a trip to the adirondacks
mount colden, via marcy dam and avalanche lake
Prologue:
Moriah, Troy and I are at a party. A bad one at that. We decide to go hiking for the sake of hiking. Troy puts “Hiking with Cece and Moriah” in his calendar for the 21st to 23rd of September. I do not learn that he has made the decision to call me Cece until we are on our way to the Adirondacks and it makes me laugh immensely. A plan is in the works and the first step has been completed.
The Cast (In alphabetical order):
Annika: Only Maya knew Annika coming into this trip, but what a delightful friendship that is about to come. Annika has met Bernie Sanders, her parents are big hikers, she’s a delight and a joy to be around!
Myself (Cecilia): Less experienced with back-packing, but has a can-do attitude. Always cold. Really wants to see a bear, or a beaver, or a moose, or just any wild animal so I can write to my grandmother about it.
Maya: Tied with Moriah for most experienced. Deathly ill. Should probably not be going on a three-day hike. Spoiler alert: Maya goes the three-day hike and doesn’t complain at any point during this entire trip. Have I mentioned that she has a Leatherman?? Definition of a trooper.
Moriah: Tied with Maya for most experienced. So much bear knowledge, so much trail knowledge. A beacon of wisdom, who did the vast majority of the planning for this trip. Brought her lab homework.
Toby: The youngest of us all. Experienced hiker, big chatter, lots of interesting takes on books. Maybe the biggest mystery to us all, but we are about to learn more about this young fella as we trot through the woods.
Troy: Bearer of all snacks. Owner of the van (Good driver, this is important, because I am scared of cars.) Moriah, Maya and I have long schemed to become friends with Troy outside of business hours (Being MOC), and this trip has become our primary tool to do so. Very fast walker, and very efficient packer.
Chapter 1: The Drive Down
After much moving about, gear planning, and mat-blowing-upping, we all pile into Troy’s van. After a brief pit-stop to grab Toby’s passport, we are ready to leave Montreal around 4pm. We hit the border within the hour, and are welcomed by the largest United States of America sign I have ever seen. Like, seriously, woah. I feel grateful for the line so we can admire it for a while. Our border officer is very friendly, very excited to tell us about the hike we’re about to commence. He also has a massive sticker about securing second amendment rights, so we giggle about it in the car. Once the shenanigans at the border are over, we commence the most beautiful drive of my life.
We left Montreal a tad too late, so the sun is setting. I know that shouldn’t be exciting to me as it’ll mean hiking in the dark, but the small towns we drive through are bathed in golden sunlight. It feels like we are in a different era, passing an array of small-town bars, farmhouses, and antique shop. It’ll sound terribly cliché, but I do feel like I am in a coming of age movie, and I have never felt more early-twenties.
We arrive at the Adirondack Loj around 7:30pm. The golden light has faded, and dusk is starting to set in. We hurry to pack up our stuff, handing out food, bear canisters and tent pieces. We giggle as the darkness starts to close in on us, and we struggle to find the trailhead. Eventually, after quite a bit of wrong turns and comments about our lack of navigational skills, we are off on the first 5km of our hike towards Marcy Dam.
Chapter 2: Love and Luck
Troy and I chat along the way, keeping up good pace, but nothing quite like the pace of our group members. Troy is definitely a faster walker than myself, but I appreciate that he’s slowing down so I don’t have to walk alone. I haven’t ever done a long distance with my big backpack and I am curious how my back will react to this new test.
We talk about love, loss and everything in between. On the topic of breakups and feeling hurt, Troy quotes his mum that “You’re the whole package, but the wrong address.” It makes me giggle and I tell him I’ll write about it in the blog. Alas, here it is. I wish I could describe this part of the trip in more detail, but it was in fact pitch black and I could see only a meter ahead of me. Maya had kindly lent me her extra head lamp, but its pretty weak, so whenever Troy heads up ahead of me I am at risk of being swallowed not only by the mud we’re trotting through but also the darkness of the woods (And then a bear, probably). We move along fast and eventually reach our destination: Marcy Dam. After much bickering, we decide to not even try for a lean-to. We suspect it’s a busy busy weekend and all of them will have been taken, so we prepare ourselves for tent set-up in the dark. We make our way around for a while, and frustration is building. Moriah has prepared well and downloaded maps onto her phone, but we are having a hard time finding the camp sites.
