I began to pull my ground cloth and sleeping gear from the back seat when I saw two head lamps moving through the woods towards me. Two young men went to the cars to retrieve something, though I wondered what had them up voluntarily at that time. As they passed and said ‘hello’, one asked, “would you like me to move the car so you can get yours closer to your site?” I readily accepted his offer. We chatted briefly about the beauty of the evening and then they returned to their site about 100 yards away.
I slept until eight, unusually late for me, before scrambling into the car and heading for Noonmark for breakfast. My phone was totally dead, but I knew I could recharge while eating and planning my day’s hike. I arrived there to find five girls crowded around my table and queried Mindy about their presence.
“You didn’t tell me you were coming…again,” she admonished. I reminded her that regardless, it was my table and that she should permanently reserve it on the off chance that I might arrive. I’m not sure I convinced her. I plugged in my phone expecting it to spring to life. It didn’t. I tried it in several outlets around the restaurant, but to no avail. I started wondering if it was the charger or the phone because clearly there was power in the restaurant.
“There’s a Verizon store in Saranac Lake,” Mindy informed me as I was paying my bill and inquiring about phone options. Saranac Lake was about 35 minutes away, but if I didn’t do something, I would be out of touch for the entire weekend and my sister and cousin would both be wondering if I’d met an untimely demise.
I drove there and learned that my phone really was fine, but needed to be charged at least 5% before it would come on. Still…I needed a new phone and finally broke down and spent the $71 necessary to secure the IPhone 6. While waiting for things to transfer from old phone to new, I inquired about Haystack Mt., a peak nearby.
“I was up there last fall and it’s a really pretty hike,” Ashley informed me while providing directions to the trailhead.
And she wasn’t wrong. It was a relatively easy climb, covering about seven miles round trip with an elevation gain of 1,500 feet. It offered spectacular views and was relatively deserted. I broke a decent sweat, something I do quite easily, and drove back towards my campsite thinking about a body of water in which to submerse myself. I found the perfect opportunity off SR 73 just east of Lake Placid in Cascade Lake. There was a parking lot devoid of cars and a retaining wall near the water’s edge where I could change after bathing without exposing myself to the passing motorists.
I entered the water in my hiking clothes and lowered myself below the surface in water about 55 degrees. It got my attention and after some quick scrubbing, quickly retreated to the shore and began to undress and towel off. It was then that two large busses from Oberlin College in Ohio came rumbling down the dirt road to my changing station. They slowed as they passed me, likely to give the college students on board the opportunity to see what you shouldn’t be doing in a public parking lot in the Adirondacks. They parked a short distance away and I finished dressing.
“There’s a good therapist for this kind of thing back in Oberlin and you’ll probably be using him for life,” I suggested as I passed the students disembarking. Some were on their hands and knees and vomiting in the grass. “I’ll be back next year doing the same thing, but only uglier and more wrinkled should you be coming back,” I concluded. Ah hell…got to have a sense of humor about these things.
Hike Duration: Three hours
Training Heart Rate: 90-120 bpm.
Calories burned: 1500.
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