Tag Archives: hike

Cabin Life – #2

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“The Walking Woodstove.”  That’s what one of my buddies called me.  And I have to admit that this is not a disputed nickname.  I had to wash my clothes at Christmas time because “You live with the smell, so you probably don’t notice how strong it is.”  Alright, I get it, I smell like a freaking campfire.  I could say that I’ve invented a new cologne called “Flaming,” but that’s not true.  I just stink like fire.

The stove in the cabin looks really nice.  But it sucks.  There’s a multitude of problems with the stove that I’ll get to in a minute.  But first, I want to address this inhumane, ignorant, and self-righteous campaign against all of those people who smell like fire.  Sure, as in any large group there’s going to be a few arsonists included, but for the most part, we who heat with wood are hard-working and upstanding members of the community.  Just because I give off the aroma of a burning barn doesn’t mean I’m responsible for the Great Chicago Fire.  This discrimination needs to stop.

Now, the woodstove.  This thing is a piece of junk, and I think I know why.  Most likely it’s a crappy woodstove because it’s actually a coal burning stove.  Huh.  I was initially told that it was a woodstove that could also burn coal.  Turns out that the opposite is true.  Well, I’ve been burning wood in it for three months now, and I’ve only had one chimney fire.

It was a cool, but not cold, weekend at the end of October.  My then-girlfriend was coming to visit, and I thought that I would get a little fire going just to take the chill out of the cabin.  After getting a fire going, I was cleaning up a little and I started to smell something funky.  Not like burning wood, but something definitely burning.  I checked the stove, and it seemed fine; I checked the crawl –space attic, and nothing was going on up there.  But I kept smelling it, so I grabbed a flashlight and went outside just to make sure the roof wasn’t on fire or anything crazy like that.

I got outside, and lo and behold, there were flames shooting out of the top of the chimney and big hunks of hot coals falling onto the roof.  Luckily, it was during a rainy spell and the roof didn’t catch fire.  I called Amy real quick, told her what was going on and asked the address so I could call 911 (I didn’t think this place had an address and I’m kind of disappointed that it does).  I figured it would take about 30 minutes for the volunteer fire department to get here, and I didn’t want to wait until the roof actually caught on fire to make the call.

To my surprise, the first firefighter showed up about five minutes later, followed by a neighbor that Amy had called.  The neighbor and I put out the fire in the stove, but by then the flames had died down to nothing, and the roof was still not on fire.  Whew.

The rest of the department got there, and everyone was very nice and didn’t seem in the least bit pissed that I had called them for no reason.  I think they were happy that they got to take the truck out, but that none of them were ever in danger.

One unfortunate side effect of living in a very small town is that everyone knows your business.  Lots of people are in the fire department and lots of people listen to scanners, mainly because they like to help each other out if it’s a real emergency.  All I garnered was a bunch of “Chimney fire, eh?” comments from behind hidden smirks every time I went to the store.  Thanks for noticing, guys.

Oh yeah, the stove.  The door is too high on the fire box, so every time I open it to put in a log, a bunch of smoke rolls out and that’s why I smell like a fire all the time.  Plus, the firebox is too deep, so no air gets to the fire unless the door is partially opened.  This means that smoke is rolling out of the woodstove many, many times a day, again, causing me to smell like fire all the time.

If I had to give you one solid piece of advice for heating with wood, it is this:  Don’t buy a coal stove.  Buy a woodstove.  And be proud of your musky aroma.

 

Dix Mountain Range

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Forecasters, meteorologists, weathermen, whatever you call them, I label them all the same:  Useless.

Heading out from Ausable Point with a belly full of banana bread, I drove down to Newcomb, and then to the Elk Lake parking area after work.  The plan was to hike in a little over two miles to the Slide Brook lean-to, then the next day head up into the Dix Range to climb Macomb, East Dix, South Dix, Hough, and Dix.

