Saturday
October, 5th I woke up at 3:00 AM to ride with a friend five hours
to the High Peaks region of the Adirondack park in NY. Our plan was to summit
two of the 46 high peaks in the region on our hike. We planned to hike up Giant
Mountain and then depending on time, as we had to drive back that night and
wanted to be off the mountain before dark, hike Rocky Peak Ridge. Giant
Mountain is the 12th highest peak out of the Adirondack 46 and Rocky
Peak Ridge is number 20 on the list.
This was a
new experience for me. I had hiked a
couple of mountains earlier in the year in the Adirondack region but both of
them were well under 4,000 feet high and well under 2,000 feet of elevation
gained during the hike. Both Giant Mountain and Rocky Peak Ridge are over 4,000
feet high and Giant Mountain has an elevation gain of approximately 3,000 feet
during a three-mile hike. So, while I had a little experience on mountains it
was nothing like this. I asked my friend to plan a hike that would be challenging
and boy did he ever deliver.
We set a
good pace on our hike up Giant Mountain reaching the summit in approximately
two hours and fifteen minutes using the Zander Scott Trail route near Chapel
Pond. Then we decided since we had plenty of time to get down before daylight
and we still felt pretty good we would take the 1.2 mile hike down then back up
to Rocky Peak Ridge. This was the most challenging part of the hike for me.
There were many steep sections going both up and down requiring me to use trees
and other handholds to help pull myself up or hold on while I lowered myself
down. We rested for about a half an hour on Rocky Peak Ridge before heady back
over to Giant Mountain and then back down off the mountain.
On the way
back from Rocky Peak Ridge to Giant Mountain, the fatigue really began to set
in for me. I was really struggling both physically and mentally to keep going.
I needed frequent rests to gather myself. I really had to stop and get myself
together physically and mentally. For a relatively short 1.2 miles back it felt
like forever due to the challenging terrain. Realistically there was nothing I
could do but suck it up and press on because I wasn't getting off the mountain
without getting back over to Giant. We completed the round trip hike in
approximately seven hours and twelve minutes. That seems like a pretty good
pace to me considering the total distance was 8.4 miles.
The only
downside to the trip was the weather. The temperature itself wasn't too bad. IT
was in the mid to lower sixties for a high, which for me is good when I will be
exerting myself quite a bit on a hike. But at the top of the mountain it was
cold requiring us to don jackets to stay warm enough to stand at the summit and
enjoy it for even a short period of time. The other part of the weather that
made the trip a little disappointing was that it was completely cloudy. So from
the summits of either mountain we could not see much of anything. Even the
trees on the summit with us were partially obscured by the clouds. So, we couldn't enjoy the fall scenery from the summit, but fortunately along the hike
up Giant Mountain there are many areas where the trail comes out of the woods
into an exposed area where the surrounding area can be viewed from.
I try to
take the positive view of the experience of not being able to see the scenery
from the summit due to clouds. As we hiked up the mountain, we could see the
peaks of the mountains around us and several of them appeared to be in the
clouds. So in a way I feel fortunate to not have been able to have a clear view
of the surrounding area from the summit. Anyone can get to see nice scenery.
But you have to climb a mountain to get to stand in a cloud. It was quite an
experience I could feel the moisture and see it. It obscured vision at just
several feet.
I had a
great time overall and I am looking forward to my next trip to the Adirondack
region.
