As usual, the final count of who was going to the 'Daks this weekend was going to come down right to the wire. Jim R. and myself were definitely going, no matter what. The original plan was to have myself, Jim, Rachel, and Kayte go along with us and do some peak bagging. Kayte remembered that she was having minor foot surgery that previous Wed. so she was not going. Bummer. I asked Jim L. if he wanted to go, and he said "YEAH!", but didn't know if he could arrange for his dog on such short notice.
By Wed, it appeared that Rachel was not going, due to work and the flu bug that has been going around. A message on the answering machine confirmed that Jim L. was definitely not going? he couldn't swing the dog arrangements so fast. Oh well, maybe next time.
The later part of the week in Buffalo is unseasonably warm, so it looks like another "put everything in the car weekend and see what happens" type of deal. Jim and I plan to leave Friday afternoon around 5 pm. Friday turns into the "fax day from hell" for me, as our office server decides to stop receiving and sending faxes. This is a BIG deal, and I frantically try to get something working as I watch the clock creep towards my office leave time of 3 pm. (Oh, I haven't even started to pack yet.) I make a quick call to Jim around 3 pm and tell him there is no way we are leaving on time? I'll call him when I get home.
Finally arrive home around 4:30'ish and call Jim, and proceed to do the packing frenzy.
Jim comes up to the apartment amidst flying poly-pro and fleece going from the bedroom into the toy-room. We quickly pick through the climbing gear and decided what to leave, throw everything of mine into my big duffel and pack, and finally hit the road. A quick stop at Wegmans for some cheese, energy bars, and a disposable camera, and we are finally on the highway heading east for the 2nd time in 3 weekends. The clock reads 6:10 pm. Better than I thought.
Most of the trip is pretty straightforward until we leave the I-90 and hit the "country roads". A moderate storm was attacking the east coast of the US; hence, the roads weren't great. The pretty new (since Oct. '98) Saturn had a WAYYY TOO CLOSE encounter with a white Ford Probe right at the end of Route 365 as we were coming in to Nobleboro. I was driving, and failed to slow down enough, and foolishly hit the brakes a little to hard. Luckily Joey Chitwood was driving the Ford, and he deftly avoided the impending collision of our 2 cars. Mere inches passed as we passed each other. "Someone is looking out for you!!" Jim declares, as we recover from the close call. I would definitely agree. We have a few more bumps along the way as the usually solid car finds some more icy patches of the road, but we arrive without further incident at the Chapel Pond parking lot at around 12:30 am. We quickly setup the tent and crash for the night.
Saturday dawns warm, and cloudy. We trudge back up the car, and mull over the options for today. The ice is still nothing to write home about this season? Chounaird's gulley is in again this weekend, as is Chapel Pond slabs, but we decide to do one of the Slides on Whiteface Mountain (of Olympic ski-dom fame). We quickly brew some tea and oats, and point the car back north towards Wilmington.
There are 2 slides on Whiteface? the Lake Place Slides look "cooler" but have a 4 mile approach, while the "Ski Slides" are approached from the actual ski resort. We had opted for the Ski Slides since it was rapidly approaching 10:00 am already. We pull into the parking lot at the Ski Center, but we both feel the bad mojo vibes all over the place. It just doesn't feel right starting our backcountry hike at a Ski Resort. The Saturn doesn't even stop as we pull out of the lot and head for the trailhead for the Lake Placid Slides approach.
We park the car, and frantically pack for the long day ahead of us. The climbing guide says to follow the trail from Rte. 86 to the Whiteface landing trail junction (2.0 miles), then head up the main Whiteface trail for 1.75 miles. Then "when the trail turns right sharply, bushwhack uphill following the original creek line up the face to the base of slides." I'm concerned about the "vague-ness" of the route description and I've failed to get the base of Eagle slides (on Giant) in a reasonable amount of time also. Finding the base of the slides is going to be the crux of the hike. Only time will tell for sure.
While we are packing, it starts to snow pretty good, and the open doors and open trunk are proving to be problematic, but we get everything set to go and finally hit the trail at 10:10 am. It's going to be a LONG day. A quick glance at the topo shows the first 2 miles really flat, and I mentally set a goal of 1 hour for the first 2 miles? hit the trail junction at 11:00 am and we'll be in really good shape. I immediately set a blistering pace for the 2 of us, and we're off to the races.
The first 2 miles do prove to be easy going, but the snow is picking up, and we are both having trouble finding the right ventilation/warmth combination. After leaving the tracks of the tourons going into the pond near the road and circumnavigating the pond, we eventually come to the Whiteface Landing trail junction. A time check shows that we are in good shape, it's 11:15.. only 1 hr 15 mins so far. Then I glance at the sign:
"Whiteface Landing 1.0 m"
"Rte 86 trailhead 2.9 m"
WHAT!?!? We just did 3 miles in the winter, by foot in just over an hour!! Smokin'. Jim & I high-five at the speed hiking, and grab some water. We plan to stop at the Lean-to 1 mile down the trail to refuel our bodies.
