first adirondacks high peaks adventure

It's hard to believe that I haven't written one post this year. I've written plenty in the form of journaling, talked plenty in weeks of therapy and have had many appointments with my functional medicine doc. So, I've been busy. It just finally came to a point where tending to my health in general was no longer a choice. Training never stops, but it's definitely been rachetted down on the list of priorities. I've managed to maintain running at about 20 miles per week, along with strength-training, cross-training on the bike and climbing a few times a week. I just recently added daily assisted pull-ups and I'm trying out a new gym in my neighborhood to work on strength and durability. Things aren't perfect, but they are worlds better than the beginning of this year. I feel more myself and I'm once again invigorated and motivated to try hard things.

I had to take time to document our first High Peaks adventure, because it was a big one and sort of happened in an impromptu manner. I definitely trained for it, but I also underestimated the technical difficulty of the terrain in the High Peaks. I've been to the Adirondacks before, but it was years ago and we had little kids at the time, so Mount Jo and walking around Mirror Lake was all we could muster. Our original plan for the summer was to climb Gothics, but a week before our trip, I realized that we weren't going to get a parking reservation and there was no way we could get to the trailhead. They don't allow walk-ins without a reservation, so even if we could get a ride, we wouldn't have been allowed in. Next time, I need to book well in advance for parking at AMR (Ausable Club).

Plan A had actually been to hike the Great Range Traverse, but we realized early this year that Chris' knee wasn't going to allow it. Also, the Great Range Traverse is a point to point hike so we would've needed 2 cars and with 23 miles and close to 9,000 ft of vert, it would've taken us more than 20 hours. Plan B was to hike the most picturesque 46er in the Adirondacks. It seemed pretty unanimous that Gothics was the one to climb. Unfortunately, too popular and no parking, so I came up with a Plan C, D and E. Luckily, we successfully executed Plan C, which had us bagging 3 of the 46ers including Wright, Algonquin and Iroquois. Plan D and E would've been trying to get up Giant and/or Big Slide.

We ended up staying in Keene, NY, which is a tiny little town, but close to all of the trailheads we were considering. The Adirondacks in that area are special. The surroundings feel very untouched, wild and beautiful.

One of our first views in Keene

We got up at 5AM and force-fed ourselves breakfast. I'm never hungry that early, but I knew that eating, caffeinating and having bathroom success was essential. We had to drive about 25 minutes to the Adirondak Loj parking lot from our Airbnb in Keene. Luckily, when we arrived at around 6:30AM, there were still plenty of spots. Parking was $25, paid through a website. We lucked out with the weather. It was high 50s F to start and never got warmer than low 70s F throughout the day. Was able to comfortably start in my favorite Rabbit sun hoody and Janji 7" shorts. The bugs were not an issue at all, although, I did have big spray on, so maybe that's why they weren't bothering me. We did the hike on August 19th. I hear the bugs are relentless between May and July.

The first 1.5 miles were very chill. Barely a rock or a root in sight. That gave us a false sense of what our effort was going to be for the day.

Serene, non-technical start to the hike

I knew that eventually we'd be climbing. There was a sign that told us that the turnoff for Wright (a trail to the left) was in 2 miles. It ended up being closer to 3 miles. We met some nice folks from the Lake George area who've climbed all of the 46ers, so they gave us a preview of what to expect. The husband was hiking with a double hip replacement- super impressive. Even more impressive was his goal to climb all of the 46ers again with his new "hardware". We passed Macintyre Falls on the way up to the turn-off, but it wasn't too impressive. I guess it's been pretty dry up there. Climbing up Wright got steep pretty fast.

Shooting down as I was climbing up Wright, following the rock cairns

At the top we got a nice view of Colden and Algonquin, which we were going to climb next. It was pretty nice hearing Macintryre Brook most of the way while we were hiking.

Bagging our first peak- Wright!

Views of Colden

The terrain overall was just so rocky and steep. Luckily, most of the rocks were larger and firmly planted, but the areas of trail that were just sheer rock faces felt very sketchy. I'm very happy we were hiking with poles. Scrambling up the rock faces was actually kind of fun- very Spiderman-esque. Coming down was not fun and my knees were not happy. On some sections of trails we were moving at a pace of 1 mile an hour. I had kind of assumed the hike would take us somewhere between 8-10 hours. We were taking our time. Spent plenty of time at the peaks, enjoying the view and re-fueling. In the end, it did take about 10 hours.

Steep and steeper terrain

At the top of Algonquin, we met a trail steward who told us all about the high alpine vegetation. He made a point of telling us that it can take some of these plants 15 years to grow 1 inch. So, we were all very careful not to step on these plants. It was cool to see the little bonsai-ed spruce and willow trees, which have adapted due to the high altitude and high winds. I was very happy to have packed my puffy jacket. I used it each time we sat on a peak. Sweaty backs and wind are a terrible combination.