Then, a stroke of good luck: A lean-to. Completely empty.
I exclaim in joy, and we are all excited. This means we can get to eating.
Chapter 3: The Bear
The Adirondacks are home to many black bears, and this changes how we would normally camp pretty significantly. We have to set up The Triangle of Death. We sleep in one area, cook in another, and store our food in a third.
It is pitch black around us and we cannot for the life of us, figure out where we can cook. Alas, the trail becomes our cook site. It’s the only way we can be sure to be far enough away from ours and other campers sleep site, while being sure to find our way back to our lean-to. We set up the stoves to start making pasta with TVP and various greens. Moriah gets going on boiling pasta while I run up to grab my knife. On the way back, I run into a large group of guys around age 15 with an older male leader. They’re very friendly and ask if we know if there are spots left, and I unfortunately have to let them know we took the lean-to they had their eyes on. One of the guys tells me whatever we’re making smells delicious. I laugh, and tell him he must be starving because its only pasta so far. They continue their journey to find a spot for the night, and we start chopping greens. (For the curious reader, they later pass us again and tell us they have found a campsite) We chop peppers, zucchini and onions. I remember Annika being particularly good at this. After what feels like an eternity, we commence eating.
As I’ve mentioned before, we are in bear country. We don’t have a ton of bear experience, but our bags are full of bear canisters and we have one bear spray. Before anyone goes off about how silly it is to only bring one bear spray for 6 people: Yes. We know. It was a happy accident we even had the one. Overall, I would describe our attitude as optimistically cautious. When a faint growling surrounds us, we all pretend to not be faced. We keep eating, speaking louder, but the growling continues. Someone finally acknowledges it, and we all agree it is there. We listen harder. Someone exclaims, relieved, “I think that’s a plane!” and it sure was. We laugh in relief and keep eating, chattering, laughing that we would be so silly to think there would be a bear.
As we dig into our second portions, we hear some rustling. This time, undoubtedly, it is coming from the bushes in front of us. Maya reaches for our bear spray. No one says anything but we all look at her, silently agreeing that that was probably a good idea. Finally, I grab somebody’s headlamp and shine it in the direction of the growling. I imagine seeing the small beady eyes of a black bear to shine back at us, its snout well into the mud, digging for food. For a brief moment, I even imagine it rummaging through somebody else’s tent that we hadn’t spotted because of the dark, eating cliff bars and chugging Gatorade. We all hold our breath as the beam of light finds our culprit: A big fat toad.
Chapter 4: All Roads Lead to Ben Stroll
I wake up at the crack of dawn, not because of beautiful warm sunrays, but because a group of hikers have commenced their trip and are being very vocal. Being in the lean-to, anyone walking past can clearly see we are laying here. I prop myself up, make eye contact with one of the hikers, who takes a breath and then yells to his partners. If I wasn’t so confused, I think I would’ve thought that was rather rude. I fall back asleep, feeling so cold in my sub-conscious that I dream that Moriah’s sleeping bag cost 1000 dollars. When we wake up, I ask her about this and am informed that her sleeping bag did in fact not cost 1000 dollars. We get up and prepare for the day, now able to see Marcy Dam a little better. We have been very lucky with the trail – we follow water pretty much the entire trip so we don’t have to be too worried about water rationing.
It’s a crisp morning, and it feels good to get walking. I won’t go into too much actual trip description because I can’t do it justice. What’s important to note is that we stop by a small lake, eat a lot of snacks, and then continue walking. Here, we realize rain may be on the radar and I realize I never did buy that rain cover I needed. Oh well. Fortunately, the rain never really picks up so my stuff stays dry. As we commence, what we thought was the ascent, we cross paths with a couple of hikers around our age. We stop to chat, and quickly learn they too are Canadian, and study at Concordia. Somehow, somewhere, someone ends up asking if they know Ben Stroll. And they do! How small of a world is that?
Chapter 5: Up! Up again!
