PSTVD: Long-winded self-aggrandizing self-centered hiking rant

I acquired Post-Swiss Traumatic View Disorder
while going over all the photos from last summer's Swiss hiking trip.

Did I really need 21 pictures of that cloud?

REALLY??

The Matterhorn is nice and all but 56 photos of it????

I DON'T THINK SO!!!!

So I decided I needed an adventure to cleanse my esthetic lens.

I was slow getting started because I also acquired

Post-Swiss Traumatic Hiking Clothes Disorder from looking like

Klutz Bag:

The Incredible Shrinking Hiker

soooooo....

I spent a lot of time rooting though my stuff looking for a pair of hiking pants that made me feel like

Old Lady Sexy Bod Tight Pants.

Note: PSTHCD is frequently confused with an obscure condition acquired from smoking too much Thai stick while on holiday in Switzerland.

OK, back to the matter at hand. I finally found a pair of black, hip hugging, stylishly belled hiking pants that I had dismissed years ago as being "too young" for me. WOO HOO!! Just what I needed for this adventure.

I decided to walk to the highest spot in Vermont. Long time readers with an intact organic google function in their wetware will recall that I had been close to that spot before. All others click here

===>  MOUNT MANSFIELD #1

Mt. Mansfield #2 Salient Points:

(1) Gorgeous Day

(2) GREAT PANTS !!!!!!
(Yes, I know that there are now twelve (12) exclamation points in this post, but so far I have not received any warnings from the Blogger Police regarding profligate exclamation point usage.)

(3) HUGE yummy gluten free cookie to think about on the uphill slog

(4) Enough uphill slog to provide respite from the daily drone of horizontal walking

(5) You didn't think it would be lonely at the highest spot in Vermont on a gorgeous day, did you?

(6) The reason I could get there this time was becuase I came at it from a different direction, so I hiked past the summit until I found the cliff that had stopped me 2 years ago.

I WIN!!

  

Why there is no high peakage in my summer

June 2012

Switzerland!!

Emmons: more catching up

October 29, 2011 - almost a year ago

A 2 night backpacking trip with a friend to climb Emmons via Calkins Brook. 

 

It was lovely autumn where we camped by the brook.

But as we climbed it got quite frosty.





 

The trail was icy enough that we put on our points and got out our poles.

 Done! 9 more to go.

Allen: high peak catch up

Slippery brown slime grows in the stream on the slide, which comprises about half of the 2 mile vertical, reached after the 7 mile approach hike.

Last July, 2011

Allen Mountain - an 18 mile round trip hike, very beautiful and very, very "'dackian."

10 more to go.

Mt. Mansfield

Vermont has mountains. I don't have to go to the Adirondacks for a challenging hike. I decided to hike Mt. Mansfield, the highest mountain in Vermont.

I hiked up this trail. It did, indeed, contain quite a bit of vertical hauling and scrambling. Enough that I knew I did NOT want to go back down it.

The summit cone from the top of Hell Brook, called the "chin." It looks so impressive, right?






I got tantalizingly close to the highest point in Vermont. Then I came to this rock. After the first big step it was just a walk up, really. It was way easier than a lot of what I had hauled myself up already.

BUT

There was nothing but empty air RIGHT behind me!

I couldn't do it. Not alone.





Some uber-fit guy (not so much younger than me) came along and blew past me while making a comment about how this spot was The Crux and how he didn't like to come this way in the winter and blah-blah-blah. In a flash he was up and out of sight.

WAIT!
GIVE ME A HAND!
SELFLESSNESS LOOKS GOOD ON YOUR KARMIC RESUME, BUDDY!

Oh well. Maybe next time.

This is the view from as far as I got.

That bare rock is the "adam's apple" at the far northern end of the ridge. The Hell Brook trail comes up on the other side of that.

I went back down the chin, hiked down the Long Trail, and met a nice fellow named Hiker Ed at the parking area who gave me a ride back to my car at the Hell Brook trail head.

What a great day.

Gray Peak

Gray Peak

That little pile of rocks marks the start of the herd path to Gray Peak.

