Snapshots from four days in New York's Adirondack Park and Lake Placid: Six and a half hours behind the wheel, listening to "Left Hand Rise Above" and learning about the rise and fall of the Third Reich. $20 sunglasses, quickly broken. The worst nachos ever made ... and, regrettably, consumed. Peaks in the distance. Almost too many. Somehow not enough. Parting ways with e-mail for the first time in months. Numbness. Rising early. Eying a half-empty wine bottle. Sunrise over the High Peaks. Parking permits. Fellow hikers starting out early, ready to get dirty. Stretching. Signing up, signing away my life, letting others know where I'm going in case I don't make it back. Being OK with it. Closeups of deer ... almost too close. A four-mile hike to the trailhead, the preamble to the climb ahead. Bridge crossings over rock-strewn streams. Going up. Up. Up. Up. Up, accidentally, then down, down, down. The confidence to go the right way. Scaling the ladders I remember. Not falling.
Gothics, within sight, reminding me of Everest or at least Mount Krumpet. The final push to the summit, a half mile's climb up anchored steel cables. An easier climb than I recall -- I'm better now. Turning around at the top, surveying the Adirondacks, not a sign of humanity. Breathing in. Winds trying to send me over the edge, nearly 5,000 feet to the bottom. Closing my eyes among the clouds. Sleep overtaking me. "Hey there." New friends from Manchester, N.H., and Glens Falls, N.Y. Them, only six peaks shy of completing all 46. Me, just starting out, not even a dozen under my belt. I'm not counting. I have no list. I'm just there. Smiling. Well wishing. New Hampshire's White Mountains ... someday ... soon. No more putting things off. Time to move.
Down Gothics. Up Armstrong. Down Armstrong. Up Upper Wolf Jaw. Down Upper Wolf Jaw into Wolf Jaws Notch. Down, down, down, into the morass, back toward the Garden. Hours later. Twenty miles later. The sun setting. A brutal hike out -- four plodding miles threatening to break my kneecaps. Back at the Garden. Feet tingle, sans boots. The half-empty wine bottle awaits, soon to be fully empty. Back to Lake Placid. Wanting to live here. Among the trees. In the mountains. Knee deep in pebbled streambeds. Happy. On to Lake Champlain. Skipping stones. Clear water. Clean water. Backtracking: How did I end up somewhere else? Why not here? Why indeed. Heading south.
