The final day...

Monday, September 20, 2010

John set his alarm for 6:15 a.m. since he wanted to get an early start climbing. I hate alarms on vacation, but it doesn’t matte too much since I wake up about every 60 minutes when camping. There was an icy dew on the tent and our breathing had left the inside covered in moisture. We broke camp quickly, packing the gear loosely in the trunk and getting on the road by 7 a.m. We both skipped breakfast, but stopped at Noonmark to grab a cup of coffee and use indoor plumbing. The trailhead to Giant and Rocky Peak Ridge Mountains is only a couple of miles outside of town and we were there and ready to hike a little after 8. I knew John had to work tomorrow and wanted to be home as early as possible, so I knew we’d have to hustle. The trail we would be following climbed up to within a tenth of a mile of the peak of Giant where it reached a juncture that led a thousand feet down a steep trail to a col before ascending another 800 feet to the summit of Rocky Peak Ridge…our destination. If we had time, I wanted John to get to the peak of Giant as well. It offered spectacular views that were unavailable on Rocky Peak and since we’d be within 10 minutes of Giant on our return, I figured he HAD to see it.

The climb up Giant is continuously steep, rising over 3,000 feet in 3 miles. It’s also one of the most beautiful trails in the Adirondacks since it winds in a switchback fashion up the east face of the peak offering amazing views of the High Peaks for most of the climb. I pushed the pace in hopes of making the peak of Rocky Peak Ridge in 3 hours. We hit the juncture in two, which left an hour to get there, but discovered quickly that the descent into the col between the two mountains was extremely steep and very slow going. I was buoyed by the fact that we hit bottom in 28 minutes and kept the pace up as we climbed. We hit the summit 55 minutes after leaving the juncture and were rewarded with one of the best open summits I’ve ever been on in the Adirondacks. The views were unobstructed in every direction except back towards Giant, which was taller than Rocky Peak, but the skies were a clear, deep blue and we could easily see Lake Champlain and the Green Mountains of Vermont 50 miles to the east.

There was one other hiker on the peak and we asked him to take our picture. He said he’d forgotten his camera, but since he had a business card with an email, I took pictures of him which I assured him I would send off as soon as I returned to Ohio. Isn’t technology great?

The wind was blowing hard and we were cooling quickly. I put on my coat and sat to have some nourishment. John had been flagging during the climb and I suspect it was due to his lack of sustenance. We both needed some calories and wolfed down 5 energy bars and a bag of gorp between us. We also mixed 32 ounces of iced tea/lemonade and drank it all. Refreshed, we retraced our steps back to the juncture with Giant Mountain. The steep climb out of the col to that point left us fatigued and I was unsure about John’s willingness to climb up to Giant’s summit.

“We’re this close…we have to do it. Let’s go,” he said. I didn’t hesitate a moment and in a little over 10 minutes we were on Giant’s summit. The mountain is appropriately named. Although it is only the 12th tallest in the High Peaks of the Adirondacks, it dominates everything around it. All of the other taller peaks are far to its west and mostly visible from our vantage point. We took it in for about 15 minutes and after taking some more pictures and finishing the gorp, headed back down the trail to our car.

Exhaustion set in over the final miles and we reached the car about 7 hours after we’d started. We’d hiked and climbed another six hours and nine miles over with elevation changes totaling around 5,000 feet. Our legs were really feeling the strain of the three days, but particularly the down hills, which are brutal. We drove a short distance down the road to Chapel Pond where we plunged in for a clean-up before our 9+ hour ride home. No one wants to spend time in a closed car with me when I’ve been on the trail for the day…including me. We stopped and made sandwiches just outside out Utica since we were both quite hungry, but didn’t want to waste time at a restaurant since we wouldn’t be getting home until after 1 a.m.

I must admit I felt great and if we’d had longer, I’d have gladly done more. The hip did bother me some during the three days, but the endurance was never in question. My training had been more than adequate to the task for all three trips I’d taken over the summer and I’d never felt at a disadvantage when climbing with much younger and well-conditioned people.

Hike duration: Six hours.
Training Heart Rate: 70-160, depending on terrain.
Calories burned during workout: 3,000.