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Gothics attempt with Rico.
Thank God I didn’t go into the Sawtooths as initially planned!
Instead, Rico came by the Ark Trail Motel at 6 Saturday morning and after spotting a car at The Ausable Club we headed up towards Johns Brook Lodge. The trail was best bare-booted and there sure were a lot of fully leafed Beech saplings bowed down across the trail! The leaves were covered with ice and snow but luckily the temp was below freezing so we remained dry. We cruised at a reasonable pace, conseving energy, and gradually the snow depth increased. At the second LT in a couple of guys from Montreal were pretty freaked out to see all that snow. By the time we got to the Lodge environs there was lots and lots of beautiful postcard-white fluffy stuff. On our way we got nice views of the Bennies slide. Passing a lean-to with 3 or 4 guys getting organized someone said, “Are you Neil?†Ah, fame is such a burden. Like us, Adkdreamn from the Adkforum was gunnin’ for Gothics. On we went, our pace had gradually increased and eventually we got to that point when it was time to put the snowshoes on. The trip up the Orebed Brook was quite an experience, I must say. The crap across the trail was never-ending and it sent many a snow shower down our backs. We spent plenty of time and energy going around, under and over mother nature’s handiwork. Personally, I was in fine fettle and thanks to a few weeks of hard training and even some serious weight loss felt unstoppable and was infused with a happiness that only you, the reader, can relate to.
Break time came at the Orebed LT and a family of Montrealers was there cooking a meal and cursing the conditions. After a quick bite we continued on our merry way. The snow kept getting deeper and deeper and deeper. At times, there was no snow on the trail itself due to running water. This was new: we snowshoed on a bed of submerged leaves with knee high snow on both sides. We hit a few real bad patches of deep snow and thick blowdown but the energizer bunnies in our legs were kicking out power like there was no tomorrow. We were especially thinking of the 5-star views we would be enjoying as we climbed the cable route and summited Gothics.
Just after we crossed a major tributary of the Orebed a couple of Montrealers (the place was infested!) caught up with us. I paused to let Nathalie pass and she came to a screeching halt upon seeing there was no more broken trail. “Your turn†said I. LOL. Nathalie and Gilles were two hard-core and determined hikers all right and we made a good team of four as we progressed. Gooseberry Mountain was covered in a white, sun drenched mantle of wedding cake icing and helped us guage our slowing progress. We started having trouble sticking with the trail and before long found ourselves bushwhacking up the ever increasing pitch and ever increasing snow depth. Just as I feared, we hit a wall of Spruce. The snow on the uphill side of my thigh was indeed mid-thigh in height and totally unconsolidated. Every step became an effort of Herculean proportions. To make a long story short, after floundering around, backtracking, finding and losing the trail the energizer bunnies started to wind down. The idea of pushing and pushing and maybe summiting very, very late in the day soaking wet and exhausted was kinda unappealing to this old geezer and my sprightly companion Rico, so after 6 hours of trucking to get to the base of the Gothics-Saddleback col headwall (Gooseberry’s second bump was 280 degrees grid from us.) we turned the bows of our ships 180 degrees for what we knew would be a long hike out. After checking the map Rico pointed out that the col was 200 feet vertical HIGHER that Gooseberry’s main summit and when I translated that nifty piece of beta to our friends they did the fastest about-face I’ve ever seen.
The trip out was wonderful though. The sun and our previous passage had done a great job on the trail and the heat was a balm on our souls. The snow bombs were awesome except Rico took a hit from a big chunk of ice right on the top of his head. Ouch! The water was pouring off the trees like a shower and what had been deep snow on the way in was now a muddy track on the ground thanks in part to a group of 10 Montrealers (encore!) who thought they would be going to Gothics sans snowshoes. Hah! I would of loved to have watched them when they got to our turnaround point!
As we exited we chatted with several groups of people who had had experiences very similar to ours on different mountains. While resting at the 2nd LT 4 youngsters (early 20’s) came up to the LT and we yucked it up for a while. We surmised that no one summited anything that day although I thought maybe Phelps would have been doable. When they said they were doing Whiteface by the road on the morrow a light bulb went off in my head and I realized that that was where the smart money would be found.
So, stay tuned for my Whiteface TR.
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