randomscooter
09-09-2006, 10:31 AM
Part 1 of 2
JoeCedar and I signed in at the Ausable Club gate at 5:47am and headed up the road. Our goal for the day was to climb nine peaks, Colvin -> Blake -> Nippletop -> Dial -> Dix -> Hough -> South Dix -> East Dix -> Macomb, then exit to Elk Lake. Well before we reached Colvin I was already starting to worry a bit about Joe. On several occasions I noticed him making minor slips and stumbles. Nothing drastic, but the kind of things that might be telltale signs of bigger problems later in the day. On the way out from Colvin came the first biggie. I was just a few paces behind Joe when all of a sudden arms and legs were flying in all directions. As is so often the case it happened too quickly for me to reach the camcorder, and in a matter of a few seconds Joe had comfortably (luckily) landed on his back, head downhill, in the woods beside the trail. In those few seconds my concern escalated from mild to high, but Joe seemed to be totally unscathed by the incident and we continued on down the trail. Another dance move down at the junction with the Nippletop trail didn't ease my concern at all, so I took the lead and set a slower pace towards Nippletop.
Backing up a bit... we had been running a bit behind plan when we arrived on Colvin, so shortly after heading for Blake we dropped our packs and picked up the pace a bit to try and close the gap. We did indeed pick up several minutes, but I began worrying that even this relatively short push early in the day might come back and bite me later. And I had gone without water for a bit longer than I cared. So, although Joe's stumbling was on my mind as we started up Nippletop, I was also trying to nurse my own strength back to normal levels as we made the long 1500 ft climb from the junction up to the summit. Added onto these concerns, as we neared the N'top ridge Joe made mention of a minor pain in his left leg just below the knee. (He said it only hurt on the downhills, so I made a quick but failed attempt at devising an alternate route which would involve only uphills and flats.) Even at our slower pace we only lost a few minutes, and then only a few more minutes on the way over to Dial, and were only about 12 minutes off plan when we began the bushwhack from the N'top-Dial col over to the Dix trail.
A brief digression to talk about "plan". Okay, some folks might think it's a bit over the edge to carry a spreadsheet with intermediate times marked, especially down to the minute. But if you think about it this is a good idea, in fact the itinerary is a prudent and necessary tool when embarking on a very long hike. By monitoring our time with respect to plan we are able to determine whether we should continue on our hike or modify it. On this particular day this information helped us make an important decision. More on that later. Enough serious stuff, back to the trip report...
The bushwhack went "pretty much" as expected. The upper reaches of the ridge were thick and pokey, but opened up below about 3300' elevation. Still, compared to my last time through here in '03, the thickets seemed thicketier, the pokeys seemed pokeyer, the blowdown seemed blowdownyer, and the open woods seemed less so. Correspondingly, the pace seemed slower. But finally we reached the first of five stream crossings in the valley. In quick succession we reached the second, third, and fourth crossings, then were treated to a nice stroll through open birch forest before reaching the stream that runs alongside the Dix trail at around the 2900ft elevation. At this point, as Joe crossed the stream on the rocks, I was "treated" to an encore performance of the flailing arms and legs act. This time it lasted longer, seemingly in slow motion, while I helplessly watched Joe as he unsuccessfully tried to recover then wisely gave up at the last moment to plan his landing amongst the rocks. Amazingly, other than to the pride I'm sure, no injuries were incurred. The trail, only 30 ft away, was quickly reached and Joe tended to emptying debris from his boots while I tried to shore up my own faltering strength with some peanuts and water.
The trail from there up to the Dix Slides isn't steep, but I was feeling it. I had started losing my appetite, and the fuel I was getting down didn't seem to be helping...at least it certainly wasn't eliminating my deepening fatigue. When we reached the slide we sat and took a long break...food, rest, and water. I filtered 4 liters to Joe's 3. This would be enough to get us over the Dix Range. The pb&j sandwiches were still not going down well, but I forced another one, then we headed up the trail. Here is where my butt started getting seriously kicked. My pace was slow, ever so slow. Joe stayed behind, and every time I groaned to get over a particularly large step I heard, or imagined I heard, him chuckling behind me. I tried to refocus my mind to the challenge of accepting and dealing with the pain I was experiencing, and it helped. Sometimes on these long hikes there comes a point where one breaks through the pain threshold, not by backing off but by pushing ahead. I don't know if the brain shuts down the pain receptors or what, but I've reached it only a few times and it's a pretty fine place to be. I wish I could say I reached that state on this hike, but I never did. But at least I was ascending, and after a long haul up a steep and blowdown strewn trail we reached the Dix summit.
