Mt. Marcy

On Friday, April 10, I flew to NY to see my family for Easter. I wasn't expecting food on either flight, so I brought my own, but they did serve what seemed like a decent lunch on the Houston to NY flight. My dad picked me up at LaGuardia and not that long after we got to my parents' house, they hosted a dinner party for our whole family- including my sister, her husband and their daughter- plus the whole clan of longtime friends, including two more young girls. It was a nice, informal meal, and it was good to catch up with an old friend I hadn't seen in several years.

Saturday we drove up to our friends' place upstate where we usually go for Thanksgiving. After lunch and my sister and niece showed up, they went into town to do some shopping while I went for a little hike up a hill that makes a valley in which the house sits. I first waded across the cold stream in borrowed waders, getting ever so slightly wet, then started up a marked trail. Once I got to the top of that trail and to a clearing, I continued straight up the rest of the hill toward the crest. There was no marked trail, and I had to go through a lot of brambles. I didn't go as far as the absolute crest, just to where it leveled off and there was a rock wall. I made my way down pretty haphazardly, with a vague bearing of the other side of the property. Once I hacked my way back through the brambles I made it back to the meadows and then back to the creek. Later on, just for a little more exercise, I ran up the hill on the other side of the house up to an outbuilding and back.

Sunday my mother and I "hid" Easter eggs in plain sight for my niece to find. After she finally got up and had breakfast, we all bundled up against the sub-freezing morning to help her find and collect them all. We had a delicious ham dinner with all the fixings at noontime, and then by 2 pm we all headed off in different directions. My parents and sister went back to their homes, while I drove north to Lake Placid, where I had made arrangements for the evening to be near the base of Mt. Marcy for an early ascent on Monday. After checking in, I went to one of the two brewpubs in town, the one in town with the fancier menu. Because I didn't feel like spending more than $20 for a dish, I only had an appetizer and two of their beers while watching the end of the Masters tournament with some actual golf fans. I went from there to the other brewpub, sampled some of their beer and ate a bit of their much cheaper food. Somewhat fortunately, that place closed at 9, so it all but forced me to go back to my hotel and turn in early.