As soon as we start on the main trail leading up to Whiteface, we start doing small post-holes into the snow. Nothing major, but enough to really piss you off after the first ? mile. I ask Jim how he likes the post-holing? "It sucks" he says bluntly. I concur. We have some close calls as I punched through a couple of iced over streams, but arrive at the Lean-to just before noon. The pace has slowed significantly due to conditions. It's also getting a little colder we notice, and it's still snowing.
We stoke up on cheese, energy bars, and some water. We make plans to stop here on the way back down and cook up the freeze-dried meal that we brought along. We also set a summit turn around time for 4 pm, and hit the trail again.
Things get a LOT steeper after we leave the lean-to and Jim makes a note of his knee problem flaring up again. It's starting to hurt, but nothing major yet. We both pop some Advil, just to keep the aches down. We hike for a long time, following the creek as it creates a good size gulley on our left. It feels like we are hiking along a ridge-line, but inside of a deep forest. The trail gets deeper and when we do punch through into a post-hole, it's not fun. We are both keeping an eye out for the "sharp right-hand turn" in the trail, but by around 1:30 pm, we figure we've missed it. ARGH. We decide to forge ahead, as we might as well try and summit, even if we don't get to do the slides.
Things get progressively steep the higher we get, but the most frustrating part is that we really are not sure how high up we are. We are totally in the trees, and the visibility above them is nothing. We start to anticipate tree-line around every turn. We come across a few ice bulges and decide to throw the crampons on for making better time. We assume we're getting real close.
The next corner I come around shows another LONG snow-covered hill in the trees? the summit is no-where to be seen. Jim and I are both getting discouraged. We talk about turning around. Jim is obviously really starting to hurt, but we both agree, we've come too far to turn around. We decide to persevere. Jim says it well "This trail sucks, and my knee is killing me? but there is no place I'd rather be".
We round a corner and FINALLY get a view back down into Lake Placid and Wilmington notch. We HAVE to be getting close, we can't see any close peak that's still above us. Jim and I both get a little summit fever. It's around 2:15 pm. I notice that the winds are REALLY starting to pick up; typically a sure sign that we have to be getting close at least. I keep my thoughts to myself though, we have both already been wrong about being close numerous times today. I mentally decide that unless something dramatic happens, we are definitely going to summit.
We keep trudging along, Jim's knee pain persists and intensifies, and I notice my right groin muscle really starting to act up. Ugh. I need to find a good stretch for that. Every corner we come to, we assume we'll see the treeline and the summit, but are constantly denied. The trail just keeps going, and going, and going, and going. We hike on in silence for what seems like hours.
We finally get a glimpse of a rock band high above us when I stop to put on my crampons again. (I had had some snow-balling problems and removed them when the trail went back to basic snow for a while). Jim looks concerned about how far away it is, and how much higher than us the band looks. It is pretty far, but I think we can make it, and start hiking again. I know that Jim is probably cursing me every upwards step I take? I was getting the vibes he had already had enough for today. His knee was giving him no time to think about anything else.
I finally round a turn and see tree line. WOOHOO. We can see a rock band, but we are not sure if we can see the actual summit or not. We take a break to put on the Gore-tex shells and I notice that my fleece jacket I'd been wearing all day is almost frozen solid on the under parts of my arms. It's a weird feeling having something that solid and un-movable there. I force the jacket over the layers and zip it up. The winds above the trees are breath-taking. Probably gusting more than 50 mph. A time check shows it's 3:20? "We can make it" I assure Jim. There is no turning back now.
We hit the rock band and do some initial scrambling to an exposed rock perch, and are greeting with a mind-numbing blast of cold air. YIKES, it's REALLY windy up here. We make good use of our poles, and both us consider pulling out the alpine axes for a few places, but we continue to pick our way up the trail. I'm a little concerned about the time, we HAVE to make it back to the treeline before it gets dark, as the trail in the rocks is marked very poorly. (Only with paint arrows, no cairns).
We head up towards the final rocky headwall, and Jim snaps a picture of me next to some trail signs. Then a quick scramble leads us to the summit. "Full conditions" we tell each other, no doubt. It's still snowing hard, hard winds, and it's significantly colder up here than in the trees. A check of the watch shows us just a head of schedule? 3:55 pm. We nailed our turn around time by a slim margin of 5 minutes.
We immediately head back for the trees and I express my concern to Jim about the time, seeing that he's in really bad pain coming down over the rock band. He gets the drift and really digs in and we both hurry back to the treeline. We stop after a bit and grab some energy bars and the Hershey's Big Block that we were saving for the summit.
