Marcy. Here is a sadistic view of the climb back up,
I reached the top of Marcy, and then climbed 9.1 miles back down to The Garden. I will skip the details of this section of the hike. I will just use action verbs. Sucked, hurt, illusions, scrapes, falls, more singing kids. Hmm, i think i threw some nouns in there. I suck at English, and all other languages.
The hike was about 22 miles, and a little over 6,000 vertical. Although my altimeter said 7,000 so i will go with that and sound more tough. If you feel tough enough and dumb enough to want to do what i did, here is the elevation change chart of the trip.
