The Fugawi of the Adirondacks
There’s this stupid joke that aboriginal peoples’ original name for the Europeans was ‘Fugawi’ because everywhere they went they’d say “we’re the fugawi!”
Har har har. On Saturday they were talking about me.
Today, my arms are criss-crossed by tiny scratches and welts that resemble some form of strange ritual scarring.
On Saturday I climbed my first Adirondacks high peak.
Markus Wandel organized and led six other hikers, myself included up to the top of Mount Colden via this wacky feature called the Trap Dike. You also can read his (very kind) write-up for the trip. He’s also done a photo page.
We all made it safely but Eduardo, Juan Carlos and I all learned a lesson about hiking safely and comfortably.
Can you guess? We got lost on the side of a mountain.
Markus and his friend Andrew Lavigne have been hiking in the Adirondacks and elsewhere for quite some time. In fact, they’ve climbed all but two of the region’s 46 high peaks. They did this hike last year. (I note no water in Andrew’s shots.)
So they’ve got a routine for their day hikes to the ‘dacks.
Early start
It starts with a 5am departure and a well-coordinated (complete with two-way radios) caravan to Lake Placid NY. In all the trip takes the better part of three hours. It took the car I was riding in a tad longer because my car mates were travelling on Mexican passports.
We got to a small-ish parking lot, about 4km of flat, wide trail from the Marcy Dam, which seems to be a sort of hub for a number of trails out to the peaks, including the very popular Mount Marcy (it�s the tallest in the region).
When we got to Marcy Dam there were easily two dozen hikers milling about, waiting for what, I�m not sure. We were pleased to overhear this large-ish father and son picnic crew was going to Mount Marcy.
We, on the other hand, were headed toward Avalanche Lake. The trail to the lake seemed fairly gentle, with some dramatic scenery. The trail skirts the business end of a huge landslide that laid bare a large section of one of the mountains. I marvelled at the sheer size of the heap of trees, swept off the side of a mountain like you might brush dust off your jacket.
The Trap Dike is an unofficial route up to the top of Mount Colden. This is immediately apparent to anyone who climbs it. But at the north? end of Avalanche lake, you go “off trail” and push your way through some fairly easy bushwhacking to get to the base of the dike.
We stopped for lunch at Avalanche Lake. Some of us swam. I just kept looking at the rather huge cleft in the mountain that was to be our route upwards.
A brave start
It was a sunny day, we had full bellies and it was pleasantly cool. If anyone had any reservations, they weren’t sharing. And by 1:30pm we were hiking up the dike.
Approaching the dike, we had to raise our voices to be heard because of the water running down the dike. It sounded like the Madawaska River. And there was indeed a stream running down the middle of the dike.
And so climb we did. Straight up. Andrew Lavigne’s site has a very detailed account of the measurements of this thing: the elevation, the distance, etc etc. We climbed easily for an hour and a half.
Markus says this is a class four hike, which means using your hands and feet all the time. And I certainly did. And my knees, and my butt, and anything else I could use to inch up the very steep incline.
Some of us were trying to take lines that stayed out of the water. But it often wasn’t possible and after a couple of soakers, I stopped caring. I figured I would just take the easiest line I could find – wet or dry.
The water is quite fast moving, so the rock underneath was relatively slime free, so fairly reliable.
The edge of the comfort zone
I was climbing for a while near Kevin, a tallish engineering grad student. We compared emotional notes. Kevin was having a blast. I was certainly pumped (fear does that to you) but I felt I was nearing the edge of my comfort zone.
There were spots where the line I picked had me well and truly stretched, over an overhanging rock, trying to hoist myself over top of it using leverage points that were way too far away.
It was a real puzzle. I spent a lot of time contemplating solutions to the imminent problem of movement: Will this handhold give me enough of a purchase? No. But what if I push this way then reach for that crack over there? Hope so ’cause here I go.
As you climb higher, the vegetation closes in on the dike. Pockets of dirt and moss become more prevalent. And at some point, you climb out of the dike and onto a flat, and fairly steep bare rock face that you follow up 500m to the summit.
The Fugawi of the Adirondacks
I arrived at that point with Eduardo and Juan Carlos I reckon some time before 3pm. I was breathing hard and feeling tense. I wanted to get out of the dike and into simpler climbing.
There was a trail that led to what seemed like a reasonable line onto the rock face. But there was also a trail that led up and further on into the now much bushier trap dike.
I suggested we exit and head up the face. Eduardo said it was too steep and we should continue through the dike. Juan Carlos agreed with Eduardo. I didn’t really know either, so I went with the majority.
None of us considered waiting for Markus – the only one who’d done the hike before. And thus we became the Fugawi of the Adirondacks.
We hiked about 20 minutes more up through the dike, at which point the act of trail spotting requiring ever more imagination with every step. Just as we began to think we were going the wrong way, we�d run into some discarded bit of hiking gear – some shock cord, a pair of sunglasses – to convince us that other people had come this way.
“Yeah, but next we encounter their sun-bleached bones,” I quipped at one point. With any luck my smartass remark was lost amid the sound of crashing bushes.
We paused at one point to look at Eduardo’s GPS. He was quietly kicking himself for not downloading Andrew’s track file before heading out on the hike. However the oracle did tell us we were at least climbing the right mountain.
Basically, we’re screwed
“Basically, we’re screwed,” he said. “Well, we’re not screwed, but we just have to keep going up.”
“Down really isn’t an option,” I concurred. Not because I must reach the summit, but because the terrain was so steep and the footings so tentative that down would be scary difficult.
So we took turns barging through the thickest undergrowth I’ve ever had the misfortune of having to crash. We were up fairly high, so the trees are very short and their lower limbs all very much alive and very close to the ground.
We’d try to find fallen trees. The arboreal collateral damage they inflicted afforded us a respite from having to plunge headlong into thick brush. After an hour and something of slow, painful progress (Eduardo and Juan Carlos had bare legs) we started hearing voices. No, not those sorts of voices. Real voices.
From the relative proportions of “up” occupied by sky and tree, and from turning around, we could see we were getting closer. Phew, I thought, I’m not going to have to spend the night out here.
Finally someone answered our calls. It was Markus. “Where are you,” he asked.
I had a bunch of responses swirling about my mind, but managed to keep the other from escaping. “Oh, down here, in the middle of a bunch of trees,” I said.
“Keep going and you’ll come upon a trail. Go to the right and you’ll get to us. We’re on the summit.”
The most welcome words I’d heard all day. Within a few minutes, we crashed out onto a trail of black mud. And there was Kevin, to capture the arrival of the Fugawi at the top of Mount Colden, just after 4pm.
Beautiful summit
The others had been at the summit for between 30 and 60 minutes. But they kindly waited around for us to catch breath gaze in awe at the scenery, rehydrate and snack.
As we headed toward 5pm, we headed back down. We had 11km or so to hike back to the car, and while down is faster, it’s not always easier. It was definitely anti-climactic.
In fact, so much so, that I can’t remember a lot of details. Mud. Lots of mud. Rock. But compared to the way up, it was a walk in the woods.
Markus signed us out at 8:15pm. We got out of our hiking gear and into the cars, and headed home. A failed attempt to eat at Saranac Lake’s authentic Mexican restaurant, a successful attempt to eat at the Subway at the Mobil station, and we were away.
By 11pm we were back in Canada, and by midnight I was home, very spent by a day well spent. I hope the next hike email finds me with available time.