We make it to, not the top, but a top. It is stunning. We stop to chill, only to realize we are not at the actual peak of Mount Colden yet. No one is too upset, Maya found some lichen to identify and we’ve gotten a small rest as well as some photos together:
Set on wanting to eat lunch we commence the second part of the up, carefully walking through alpine terrain. We have to do a bit of scrambling to reach the top. Another lovely Canadian group of hikers are heading down a steep section. Moriah has taken a large brunt of the weight in her backpack and has a slightly harder time getting up it. Not to worry, the sweet Canadian lady offers to give her a hand. She gives her two, both of her hands solidly planted on Moriah’s butt, one slight push to help balance her. It was a lot, but helpful nonetheless. We reach the peak, and it is the same view we just spent about 30 minutes chilling with, just a little higher up, and we can see the highway we drove along.
We eat lunch (PB&J wraps, thank you Moriah) and commence the downhill. We are doing this hike in a loop, and so it is new terrain. The up was pretty diverse, lots of changes in what we were seeing, what we were walking on. The way down, however, is straight slab. And it is awful. I have never felt more grateful to be carrying a walking stick because it is horribly hard on the knees.
Anyway, once we reach our second stop, Avalanche lake I (almost) forget about the descent from Hell, as the sights are beautiful. We are practically right on the water, and two mountains wrap around us. More photos to come in the following chapter.
Chapter 6: Trail Magic
During dinner our second night, we quickly realize that we haven’t brought quite enough food/snacks. We all eat what Moriah meticulously planned for us, and no one complains because it is delicious. Troy, once again much more snack-prepared, brings out a Godly snack. This time, it’s dark chocolate. Kindly, he offers to share it with us and we all gratefully dig in.
Then, the group a couple of metres behind us calls us over, asking us if we’re hungry. If we’re hungry?? Oh yes we are. We practically run over to a group of middle-aged mums sitting around. They explain they hadn’t thought about bears, and are having a hard time fitting all of their immaculate snacks into their rented canisters.
It feels like Christmas. Trail mix, dehydrated meals, dehydrated fruit, candy, electrolytes, granola bars and different types of cliff bars lay spread in front of us. We are hesitant to just grab so we all politely pick up one or two items. The ladies laugh at us, and tell us to dig in. We are polite young adults so we dig in, grabbing and thanking them as we go. While we take on the roles of raccoons, we ask about their trip and where they’re coming from. Just doing a one-nighter, and from the area, they like coming here. They tell us they’ve got kids our age.
One of the ladies looks Toby up and down, and then passes him a small plastic bottle. “You all look above 21” she states with a laugh, “This is fireball.” We return to our cook site feeling overjoyed as we pass snacks (and alcohol) between us.
Trail magic is real.
Chapter 7: The Longest Mile
Our last day was very beautiful. Crisp air. Red, orange, and yellow hues all around us. Walking along wooden pathways pretty much the entire way, right along the water, it feels whimsical and fantastical the whole way home.
Somewhere along the hike, we get to talking about what we want to eat once we hit Pittsburgh. Chick-Fil-A is mentioned, Chipotle is sought after, and we are all getting to the sweet spot of just getting really excited to be home. The last mile before the parking lot, we walk in complete silence. I think we are all tired, and realising that reality awaits us. Everyone is putting one foot in front of the other, eager to reach the van. Somewhere in our silent march, a baby chipmunk springs up next to us. It is probably the cutest little things I have ever seen. It follows us for a while, jumping and skipping along the fallen trees, rustling the leaves, and sometimes disappearing amidst the moss. When we see the first signs of civilization again, the chipmunk stays behind and watches us go. I think of this lil guy sometimes, I hope he has all the acorns in the world.
Epilogue:
We arrive back at Adirondack Loj just around 1pm. I am over the moon excited to find they are selling socks with the image of a racoon eating a PB&J. I purchase them immediately and can’t wait to put them.
We quickly, and detrimentally, realize that Chick-Fil-A will be closed because it’s Sunday. Instead we do a Taco Bell/Chipotle combo. Might I say, what a good idea. I have a sip of Toby’s Baja Blast and can see why it’s a hit.
Maya is still deathly ill and has not complained a single time. she falls asleep in the car promptly. When we arrive back in Montreal, I take a quick shower before meeting Maya (Still incredibly sick.) for a drag show.
It’s all so silly and I’m so grateful for it all.
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