The cold is merciless but righteous.
~ Wim Hof
For the entire New England trip I allowed flexibility in the plan and itinerary. Other than being thwarted in visiting Mount Washington I ticked off each destination in turn without much heartburn. So I was delayed a day longer than I intended on Katadhin? So my impromptu side trip to Acadia left me angry? So Mount Mansfield taxed the connective tissues in my knees? I did it all with a big stupid grin on my face.
When I was a little uncertain about how long I was going to be delayed in summiting Katadhin—I was never sure of the weather would cooperate—I allowed I might drop the high point in New York from the end of the trip. And at one point early on considered dropping Katadhin hoping the weather would be more favorable the farther west (and slightly south) that I went.
I stayed true to my plan and everything worked out through the ascent of Mount Mansfield in Vermont. As I left Stowe with a belly full of pizza and drove toward a Walmart parking lot in Ticonderoga, New York a couple hours southwest at the southern tip of Lake Champlain I pondered my options. I’d climbed Katadhin on Tuesday—almost ten miles out and back and over 4,000’ of gain—and Mansfield Wednesday with five more miles of hiking and roughly 2,600’ of gain. I knew Mount Marcy was going to require a solid effort with fourteen miles out and back and 3,100’ of gain. I had enough time I could rest a day and go for Marcy on Friday and drive home Saturday, or I could go for the tight trifecta and hit Marcy the next day with no rest. My body was screaming for it, but my heart and mind were telling me to just go on, pull down a three fer, and get on back home.
I got to the Walmart early enough to buy a couple of small things which distinctly improved my car sleeping: two sets of cheap, dark pillowcases and a box of binder clips. Once I was settled in I fell asleep quickly and soundly.
In the morning I woke and went through my routine of cleaning up and getting dressed. I ate a bagel and an apple and moved on toward the Adirondack Loj. It was about an hour and a half drive from Ticonderoga.
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| the road to Marcy |
Here’s my journal entry for that morning:
The forecast for Lake Placid has improved. I’m going to go for Marcy. I’m sure my knees will hate me for it, but how cool will it be to have wrapped this trip up with a three day blitz and top it off with that one? Assuming I make it. But I think I will. Fingers crossed.
Time to make the donuts.
The theme of my trip out west a few weeks before had been healing and moving on from the traumas of my past. I had a lot of alone time in the car to work through it, and I took full advantage. The theme of the New England trip seemed more to be more about accepting of what is, being in the moment, and letting go.
Shortly before I left I read something to the effect of: “you can’t love yourself if you hate the experiences that made you.” And of course there are numerous iterations of that out there. I reached the point in my life where that became distinctly relevant.
The other angle I had been meditating on the whole trip was something else I’d read: don’t keep trying to be your younger self, be the person you fantasized you’d become when you were younger. As incredible as the Western trip in September had been, I hadn’t fully felt like I had become that person. Somewhere deep in Baxter I fully realized I had become that person. Dammit, I was him. I am him.
Around 8:00am I went into the ranger station to pay for my day parking for Marcy. The nice Ranger told me the forecast for the summit was a windchill of 11°. She said microspikes shouldn’t be necessary because the snow wasn’t deep enough. Yet. I assured her I had the right gear. She gave me my parking pass, and I made my way to the trailhead. I signed in at the trail right about 8:30. A gentleman signed in behind me, and as I shouldered my pack he spoke:
“You going to Marcy?”
“Yeah,” I replied, “You?”
“Not sure yet,” he said as we started walking down the trail.
Rick from P.A. hiked a long way with me. We had a great conversation as we made the long, steady grade. A couple of times Rick expressed doubt in going all the way to the summit, but he kept talking himself into going farther.
We crossed a stream on a wooden bridge at 10:15. There was snow on the bridge. At 10:35 we stopped for a quick rest and realized the trees above us were holding snow. At 10:45 we crossed the line where the snow had begun sticking to the ground. The wet stuff was heavy on everything at five til eleven. The temperature was distinctly colder as we walked through the winter wonderland.
Finally, Rick announced he wasn’t going to go on. We bade each other farewell, and around 11:00am I struck out alone. The trail got steeper. In some ways it was like a cross between the Katadhin hike and the ridiculous ascent of Mansfield but with snow. It was a a beautiful hike, but I was feeling the days and miles and elevation pulled down in my knees and bones. I was tired. I was hungry. But at that point there was nothing short of unconsciousness that would have kept me from the summit of Mount Marcy. No doubt lingered in my mind. I would go as far as I could go. To the summit or to a trail too icy to traverse.
At noon I reached the final trail junction. The sign indicated 1.2 miles left to the summit. I took a quick rest, swapped my thin shell for my puffy jacket, and as I shouldered up to head on a young couple came from the direction of the summit. They had ice rimming their faces, their hair white with wisps of rime.
I asked if they’d come from the summit and what were the conditions. They said it was cold and windy. I asked if it was doable. The guy just grinned. Then they moved on down the trail. And I turned toward the summit.
Just before 1:00 I reached the base of a black wet slab, skirted by thick, wet piles of snow. Mansfield had given me the confidence to scramble over snowy rock, so I just moved upward into the white wilderness of the high Adirondacks. The further I went the more snow clung to the stone. The higher I climbed the less protection there was from the wind. I stayed warm in my jacket, and my feet stayed sure as they sought purchase on the crust of rime ice shrouding the summit.
Approaching the summit of Mount Marcy wasn’t the singular alpine experience of my life, but it was without a doubt the most hardcore mountain experience I’d ever had.
I was seven miles deep into the Adirondacks climbing up icy slabs, pummeled by the wind, and grinning like a fiend. My hands and feet found every hold and I kept moving through the high grained landscape, blurred and scoured.
At 1:20 I saw an ice crusted plaque.
Cloudsplitter. Going way back in my life…Cloudsplitter—the massive sandstone dome in the heart of the Red River Gorge—was an important place to me. My spirit dwelt there in twilight, I visited it when I wanted to feel something deeper, I traversed it to find the depths of the unknown and my most secret places of power.
Then I took the final steps to reach the highest point in the state of New York. Much like the summit of Katadhin, I saw Marcy as some far off dream I might reach someday. I stood there, the fifty year old man I thought I might be someday. And someday had finally come.
I laughed into the howling wind. I stood there, taking in the view that was no view, standing on frozen stone, miles and miles and days and days behind me, sixteen state high points since July, thirty total in my half century, a lifetime of adventure, and satisfying my restless soul, of love, and joy, and pain, and trauma, and working, and traveling, and fighting, and crying, and laughing, and faking it until I made it. I stood on the summit of Mount Marcy fully myself, fully in the moment, fully actualized and fully content. Katadhin had been a spiritual peak for me. Tahawus was the summit of my heart. It was visceral. I was connected to the earth through that high place, anchored through my bones, enveloped by the spirit of the wind. When I climbed down from the summit of Marcy I was whole.
It was a long walk back into the twilight of autumn, the crisp golden dusk that comes in the north a few weeks sooner than at home. I ached in my hips and knees. My breath was heavy from going for days and days. My belly grumbled for fuel. It was time to get back to caring for my body, to stop pushing it so hard. Despite my exhaustion, my hunger, and the distance ahead of me to return home I still had a big stupid grin on my face.
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