The Rest of the Mount Marcy Story

This highpoint episode was very disappointing for me. This was like the culmination of several things recently which have pushed me to the inevitable—I’m getting older.

I have hiked many, many miles, climbed some pretty high mountains, and done some things that even shock me. Needless to say, I was devastated to have gotten so close and been too afraid to scramble over the rock to the top. Additionally, I was disappointed in my old feet. They are just not what they used to be.

Since noon Saturday, (the time when I realized I just couldn’t go up on that rock) my mind has struggled with the adjustment to another phase in my life. It hasn’t been pretty and Gene is to be commended for having lived through it so calmly.

My Uncle Carl actually got me started hiking. He considered it good therapy and, at a particularly difficult time in my life, he took me for my first hike. He made pimento cheese sandwiches for us and stuffed them into his day pack, we gathered up the dog and off we went. On the drive to the trail head the dog thought a nap was in order so he curled up on top of the pack to catch a few Zzzs before the hike. At lunch time, looking out over the wilderness from a rock high on a mountain, we laughed at the result of the dog’s pre-hike nap. The sandwiches looked like flat bread with yellow halos. It didn’t alter the taste; you just had to plan a strategy for getting bread and cheese in the same bite. My uncle has always been one for an adventure so when it came time to head down the mountain, he thought it would be fine to just leave the trail and go off down the hill side. I slipped after only a few steps and landed on my bottom. The dog thought that was a fine ride so he jumped in my lap. Down we went for about twenty yards before coming to rest somehow. My mother has always been one to be in the woods walking about, and a few years after this first hike, she persuaded me to join Tennessee Trails, our state hiking club.

So hiking has been my hobby for many years and I never gave a thought about the distance or difficulty of any trail. I think those days are over. A few years ago, while spending what seemed like days in the backcountry office at Rocky Mountain National Park trying to get permits to climb Long’s Peak, a seasonal ranger made a comment to the effect that he and his wife (both over 60) liked fixing a thermos of coffee, stopping by the bakery for Danish, and enjoying their goodies at one of the many waterfalls within 2 or 3 miles from the trailhead. At the time, I thought that was really hiking and we should do that more often. Perhaps now is the time.

I was encouraged by a couple things yesterday. We met a couple not too far from the summit as we were going down who seemed to be about our age. The gentleman commented that they were in the “hiking” rather than “climbing” phase of their life. I’m so there! I had email this morning from a long time hiking friend who, like me, never gave much thought to distance or difficulty. We have been on some pretty long hikes together including California’s Mt. Whitney. His email said that he and his wife had done a 14 mile hike and were pretty bushed the next day. Had to go shopping instead of hiking. Thank goodness I’m not the only one feeling my age here.

Still, aging is a difficult process and hard to get my mind around. It is one in which I will have to change my focus from long distance hiking (carrying everything on my back and sleeping on the ground) and climbing mountains to sipping coffee by a waterfall, bird watching, and taking long strolls in the park. This is actually starting to sound pretty good, after all.

Mount Marcy

Mt Marcy through the trees

The highest point in New York rises to 5,344 feet and dominates the High Points Region of Adirondack Park. There are 42 peaks that rise above 4,000 feet and are considered the “high” or major peaks in the Adirondacks. (Originally, there were 46 peaks listed as above 4,000 ft, but a more recent survey found 4 to be a tad shorter.)

Mt Marcy Information Center

Compared to the high points of other states, Mt. Marcy is not really up there. It ranks as number 21 among the 50 highpoints. For a little perspective, Tennessee’s Clingman’s Dome is over 1,000 higher and the highest in the lower 48 is California’s Mt. Whitney soaring to 14,494. But 5,000 feet is nothing to scoff at. Clingman’s Dome is practically a drive up with a mere half mile paved walk to the summit from the parking lot. The shortest day hiking trail to Marcy’s summit is almost 7.5 miles one way which turns into a very long day.

All hikers must register

Even though we normally think of tree line being somewhere around 12,000 feet in western parks of Colorado and California, we climb into the alpine zone on Marcy because we are at such a northern latitude. Going above tree line has its concerns, of course. The major concern is thunderstorms. I don’t want to be the tallest thing in the vicinity. We have had our eyes on the weather forecasts for the past 3 weeks waiting for a day we felt comfortable for our climb.

Marcy Dam

Saturday looked like it would be our day, so we made all our preparations for an early start. Up at 4:30 we were able to get away from home by 5:30 and on the trail by 6:25. We were pleased with that. Our first break came at Marcy Dam at the 2.1 mile mark. We were there within an hour and again pleased with our progress. I was a bit surprised at the number of people at the dam. We were the 3rd party to register at the trailhead, but there were many, many people milling about. There are campsites and lean-tos in the area and apparently they were filled to capacity. We continued up the trail—up and up and up. There was some evidence of trial building which made this climb somewhat easier than Whiteface, but it was still very rocky, very steep, and very wet and muddy. Rock steps had been placed in a couple of the steepest sections and foot bridges had been built over some of the wettest areas.

