No chance for climbing as the rains continue...

Saturday, September 24, 2011

After two days of hard climbing, I was quite pleased to wake up with no aches or pains. I was displeased to wake up to rain, though. I’d been getting up throughout the night to push water from the tarp that had been accumulating in the low spot created when one of our support logs snapped and fell. I had clothes lines with my climbing wear hanging to dry and didn’t want the whole tarp to collapse under the weight of pooling rain and re-saturate them. We had also placed our shoes there in hopes that they would dry a little, as well. With the humidity near 100% there was little chance of this, though.

By 6 a.m. I was up and moving about. Donnie doesn’t stir unless prodded…which I did around 7:30 a.m. We needed to get over to Noonmark for another fantastic breakfast and develop a plan for something to do in the rain. Ron the firefighter was there again and suggested a trip to Baxter Mt. It is a seldom used trail that has only a 700-foot elevation change over a 1-mile hike…very doable for Donnie the non-climber. Since it was still drizzling at the conclusion of breakfast and visibility was zero, we elected to return to our campsite and wait for better conditions. They would never come.

We made an excursion to a McDonald’s in Lake Placid specifically for their smoothie. I wanted one and figured it would be cheaper than Ben & Jerry’s. It was…by two dollars. We returned to the campsite and after shooting the bull for another hour, my frustrations began to show. I asked if anyone was interested in doing the Survival Workout with me. “What are you going to use for lifting?” John wanted to know. “I lift myself. Push-up, pull-ups, dips and there are plenty of rocks in these old woods,” I said. I told him I felt fresh and could probably break my push-up record of 63. “Dude…no way you can do that many push-ups,” he said…and that was all I needed to hear. I changed into my damp hiking clothes and dropped to the pine needles and began pushing with Paul counting. I hit 57 and struggled through 58, but that was it. “Dude…impressive,” was all John could say.

It was clearing some and I encouraged the group to join me on a hike to Marcy Dam. Apparently the flash flooding had breached the dam and I wanted to go there and take some pictures…doing the Survival Workout as we hiked. It was a 45-minute hike with only a slight elevation change and I really needed to do something before returning to the Noonmark for another meal. On the trail, I found the rocks I needed and was lifting one overhead when some hikers came from the other direction. John tried to explain my odd behavior, but they were having none of it and skirted us quickly. Paul and Donnie turned back about half way, but John and I hiked on. The dam was breached and the pond it had once created was now little more than a large creek running through a sea silt that had been deposited there for the 100+ years the dam had been in place. The ‘forever wild’ laws of the Adirondack Park wilderness areas, as this was, would dictate that the dam should be left to fall apart. I suspect though that the breach will be repaired and this popular camping area will once again have a small lake…of sorts.

We returned and headed to the ADK Loj to get a hot shower…which felt amazing after 3 days without. We did return to both the Noonmark Diner and later to Ben & Jerry’s, but I refrained from ordering any ice cream, though it looked amazing. In all, it was a day without views and a sorry excuse for a workout. That night, I enjoyed a restful sleep without the patter of rain on my tent. I was awakened on a couple of occasions by the howling of a coyote family…its haunting sound a brief reminder of how close we were to nature and to whom the woods really belonged.

Hike duration/Survival Workout: 90 minutes.
Training Heart Rate: 70 to 120 bpm.
Calories burned during workout: 500.