When I woke up at 6 am Monday I kind of regretted having even as many beers as I had consumed. I got some breakfast at McDonald's and headed to the trailhead. By the time I ate my breakfast, got all my layers on, and strapped my trekking poles and the snowshoes I'd rented the previous evening to my pack, it was about 7:30. It only took a few steps to regret the way I'd very loosely strapped the snowshoes on, as they were swinging about and being a nuisance. Even though it was only about 18 degrees out, after 15 minutes I was already starting to sweat, so I stopped to relash the snowshoes and take off my hat. I trudged on over the frozen ground until I got to Marcy Dam and stopped to eat a couple of my mom's cookies. It was still cold enough out that when I lowered my hood, my sweaty hair would freeze. I signed in at the second register, then started up toward Marcy, the peak still more than 3000' vertically above. There started to be patches of snow and ice at that point, but crunchy and not very slick, so I didn't need the snowshoes. I was kind of concerned when I came to a stream crossing without a bridge. When I was halfway across but unsure of how to cross the second half, I saw what almost seemed an apparition of three young women on the far bank. As I later found out, there was a "high water" bridge downstream I'd unwittingly passed. It was about then that I remembered my poles, and used them to stabilize me as I crossed the icy rocks. I slid just before getting to the far bank, but fortunately didn't get my socks wet thanks to the gaiters built into my shell pants. I passed the women when they stopped for whatever reason, but it wasn't long before they were right on my heels and I stepped aside to let them pass, and I didn't see them again until above tree line. When it was starting to get more snowy than rocky, I took another break near where the Phelps trail splits off and put on the snowshoes. After I got a little further, the trail was solid snow, no rocks poking out any more. When I got to a steep section, I used the ascender feature of the snowshoes to help out, keeping my foot from having to go all the way down to the plane of the shoe/slope. The only problem was that for a while the trail couldn't make up its mind whether it wanted to be steep or flattish, so I had to keep taking down and putting up the ascenders, since they make walking weird on flat or vaguely downhill portions. I did, however, manage to get pretty good at doing so. The sun was really nice and bright all day, a welcome change from the snow showers I arrived in the area to. The main problem that caused, however, was that since I forgot to bring sun screen with me, I wound up sunburned at the end of the day. The other problem was my eyes. My limited use of my "glacier glasses" had shown them to a) fog up very easily and b) get uncomfortable after long use. I didn't really need them until I started getting pretty high in elevation and the trees started thinning out. I finally put the glasses on near tree line, and sure enough they fogged up immediately and pretty much stayed fogged up until above tree line where the howling winds kept them mostly fog-free. I had brought along my mountaineering boots, expecting to change into them when I put on the snowshoes, but didn't since my feet were quite warm at that point. Above tree line, I wished I had changed at some point, but it was too late by then. My feet weren't really that cold, but they were a bit wet from having been covered in snow for hours and with the wind I could definitely feel the cold. The good part was that only about the last 300' vertical was completely above tree level, so the exposure time was not that severe. I don't know if it was because they were using crampons, but the women I had seen earlier slowed way down above tree line and I caught up to them as they were standing at the summit, which was perfect timing. I took a couple of pictures of them, and they took a couple of pictures of me, then I took a few of the view and such, then started heading back down, at about 12:30. At that point I was feeling a bit tired, but definitely like I had accomplished something, and was feeling pretty good. Well below tree line, I plopped down on the side of the trail to have some lunch. I ate a few cookies and a quarter of a ham sandwich before I got up and got moving again. It wasn't very long after that, however, that I started feeling spent. My knees were getting sore and it was taking a lot longer to descend than I had anticipated. I met a guy on his way up, on skis, which seemed completely insane. By the time I got back down to Marcy Dam, only about halfway, I felt totally spent and took my pack off for a longer break. I had some more cookies and ham sandwich, changed my socks, took off my fleece shirt, and reluctantly trudged on. From that point the ground that had been frozen in the morning was now mud, which I dislike on the best of days. After a couple of miles I was whimpering and whining to myself with practically every step. I was hoping for some motorized vehicle to miraculously pick me up and deliver me to my car. No such thing happened, of course, and I slowly ground on, being passed by several other people who had obviously not been to the summit. Finally, finally, just past 6pm, I arrived at the trailhead and dumped and disrobed my gear. The rental guy was just about to lock up and leave, but I was glad he came out and took the snowshoes from me. Then began the next ordeal, driving four hours back to my parents' house. I stopped just down the road in Keene for some much needed quick human fuel of peanut M&Ms and the Dr Pepper I'd been craving all day. At 8 I was starting to fade pretty badly, so I pulled over to a rest stop, but as soon as I closed my eyes my mind started up, so I got another Dr Pepper and kept on down the road. At 9 I was fading again, and pulled into another rest area, and what seemed like seconds after closing my eyes, it was past 10 and I was sufficiently refreshed to make it the rest of the way. I got in about 11:30 and went straight to bed, despite really needing a shower after sweating out 6,000 calories.

Tuesday I went with my mom in the morning to a beautiful private garden where she did some weeding with fellow Master Gardeners while I walked around. After a little snack and a chance to meet the 93 year old woman who lives there, we went back to the house to do some more gardening. I did some touch up work on rocks and then some cleanup in the thyme, before going inside to look at their deathly slow computer. For dinner, we went to a nice seafood restaurant in town.

Wednesday, I gathered my things and got on a commuter train to Grand Central Station, then a subway to Penn Station, then a 9-hour train ride to Pittsburgh.

Hiking the Rock

Saturday I did a pre-ride for a chapter ride later this month to Enchanted Rock State Natural Area. I had to find a new sweep road captain during the week, after the original one had to drop out. He and I met about 9 am and went for a really pleasant ride. It was a nice and sunny day, it started off cool but I was getting warm under my jacket as the day warmed up. I wasn't particularly surprised at the lack of wildflowers in the Hill Country, considering how dry it's been the last several months, but I was hoping it would be better than it was. I don't think I saw any bluebonnets along the Willow City Loop, and it was probably the only time I've ridden it without going through any low water crossings. When we got to the park, Bruce went back home and I parked to go for a hike. There were a lot of people there already and still streaming in by the carload. I bought a Dr Pepper from a concession stand and sat down at a picnic table and ate the PBJs I'd brought with me. After lunch I started hiking up the rock, initially at much too quick of a pace. After 10 minutes I was panting and sweating and had to stop and take a drink of water. I continued up to the summit pretty quickly again and had to stop a couple more times before I got to the top. I finally slowed down near the top and enjoyed the view, even though it was full of people. I wandered toward the back side, being careful not to fall off the more sheer side popular with rock climbers. I found a hard-to-get-to shaded spot and sat down for a little while and read the paper. From there I made my way down the side of the rock, having to deviate from the direct route to avoid potentially bone-snapping boulder fields. I got down to the valley and headed further back into the park, pretty much wandering among the many trails attempting to circumnavigate Enchanted Rock. It got pretty hot in the afternoon, especially since I was still wearing jeans. I dunked my head in a stream I came across for some relief. When I got back near the road, I cooled off again from a faucet that had water colder than my water bottle. When I got moving again on the bike, I cooled off pretty quickly and had a pleasant ride back into town. Back home, I watched some TV before going over to hang out with Jimmy around 7. We went over to his son's place for some BBQ and to see his various project vehicles. A bunch of his friends were over so of course there was a lot of beer drinking and lie telling.

