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Hurricane, Slide, Saddleback, Jay and TR
I was so bummed out when my dream trip fell through that I sat around totally stunned for a while before realizing that the VFTT gathering was my best bet. I hastily threw a bunch of stuff in the car and took off down the 87 on wednesday afternoon arriving at Spence and Maddi's at 3:00. I was the only one there and got to take a perfect spot for my tent (far away from the where the action would be for a little peace and quiet if need be).So there I was doing the gathering as a solo act. Whoop-de-do.
I went to climb Hurricane at 4:00. I did H a long time ago before starting on the 46 so it was a real treat on this very clear evening to look around and see so much more. The best view of Sawteeth's ridge must be from here. The trail in from Hurricane road only took an hour up and less down so I had plenty of time to shoot the breeze with my hosts and to sample the cuisine at the truck stop in Lewis before turning in.
Next am. during breakfast in Lewis I manually entered waypoints into my gps from the National Geographic Tyvek map which was slow, fastidious and not error free I would find out. Spence had suggested a run up Slide Mountain in the Sentinel Range so at 8:30 I started up the Jack Rabbit ski trail from near Keene for the half a mile of trail that led to a drainage. From there I began interfacing intimately with the wilderness for what would turn out to be a very pleasant 4 mile, more or less, bushwhack. Spending 5 hours alone, off trail, never seeing once any signs of the hand of man made me forget my dissapointment of my aborted hike. The bush was open and game trails were plentiful.
I hadn't checked the datum on the NG map (1927) and I learned that my wp's were all off by about .2 miles because my gps was set to 1984. Go ahead and laugh all you anti-gpsers. Luckily I had brought my little plastic grid overlay thingy and was able to re-enter my wp's right there on the spot. Near the summit the bush gets real thick so if you go you might want to curve a bit to the left when you have about .2 miles to go. It was real thick and gnarly up there but I found a nice lookout towards the Great Range. I walked all over the place in the thick stuff looking for a cannister but decided there wasn't one and went back down.
Back at Spence's "ranch" I now had some neighbours so the gathering was no longer a solo affair. It was so utterly great to knock back a few cold ones and get to know members of the VFTT family instead of just barreling home down the highway. FunkyFred plays a real mean guitar and we jammed for a while.
Next am. my brand new friend Prino and I spotted cars and hit the Jay Range (Saddleback and Jay) for what turned out to be one of the best days I've ever had in the Adirondack Mountains. The navigation was particularly interesting and we worked well as a team combining gps, compass, visual reckoning and map reading. Ascending Saddleback there was a broad band of twisted birch trees with rasberry bushes at chest height that was beautiful to climb through for a good 500 vertical feet. We also has fun going up a gash in the cliff band that we encountered almost right off the bat. Saddleback aint a 4000er but the views from its exposed summit will leave you breathless. Awesome.
We continued north towards Jay Mtn. along open ledges going in and out of the bush until we had clear views of the cliffs that line the range. Still exploiting all of our resources we determined our route and kept a move-on dropping about 500 feet in the process and skirting little cliffs as we went. As we neared the summit of Jay we broke out onto a slide of all things. It was only about 300 feet vertical but it was quite steep and very sandy at the top. The views were, well you know...
The top was absolutely mind blowing. Imagine a remote wilderness area with a true wilderness feel to it and your up on a mile long ridge that is studded with big huge knobs of open rock. We sauntered along stopping often absorbing everything. We were already pretty high from our successful shwack but this was too much for words.
Back at "home" we learned that we had missed the true summit of Saddleback by about 5 vert. feet but that didn't dampen our enthusiasm for our day one bit.
After the restaurant we were regaled by Pete Hickey's insanely funny songs and everyone was a little more restrained in their partying. Anticipation of Saturday night? Fatigue from the preceding short night and long day? Old age setting in?
On Saturday Prino and I recruited Big Moose and since the weather kinda sucked we aimed for a mountain named TR. Never heard of it, eh? It lies directly across the Van Ho trail from Tabletop and you look at it every time you go to Marcy Dam. If this mtn. has any redeeming features I havn't discovered them yet. However, it's on the list so like Blake and Nye it gets visited and even has a summit sign. This viewless summit is choked with vegetation and blowdown and is reached from a .25 mile faint herd trail that branches off from the Van Ho. The path isn't easily seen and we shwacked part way to the top before picking it up. Round trip from the Loj is about 9 miles. Back at the hacienda there were a lot more tents up (maybe 40 in total) and Spence and Brian were in charge of roasting the biggest chunk of beef I've ever seen.
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