It's on the way back down to the lean-to that I notice how steep the trail really is. I wonder how it is in the summer months? On the hike down, I notice that my fingers have gotten really cold.. I swap gloves with Jim for a while so he can warm up my mittens again, then we swap again. Shortly after that I mention to Jim.. "Uh oh, I'm getting Hot Hands now.. " I say? then, about 2 minutes later I'm moaning and groaning (bordering on screaming) as the every nerve in both hands explodes with pain as the warm blood starts circulating again.
"AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH". As an ice climber, it's a sensation that is not unfamiliar to me, but this "session" seemed to be unending. It went on for at least 3 minutes. But finally, the afterglow warmth was very nice, and we kept cruising back to the lean to, with thoughts of hot food and hotter tea on our minds.
Jim is really hurting, but we make good time back down to the lean-to and break out the stove and dinner fixings just as the sun is setting around 5:30'ish. Jim pumps some water out of the nearby stream, as I fire up the trusty Whisperlite and get some hot water going. We munch on cheese and bars while we wait for the water to boil, then for freeze-dried to re-constitute.
Jim has neglected to bring a spoon along for today ? DOH ? so we start looking around for alternatives. "How about the pot holder" I ask. He tries it ? "too low volume". He checks out the Leatherman, but nothing there will work. Then Jim says "A POWERBAR!"? "A powerbar might work" I say. "A Powerbar WILL work" says Jim as he pulls the wrapper off of one, and proceeds to dig in.
We inhale the meal in no time and finish off the remains of the Big Block, and brew 32 oz. of hot tea and stash it in the OR bottle parka I have. It should stay hot all the way out to the car. The tea has really warmed us up, but it's inky dark outside, so the remaining 4 miles back to the car are going to be via headlamp.
We head off down the trail, easily following our own tracks, and hit the Whiteface Landing trail junction around 7:00 pm. We grab some hot tea, and keep going. The trail from here all the way back seems to have gotten a fair amount of foot and ski traffic throughout the day, so it's easy to follow. However, Jim and I have been on the go for a long time and are both feeling the aches and pains of a long day.
We hike out almost in complete silence? each to our own thoughts. It's times like this that we have to really dig down deep into our soul, think "good thoughts", don't listen to the pain, and try to put our bodies on auto-pilot. The thought of my warm sleeping bag back at Chapel Pond, and the warm car keeps me going. I keep an eye out for Jim as he follows close behind, but in obvious agony; getting worse with each step. Did we push too hard today? We will make it back, that's for sure, but anything other than driving home tommorrow is out of the question.
We finally come across the cabins surrounding Connely Pond, and shortly thereafter we can see headlights of the cars burning their way down Rte 86. I run ahead to unlock the car, Jim takes his time on the final leg, and joins me at the car. We've finally made it. A check of the clock shows 8:30 pm. Not bad for 12 mile round trip up Whiteface, but we've paid the price for it. Both of us have definitely felt better after a long day.
We ponder the closing time of the Noonmark diner, and I waste no time getting back into Keene Valley, as we hope to get some final chow before hitting the sacks for tonight. We arrive at 8:56 pm. "What time do you guys close?" I ask. "9 O'Clock says the waitress behind the register". DOH!! "Can we still order something fast?"?.."Yeah, if you hurry". YES!! Jim orders a grilled cheese, I order a bowl of black-bean soup and grilled ham & cheese. Jim is worried about the soup and our close proximity in the tent, but I assure him I'll be sure to "zipper tight tonight". The food is awesome, and we both fill in the corners with some Carrot cake that had been sitting in front of us as we ate our 2nd dinner for today.
After a much colder night, we awaken to a gorgeous morning. Blue skies, and the sun is out, but it's bitterly cold as we pack up the tent and sleeping bags. I'm in agony once again as my glove liners just don't cut it against the wet tent, and cold temps. We walk back to the parking lot SLOWLY and comment about bad we both feel. Geesh, maybe we're getting old or something.
We pack the car quickly and I give some directions and beta to an English ice climber looking for the North Face of Pitch-Off. We hit the road back home in the full sunshine of a glorious morning. I put the car on auto-pilot again, and we quickly find our way into Speculator where we stop for some brunch at The Café. Jim and I both order omlettes, and are pleased to see that they are bigger than any other we've ever seen. AND, they are accompanied by 4 pieces of toast, and a pile of home-fries. HMMMM.
We roll back to the car, and hit the road again, and enjoy the scenery, while dodging the snow-mobilers. Usually we're driving this stretch of road in the dark, so it's nice to see what it actually looks like during the day. We arrive back in Buffalo and try to man-handle the pile of gear in the trunk and backseat into 2 piles. Jim heads home. We are glad we actually summited this beast in winter since we don't have to back ever again, and I don't think either of us will ever the forget the "trail the just didn't stop".
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