Colorful vegetation

Top of Algonquin- second highest peak in New York

Our least favorite part of the hike was getting to Iroquois. There were some super narrow sections with a lot of mud and rocks. My once cream-colored trail shoes were very muddy by the end of the hike. They were great shoes- the Altra Wild 3+ with Vibram outsole. Super sticky. I never slipped. Our friends from Lake George had warned us of a false peak before Iroquois named Boundary Peak. Glad they gave us the heads-up about that one. Loved seeing all of the rock cairns folks had built in order to lead us to the peaks.

Narrow sections of trail leading to Iroquois

Massive rock cairns leading us to the summit of Iroquois

Chris butt-scooting down a Class 5 section of rock

Overall, the hike was about 10.5 miles with about 4,600 ft of vert. It was an out and back hike. There were a few Class 5 sections, where technical rock-climbing skills came in handy and down-climbing (or butt-scooting) was necessary to get down safely. I packed 2.5 liters of water, but only went through about 1.75 liters. Throughout the day, I ate cheese and crackers, an applesauce pouch, 1 SiS electroyte gel (just to test it out), 1 jerky stick and a peanut butter sandwich. My 15L Black Diamond running vest worked out perfectly. I love that it has the side pockets for stowing my poles. It was the perfect size for holding my 1.5 L bladder in the back and 2 x 500 ml soft flasks in the front pockets. I had also packed a portable phone battery, dry bag with toilet paper and an emergency bivvy just in case. Puffy jacket was great and packed down well in the backpack. The only thing I would change with regards to gear the next time we attempt a high peak, would be adding rubber tips to our hiking poles so there's some friction while descending. We ended up having to zig zag a bit sideways to get down the steeper rock slab sections.

Finishing the hike in the daylight was wonderful. We went back to the Airbnb, showered and went out to find dinner. There are very few restaurants in the area. The first three we went to, turned us away because we didn't have a reservation. There was about a 90 min wait for each of these restaurants. Finally, we were able to get seated at NewVida that was recommended by all of the other restaurants. Note to self: make a dinner reservation next time we're in the High Peaks Wilderness. Food was fine since we were so hungry, but nothing special.

On our drive back, we stopped in Beacon, NY for the best Nepalese food at Momo Valley. I love their Dal Bhat Masu- Everest Platter. Beacon is also just a great town. A great main street for walking and shopping.

The platter has delicious dal, curry chicken, garlicky spinach, potatoes and beans and a pickled radish

Overall, I think I trained okay for this adventure. I did plenty of stadium stairs with a 10 lb weighted vest. However, my knees did really hurt on the descent of the hike and the next day, stairs were not my friend. I'm now working on strengthening around my knees so that my next mountain adventure might be a bit less painful. I never ran/hiked more than 20 miles per week and did plenty of cross-training, either on Zwift or outside. I do think that Zwift is a better workout, but some days, I just wanted to be outside on the bike. The problem with outdoor biking is that I can barely get into Zone 2 and there's a lot of coasting with just a few small sections of uphill riding. A couple of weeks before, we also did a hard hike up Mount Tammany and out to Sunfish Pond which was about 10 miles with 2,200 ft of vert. Lately, I've been better about warming up before running, so running is feeling easier. Either that, or the new iron supplementation plan is finally working. I'm currently trying to get my ferritin levels up. They are very low in the low 20s and really should be up between 50-70 ng/mL. Climbing several times a week was probably also a good idea, since I rarely use hiking poles. Polling does take some upper body strength. My shoulders were a bit sore the next day, but that was more from the weight of the pack, I think.

I'm definitely hooked on the scenery from those ADK peaks. I wish those mountains were closer. It's about a 5 hour drive for us, which isn't nothing. Realistically, the next time we'll be back up there will probably be next summer. Next up, we have a climbing trip planned for early October in the Gunks. I also just booked a climbing trip at Red Rock Canyon at the end of October. At the moment, I don't have any races on the calendar. I'm enjoying the running club that my friend and I lead on Saturday mornings and my friend is training for a half marathon, so I'll be happy enough getting in some hill workouts with her this fall. I'm also considering going into the city one weekend this fall and finally doing a full lap of Central Park with a friend, after visiting his favorite coffee shop in Manhattan.

I did finally sign up for a dream trip- number one on my bucket list. At the end of February, I'll hopefully be heading to Patagonia for a 7 day running vacation. I'm going as a solo traveler, so I'm hoping to meet some nice folks to run with. The running isn't super strenuous, but I'll still have to be in good shape for it. I think it's something like 55 miles over the 7 days, but there is quite a lot of vert. That's why it's important that I work on getting strong and durable. As I write this post, my hamstrings are pretty sore. The workout class I went to yesterday definitely showed me where I'm weak. Pretty excited for the next few months- probably overall less mileage, but hopefully generally stronger.