When I got to the parking lot, I spoke with two separate groups that both said the lean-to was full.  I was worried about the forecast, which said rain starting late that night and continuing through the next day, and I didn’t bother to bring a tent.  So I decided to sleep in the car and get an early start.  “It’s only a couple of extra miles, and those groups did the range as a day hike, so I won’t have any problem.”  Stupid forecasters.

I woke up early and started to hike, with a much lighter load.  I didn’t need my sleeping stuff, so I ditched it and headed up the trail.  The first miles were an easy, pretty flat grade, and I covered the distance to the herd path in under an hour.  The herd path up the first four mountains (trail-less) started right from the lean-to, and to my chagrin, there were only four people sleeping there, which is considerably less than full.  But oh well, it was less than three miles.

I had planned on the rain, and Pico’s ability to drink from the thousands of puddles that the rain would create.  But so far, there was no rain, which of course was good for hiking, but bad for our water supply.

Heading up the herd path following Slide Brook, Pico and I made pretty good time.  After starting at about 6:30am, we reached the base of the rock slide on Macomb in just a hair under two hours.  Pico and I had never hiked up a rock slide before, and I have to tell you, it was a hell of a lot more scary than I had imagined.  I got the first glimpse of the slide a little before reaching the base, and quickly realized that it was close to a thousand feet long, and probably gained six or seven hundred feet in elevation.  Staring up from the base of the slide, I was taken aback at how loose and sandy it was.  There were some pretty big rocks and lots of smaller ones, with no discernible path up it.

Pico, of course, immediately started up the slide without any hesitation.  I, on the other hand, gingerly started to pick my way up, occasionally having to use hand and feet holds, and sending loose rocks sliding with any small slip of my foot.  The going was kind of slow, but not too bad, and after getting about halfway up the slide, the first views of Elk Lake were reassuring.  It sure did seem pretty far away, though.  I was also really preoccupied with the stability of the slide.  I thought about avalanche safety, and never crossing the slide, but it was unavoidable.  There were several times when I thought about just how screwed I would be if me or Pico started to fall.  There wasn’t going to be any way to stop until gravity decided to cut me a break.

After topping out on the slide with no major problems, the trail started again and we were on the summit of Macomb pretty quickly.  The clouds were just sitting on top of the mountains, and with no view of the four other peaks on the agenda, I got out the compass and got a bearing towards South Dix.  Luckily, the trail was again easy to follow, and Pico and I had no problem making our way to the summit of South Dix.

Just below the summit of South Dix, I ran into a couple who were hiking the other way.  They had gone up Dix, then over Hough, camped out, and were exiting over South Dix and Macomb.  They said the trail to Hough was easy enough to find, but the two groups who told me the lean-to was full had both gotten lost on their way to Hough.  By now the clouds had lifted and I got my first view of what Pico and I had already climbed and what we still needed to climb.  We were on the summit of the second of our five mountains for the day, and it was already 10:20am.  Better get a move on…

Leaving the summit of South Dix, the trail follows the ridge between South Dix and East Dix.  It was easy going, but due to the distance, it took close to an hour to get there.  And of course, we then had to turn around and re-hike the same ridge to climb South Dix again.  Looking up at the hogback, Hough, and then the small summits leading up to Dix was intimidating.  They look so close together, but I know that we still have a lot of walking to do.  Plus, our water was getting low because I had to keep sharing it with Pico.  Not a single friggin’ puddle for him to drink from.  Stupid weathermen.

Not sure how those two groups I spoke to the day before missed the trail to Hough, but Pico and I found it with no problem.  We started off to climb the three hump hogback between South Dix and Hough.  After getting over the hogback, the ridge drops to just below 4000’ in elevation, so there is a campsite there.  Nice little spot, and you’re pretty much guaranteed privacy since it’s in the middle of nowhere.

A steady climb brought us up to the summit of Hough a little after 1:00pm.  By now, the sun had peaked out a couple of times, and I was, again, rationing water for Pico and myself.  I was starting to be thirsty all the time, and Pico was lapping up every drop I gave him.  We had a quick lunch of bagels and I took off my clothes to let them dry out a little and soak up some sun.  The summit of Hough was kind of lackluster in and of itself, but there were some great views, especially of Dix, South Dix and Macomb, even with the clouds still sitting pretty low.