View from Marcy Day

We stopped for a short break about 10:30. When I turned to take a seat upon a rock, I saw the summit of Marcy for the first time. Just 1.2 miles away and another 1000 feet to climb. I also noticed dark clouds coming in. We were soon out of the tall trees and into short shrubs when the rain started. We elected to continue on because we were not yet to bare rock and there was no thunder, only rain. However, our climbing was hampered by still wetter rocks and the cumbersomeness of the ponchos. A few minutes later we heard the first clap of thunder, but the rain had pretty much quit. We continued on promising each other that if there was another clap of thunder we would turn around. It wasn’t long until we started seeing hail on the ground that had come down in the brief storm. Luckily, we had been just low enough to have had only rain.

As we left the low shrubs behind and climbed out onto the bare rock the trail became the trail that I hate. I can climb a steep trail as it makes its way over rocks, but I am terrified of a steep solid rock surface. I’m not afraid of heights; I’m afraid of falling, especially of falling when there is nothing to catch me for a few thousand feet. We sat down and waited for the storm to pass. When we felt it was safe, we started up, but I only got a few feet when panic set in. We were within 0.2 of a mile from the summit and I could not go up. At 12:25 we turned around.

The 7.3 miles down was grueling. There were literally hundreds of people on the mountain. There was always someone in the way or wanting by. I was hiking slower, so I always stepped aside to let folks pass. That cost us a lot of time during the course of the afternoon. Climbing up over the rocks is easier for me than going down. My legs are short and I often can’t reach the next step so I found myself sitting down and sliding to the rock or path below. With 200+ people and 4 dogs having passed this way, the bogs which didn’t seem too bad going up were quagmires on the return trip. The wood in some of the foot bridges was impossible to see for the mud. All this made for very slow going.

I had made a mistake at the beginning of the trip by not turning around when my foot started to hurt. I have a tendon, I think, on the top of my right foot that seems to get knotted up from time to time. This was the case today and I petted and pampered it, but after so many miles there was nothing I could do to keep it from hurting. Plus, after about 10 miles of rocks, the bottoms of my feet were so sore it was hard just to take a step.

After 14 and a half miles, 12 hours 25 minutes, we finally stumbled to the truck. We were two tired hikers and I would be happy to never hike again if I could only get my feet out of these boots.

Mt Mansfield, Vermont

Since there are no Mt Marcy summit photos, I have included photos of some other highpoints done as day hikes.

Mt Washington, New Hampshire

White Butte, North Dakota

John Brown's Body

One of the reasons we find ourselves in the Adirondacks is because the highest point in New York is here—Mount Marcy. Some people collect stamps, others teapots, and others Carnival glass or old cars. I collect highpoints and Mt. Marcy will be number 20 for me. It is not really high in the scheme of things, but it is a long day hike above timberline and you just don’t go without some preparation. We will be starting our hike very early and we don’t want to waste any time trying to find the trailhead or run into any surprises on our way there. So we drove over to the High Peaks Information Center just to check out the distance and time from our campground to the parking lot, to check out the procedure for parking in a fee area when there is no attendant on duty, and to find the exact location of the trailhead. We got the information we wanted and on our way home, since we were so close, we stopped by to pay our respects to John Brown.

John Brown's Farm House

This was like a continuation of a story started a couple years ago when we were visiting Harper’s Ferry. It was at Harper’s Ferry, W. Virginia (Virginia at the time) that John Brown took his stand against the Federal Government. He, along with several others, went down to Harper’s Ferry and captured the federal arsenal along with a rifle factory. It was his idea to capture the arsenal and rifle factory to arm the slaves for their great uprising for freedom. Two men whose names you will surely recognize were detached to Harper’s Ferry to deal with Mr. Brown—Robert E. Lee and J.E.B. Stuart. Of course, there was a stand off which eventually ended in the demise of John Brown. In my humble opinion, Brown’s undoing was the result of the slaves (I’m sure to his great disappointment) failing to uprise. The ever hopeful John Brown hung around until he got himself hung.

John Brown's Grave

Statue of John Brown

Right here, just outside of Lake Placid is the farm of John Brown and it is here that his body “lies a mouldering in the grave”.

For a more accurate and complete picture of this famous raid you might want to visit the W. Virginia History Site at www.wvculture.org/History/jnobrown.html