It takes a long time to get to that little pile of rocks. It was a 9 mile hike from the trail head to that cairn. And then there was hiking back OUT again. It was a long day.

I saw a lot of places that I have not seen for 20 years on my way there. I would do it again. In fact, I will when I go back to hike Cliff and Redfield.

11 high peaks left to go.

Saddleback

The summit of Saddleback was very spooky with low clouds blowing past me.




The view would open up... breathtaking! ...







... then the wind would whoosh the clouds back in...








... and I would be enveloped in fog with nothing but a blank gray wall beyond the ledges.

Twelve more high peaks to go.

Gothics AT LAST

Gothics.
Yum.
13 to go 'cause I also did Sawteeth.

Recent Activity in Algonkian Scholarship

Algonkian scholars have uncovered evidence that the word, "Adirondack," long thought to mean "bark eater," actually means "moccasin sucking mud."















Fourteen muddy miles and a peaceful campout. It was a great weekend.

31 high peaks climbed, 15 to go. It is so great to have a quest!

January 2010... Colden again

Obligatory Heroic Summit Pose

Below zero wind chill

Gorgeous day

Algonquin from the summit of Colden

Marcy from the summit of Colden

FAIL!

Gothics. Pft. It POURED. It DELUGED. The trails were streams. The streams were brooks. The brooks were raging torrents. Channels were lost. Boulders submerged. The rivers became SLABS of water sliding down the mountainside.

I finally got to a stream I was afraid to cross alone. I just stood there... soaking wet... cold... discouraged... looking at the far shore full of longing and thoughts of drowning.

Remember the Wolf Jaws?

Remember success?

Those were different times.

Adirondack High Peakage 30/46

I got the Wolf Jaws and Armstrong. It was an icy, lonely climb. On my entire UPWARD climb I met only one hiker coming DOWN at 9:30 AM. He gave me the full Doom Report re: the weather on Upper Wolf Jaw.

It was indeed an IMPRESSIVE WEATHER COMBO: snow and hail... bruised sky... boot sucking mud and standing water on the trail... ice on the rock faces. I went on to Armstrong anyway.

As I stood on the summit of Armstong looking at Gothics, I distinctly felt that I might leave this earth if I were to go on. So... Gothics next weekend from the other direction.

Below: Gothics from Saddleback... the trail is visible to the left of the exposed face in the center foreground with the final section over the exposed face at the top... I think.

Had I gone on last weekend I would have come up the ridge from the back, over the two bumps and descended the exposed rock in the foreground.

Marcy and Skylight

What Marcy looks like on a nice day.

What Marcy looked like the day I was there.
Skylight looked the same,
only darker, with hail, and no cairn.

So the next morning I ran up Phelps before backpacking out,
just to get a view.
This is Colden (left) and Algonquin (right) from Phelps.

ding! 25

Big Slide was sweet, a lot of steep bare rock to scramble up.

The view from Big Slide: Gothics and The Range.
 How do you get over THERE?

Colden, finally

I finally got Colden. It would have been easier two months ago. There was rain, rotten snow and mud... but no black flies, yet. It was an intense, wet, foggy, cold trip. It made me really happy.

And this one advanced my standing with the Adirondack 46ers... http://www.adk46r.org/

...I am now ONE peak past the halfway point :D

Big Slide, next, I think.

Winter Peakage

  Wright Peak

I climbed Wright with my son on a perfect day in February. There was not a breath of wind. I set out my map on the peak and it stayed where I put it.

Colden is to the right.

Marcy in the middle distance.

Algonquin Peak

I climbed Algonquin alone a couple weeks after Wright. Tiny Mount Ascutney in Vermont was a harder hike because I had to break trail through ridge after ridge of hip deep snow with a bitter wind cutting down from the peak. Still, Algonquin is the one I feel like crowing about because of its wild and boar-like reputation.

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This is Colden.

I think I should hike it next.

Avalanche Lake

Past Marcy Dam

 Through Avalanche Pass

 









To Avalanche Lake