Climbing over the three sub-peaks to get to the summit of Dix was demoralizing.  I was thirsty and tired, but I also knew that the fastest way back to the car was to climb Dix and head out on the main trail, just like I planned.  So we pressed on, and the trail was still easy to follow, but considerably harder to hike.  The steepness of some of the sections made me a little worried if I had to down climb, but soon we were right near tree-line, and it seemed like the summit was near.  The trail then led us to a giant boulder with a thirty foot long crack in the middle of it.  I couldn’t believe my eyes.  I searched around for a path around the boulder, but found none.  I figured that I could try to climb it and maybe it looked worse than it was.  I finally got up into the crack and made it up about halfway, then looked back at Pico and realized he wasn’t going to be able to follow me up, and the only rope I had was some flimsy clothes line, not strong enough to pull him up.  I down climbed and then bushwhacked my way around to the left of the boulder.  The trees were thick and stiff, and it took close to twenty minutes to go about thirty feet.  But, Pico was able to follow on this route, and we made it to the top of the boulder.

Surprisingly, we popped out on the main trail maybe two minutes later.  Hiking another quarter mile of so, we reached the summit of Dix, the fifth and final High Peak of the day.

The hike out was uneventful to say the least.  Pretty much a straight shot out to the car, even though it took another four hours of walking.  Just as I was able to see the parking lot through the trees, I felt the first sprinkle of the day.  We got to the car, and I drank water until I almost threw up.  As the sprinkles got a little heavier, I stripped for the second time that day and took a rain shower right there in the parking lot.

Hiking the High Peaks

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The Adirondack 46r’s is an organization that is only open to people who have climbed all 46 of New York’s highest mountains, and I intend to become a member of that club.

The High Peaks were originally surveyed by Verplank Colvin, and his crews found that there were forty-six mountains with summit elevations above 4000’.  Later, and obviously, more accurate surveys found that of the original 46, four of them were actually under 4000’, and one “new” mountain was above 4000’.  By this time however, tradition had set in and nothing really changed when it came to hiking the High Peaks.

Some of the High Peaks are well known, such as Whiteface Mountain, home of the 1980 Winter Olympics alpine events, and Mt. Marcy, the highest peak in the state.  And then of course, some of them are less well known, like Couchsachraga, which to be honest, I can’t even pronounce.

Twenty of the peaks are “trail-less,” meaning that there is no officially designated route to the summit.  So far, I have climbed Boundary, Esther, Street, and Nye Mountains, with absolutely no problem finding the herd path to the summits.  Enough people climb the High Peaks that the paths are pretty well defined.  I’ve run into a couple of instances following these paths when I wasn’t quite sure which way to go, but was able to figure it out with no real problems.

Up to this point in my life, I have hiked 14 of the 46 peaks.  The first one I climbed was Cascade Mountain, a short and pretty easy climb not far from Lake Placid.  Just below the summit of Cascade, the trail splits and goes over to Porter Mountain, another High Peak.  Unfortunately, due to a sick friend, the first time I went up Cascade, I didn’t get to do Porter.  A few years went by, and it bugged me the whole time that I basically had to climb Cascade again just to do Porter.  Finally, in the summer of 2008, I re-climbed Cascade and made it to the summit of Porter.  That was Pico’s first High Peaks experience, and he slept like a dog that afternoon.

During college I also hiked Algonquin, Wright, Iroquois, Boundary, Haystack, Basin, Saddleback, and Big Slide.  I cross country skied almost to the summit of Whiteface, but decided not to count that.

I began the summer with 10 peaks under my belt, but after five years in Florida, my legs were just not accustomed to carrying me across a non-horizontal surface, so Pico and I again climbed Cascade and Porter just to get ready.  Since then, there’s been four more peaks crossed off the list, and plans are in the works for a five-peak day.

14 down, 32 to go!