I had ambitions of actually doing something Sunday morning, but wound up lazing about until about 10:30 when I went into the garage to try to adjust the shifter rod on my Night Train and found that it was already as short as it gets. I rode over to the Harley shop to stage up for the Peace, Love and Happiness ride. It was a lot cooler than Saturday and very windy, which probably limited the turnout. There were over 100 bikes nonetheless, and it made for a pretty impressive stretch of motorcycles going down the road once we got started. Police escorted rides like that are fun to do mainly for being able to blow through intersections, though they tend to go on the slow side. I barely got above third gear for the first half and only got into fifth for a few short stretches on the second half. When we got parked at the Backyard, most people went in to see the concert, but I went with a couple of road captains to lunch elsewhere. I finally managed to do something productive after loafing a bit after getting home from lunch, and mowed my front lawn. Since I don't have much of any real grass at the moment, I just used my weed whacker to knock down the crabgrass and other weedy crap. I watched TV and started packing for my trip back east in the evening.

Cool, Sunny Drags

I got some workouts in last week, but I felt fat and sluggish. I did stairs Monday, Wednesday and Friday; and on Tuesday my Night Train was finished getting new forward controls, so I picked it up and then rode my bicycle over to the shop to get my car. I wouldn't consider the six mile ride an intense workout, but it was enough to break a sweat. On Friday I finally managed to watch the finale of Battlestar Galactica. I had mixed thoughts about it, but at least it was a definitive ending, not some ambiguous cop-out or launch pad for a movie or spinoff (Caprica notwithstanding).

When I woke up Saturday morning, the heater was running, so I knew it had to be cold outside. I left wearing a lot more gear than I was expecting to, but I should have had more. I wore my chaps, but just my mid-weight jacket and gloves. I would have been better with my leather jacket, but I really wished I had worn my heavy gauntlet gloves. When I stopped for gas in Sealy, my hands were so cold I could barely operate my zipper or buttons. I toughed it out, and made it to Baytown at 11, when I hit heavy race traffic. I sat there waiting in it, rather than being a dick and going around and squeezing in at the last second. It took more than an hour to go the last mile. It did allow me to warm up some, but it was really windy, so I was still bundled up and a bit chilled. Since the traffic was moving some, albeit very slowly, I couldn't get to my lunch or do anything useful. Once I finally got parked some time after noon, I then had to wait in line for ages to get tickets. Somehow I managed to get in the slowest line, and it was 1 o'clock by the time I finally got through the gate. I had missed the entirety of the third qualifying session of pro stock and top fuel, and got a seat in the grandstand in the midst of funny car qualifying. I stayed on the spectator side for alcohol and sportsman racing, mostly in the stands, but also wandering a little bit. Because I foolishly decided to sit near the top of the stands, where the wind was the worst, I never really warmed up, and seeing people walking around in shorts and short sleeve shirts didn't help. After the final pro qualifying, I went over to the pits. I wandered around for about an hour, checking out the work and picking up driver "hero" cards. Around 6:30 I was hungry so I left the track (which fortunately didn't take long) and went into Baytown for dinner at Outback. It was on the early side when I got there, so it was kind of dead. I had dinner and stuck around for a while. As I was getting ready to leave, a guy wearing a team shirt sat down next to me. I asked him about it, and it turned out he was rookie driver Matt Hagan. I chatted with him for a little while before I left and went to check into my hotel a few miles down the road. I stayed at the Holiday Inn, and when I checked in about 9:30 I could hear karaoke going on in the bar. I got my stuff into my room, and then went down to check out the bar. It wasn't such a bad place, so I stuck around for a while, and even did one karaoke song. It was about midnight when I went to sleep.

I woke up briefly at 6 Sunday morning, but went back to sleep until 7. I packed up, checked out, and headed back toward the track. I stopped for gas, a soda and some McDonald's to go, and continued on to the track. Traffic was fortunately quite light since it was still early. I parked and sat there eating my breakfast before going in and back to the pits. I wandered around for a while, checking out the preparations for raceday. About 10:30 I went back to the grandstands to get a seat for the last of pre-race stuff before the first engines fired at 11. The second pair out, Urs Erbacher had a massive engine explosion. It was so spectacular it was almost worth the half hour plus of cleanup. Another oildown in funny car caused another delay, and it was after 1 by the time the first round of pro eliminations was over. I ran to the bike to get my lunch afterward. I should have put on more sun screen, as it turns out, since I'm pretty red in the face today. I got a drink and went back to the grandstand to eat lunch and watch some sportsman racing before the second round of professionals. After the second round was over, I went into the pits, then back to the grandstand for the semifinals, back to the pits, watched final round, and then went to check out the winning cars in the staging lanes. I was pretty tired after all the standing and walking, and then I had to get on the bike and ride home. I left just wearing a t-shirt, anticipating getting overheated from a long delay to get out of the parking lot. Fortunately traffic moved, and it only took about 20 minutes to get to the interstate. I was a little on the cool side, but I didn't want to stop, so I kept on going, until the sun was getting pretty low and it really started cooling off. It was pretty hard to see, heading west, straight into the sun, but I certainly didn't let that hold me to the posted speed limit. After getting gas, a drink, and a snack, I put on my jacket and my clears and continued home, getting in about 9:45. I leafed through the paper a little before going to bed, exhausted.

Shreveport

I woke up at 4 Saturday morning. I tried to get back to sleep for a while, but at 5 I got up and went downstairs to watch TV. It was then that I found out my crappy DVR hadn't recorded the finale of Battlestar Galactica. I hadn't noticed earlier because I'd been over at Jimmy's Friday night and didn't turn the TV on when I got home. I was pretty pissed. I watched other stuff for a while, then had breakfast and finished getting ready for my short trip to Shreveport/Bossier City. I left the house about 8, waiting for the sun to come up and start warming things up. I realized I had forgotten something half a block from the house, but waited until I got gas to check if I had indeed forgotten it to go back home and get it. After running back into the house I was finally actually under way at about 8:30. It was a pretty uneventful ride. The day warmed up as I went on, but not so much I had to take my jacket off, just open the vents. I got to the Shreveport convention center about 2, got a photographer to take my picture in front of the ABCs sign, and then parked. The downtown area looked pretty boring, and the HOG rally looked pretty much like every other one. I would have walked through the vendor area, but it was only for registered rallygoers, and was certainly not worth my $40. I looked for a place to have lunch on my phone, and decided on what turned out to be a glorified open-air shopping mall with a few midscale restaurants. I was going to eat at Saltgrass, but it was too crowded and I ate at Hooters. After lunch I went and checked into my hotel, which required going through a stupid traffic bottleneck. I laid down for a little while, talked to my parents, and then went riding again, stashing my jacket in my bag still on the bike. It was about 4 at that point, and instead of trying to go to both Harley shops, I just went to the Bossier City one, bought a t-shirt, and continued east toward the state highpoint. The access to the highpoint was from a church parking lot about 10 miles from the highway. The actual highpoint was further from the parking lot than I would have expected, about 0.8 miles one way. I set out at a good pace and got to the highpoint, marked by a bench and a signpost in a clearing in the woods. I set my camera on the bench to get a couple of pictures of myself standing next to the sign. I looked around a little bit, then headed back to my bike. I passed three college-age-looking people going the other way. I was pretty disappointed with how sweaty I was when I got back to the bike. I thought at this point I'd be in good enough hiking shape not to be phased by an easy mile and a half in less than an hour. I blame it on the heat and humidity. Getting back in the wind cooled me off quickly. When I got back to Shreveport, I went in search of a brewpub that Google showed, but definitely doesn't exist, as far as I can tell. I went back to the same mall to try Saltgrass again, but was again denied. I decided to go to Joe's Crab Shack for dinner, a decision I almost went back on a couple of times before I actually ordered a beer. After I was sitting there for a while, a woman came up and for no reason I could discern, moved a stool over right next to mine, so that she was almost in my lap. At first I thought she had a speech impediment, but after a few minutes I was pretty convinced it was just that she was drunk. We talked a bit, but mostly I was trying to focus on reading stuff on the internet. I had shrimp for dinner, which was okay but not great. It would have been a lot better deveined, since the ones I didn't devein myself were gritty. I got back to my dive of a motel about 10, and pretty soon thereafter fell asleep reading the newspaper.

I didn't sleep well, I woke up every hour from 4 to 7, but still felt reasonably rested. I ate a waffle at the lackluster continental breakfast, packed up and was on the road a little after 8. The ride home took a lot longer than I was anticipating, as it was a lot more circuitous than the ride out (and ~70 miles longer). I stopped a few times for some ABCs pictures. The ride through Texas took me through 5 new counties- Sabine, San Augustine, Polk, Trinity, and Walker. It also added one Louisiana Parish, Sabine. One stretch of road toward the end- TX 21 from Bryan to Bastrop- was pretty treacherous, since it was a high-speed 4-lane undivided highway with moderate traffic, made all the worse by strong winds. I got home about 4:45 and collapsed on the floor and watched TV for over an hour, then went over to Jimmy's for dinner. I got back home about 10 and fell asleep in front of the TV.

Back to Bicycling

After work on Wednesday I did some stair climbing in the office building. I did less than before surgery, only 5 times up and down in 20 minutes with no added weight. I went to Jimmy's for dinner and as usual we stayed up too late telling lies. I rode the Night Train in to work on Thursday and went to bike night at Twin Peaks afterward. I rode in to work again on Friday and went downtown afterward and saw Spike and Mike at the Alamo. I liked it, but it wasn't as outrageous or absurdly funny as some years past. The audience wasn't all that rowdy either. There was one French piece that had a written joke (in French) that I was probably one of the only ones to get. I went home straight after the show and watched TV, then went to sleep.

I woke up at 4 Saturday morning. I read until I finished my book at 5, and fortunately I was able to get back to sleep. I didn't sleep very well, I woke up several times, but it was better than nothing. I got out of bed about 7:30, and did my usual puttering until about 10 when I went for a bicycle ride. I rode to Alamo Lamar to see Watchmen, and when I got there at 10:50 for the 11:30 show there was a line of people waiting to get in. The line got moving pretty soon after I got there and managed to get a decent seat. I really enjoyed the movie, even having never read the comic. It was long, especially since my bladder was pretty full for the second half. I thought a couple of the actors' performances were not as good as others', but not completely distracting. After the movie I rode to REI to pick up a backpack and pants I'd ordered online. I put the backpack I already had and the shell pants into the new enormous 83L pack and headed home after a quick stop in BookPeople. I stopped for a cookie and Dr Pepper on the way, and was pretty well spent by the time I got home. I watched some TV and a DVD and went to bed.

I thought about it, but didn't wind up doing anything productive Sunday morning. Around 12:30 I rode over to the dealership for a chapter photo. I don't think I would have known about it other than being told in the Road Captains meeting, and apparently a lot of members were the same way, since not that many general members showed up. After group photos the took photos of the officers and road captains on their bikes. Afterward a lot of people headed to either the Roadhouse or Twin Peaks. I went to Twin Peaks along with Dave and Troy and a couple of other guys. There were a number of members there sitting at a long table. We sat at a table next to them, drank some beer and ate some food. Dave and Troy invited me to join them for a beer at a place near the property they both live on. That place turned out to be closed, so we went over to "the compound." After hanging out for a while, Dave decided to get on his tractor and play around with a pile of broken asphalt. I decided to help out and get a bit of a workout by breaking up the asphalt with a sledgehammer. That didn't last all that long since I started getting blisters almost immediately. I stayed longer than I probably should have, the time change making it not feel as late as it was. I left after 7 and the sun was starting to go down. I fell asleep watching TV about 10, but got up and went to bed. I woke up at 12:30 overheated and sweating. I got up and turned the fan on and eventually went back to sleep.