Between the bushwhack, the long break at the slide, and the slow ascent of Dix we had fallen drastically behind plan, 56 minutes in fact. Our schedule was backed up tight to darkness as it was, and now we were nearly an hour behind. And I was feeling pretty much totally spent. Joe on the other hand, seemed to be walking with a new found bounce in his step. Either that or he was faking it really well. I thought briefly of asking him if I could take a 10 minute nap, but then I thought better of it after recalling how I badgered him about lollygagging up on Gothics a week ago. I decided instead to float a trial balloon, suggesting to Joe that we could always just bail out down the Beckhorn trail. But Joe didn't seem to hear me, and by coincidence quickly followed my suggestion with one of his own - we could always just skip East Dix. I was spent, but not delirious, so in my mind I quickly translated Joe's suggestion - "skip East Dix" = "climb Hough, South Dix, and Macomb." But, lacking a ready rejoinder, off I went following Joe to the Beckhorn then down the Hough path. Less than 100 ft down the path I made a last feeble attempt at salvaging the situation, suggesting to Joe that it really wouldn't be too difficult still to reclimb the Beckhorn and go down the trail. But once again Joe's ears didn't seem to be attuned to the frequency of my voice and he quickly disappeared around the next bend in the path.
At the Dix-Hough col I informed Joe that he should just go ahead and wait for me at the summit. I told him I wanted to go a bit slower. I didn't want him to know my real reason...I was concerned that all his bouncing around and jumping over blowdowns might be a sign of delirium, and figured that waiting on the summit for me would give him some extra time to rest. When I reached the Hough summit, even further behind plan, Joe was sitting there looking fresh as ever, but I decided that he might be faking it so I sat down and washed down another disgusting pb&j sandwich with lots of water. It wasn't that I needed the food or water, of course not. I just wanted to make sure Joe had plenty of time to rest before we continued. As added encouragement and to help revive his spirits, I remarked "I came up here to climb nine mountains today, not eight." I didn't elaborate, but I secretly hoped that Joe would take that as a sign that I was taking a position against his plan of skipping East Dix.
The trip over to Pough then on to South Dix went without major incident. As before I hung back on the uphills to give Joe a chance to recover while he waited for me on the summits. He didn't seem to have caught on to my ploy, which was just as well. I still would need to use it on Macomb and, heaven forbid, East Dix. On the summit of South Dix the gods finally looked down kindly upon me. Joe turned to me and said, "I think it's probably best if we just skip East Dix and head for Macomb." I briefly considered laying the guilt trip on him for failing me at this late hour of the game, but decided he might actually call my bluff. I just couldn't risk it. "Okay Joe, I'm glad you had the courage to admit you don't have the stuff today. We'll head out. Afterall this IS a team effort." So, now you know how we suddenly went from being 1h22m behind plan to just 7 minutes behind. Excel to the rescue!
(continued)
JoeCedar and I signed in at the Ausable Club gate at 5:47am and headed up the road. Our goal for the day was to climb nine peaks, Colvin -> Blake -> Nippletop -> Dial -> Dix -> Hough -> South Dix -> East Dix -> Macomb, then exit to Elk Lake. Well before we reached Colvin I was already starting to worry a bit about Joe. On several occasions I noticed him making minor slips and stumbles. Nothing drastic, but the kind of things that might be telltale signs of bigger problems later in the day. On the way out from Colvin came the first biggie. I was just a few paces behind Joe when all of a sudden arms and legs were flying in all directions. As is so often the case it happened too quickly for me to reach the camcorder, and in a matter of a few seconds Joe had comfortably (luckily) landed on his back, head downhill, in the woods beside the trail. In those few seconds my concern escalated from mild to high, but Joe seemed to be totally unscathed by the incident and we continued on down the trail. Another dance move down at the junction with the Nippletop trail didn't ease my concern at all, so I took the lead and set a slower pace towards Nippletop.
Backing up a bit... we had been running a bit behind plan when we arrived on Colvin, so shortly after heading for Blake we dropped our packs and picked up the pace a bit to try and close the gap. We did indeed pick up several minutes, but I began worrying that even this relatively short push early in the day might come back and bite me later. And I had gone without water for a bit longer than I cared. So, although Joe's stumbling was on my mind as we started up Nippletop, I was also trying to nurse my own strength back to normal levels as we made the long 1500 ft climb from the junction up to the summit. Added onto these concerns, as we neared the N'top ridge Joe made mention of a minor pain in his left leg just below the knee. (He said it only hurt on the downhills, so I made a quick but failed attempt at devising an alternate route which would involve only uphills and flats.) Even at our slower pace we only lost a few minutes, and then only a few more minutes on the way over to Dial, and were only about 12 minutes off plan when we began the bushwhack from the N'top-Dial col over to the Dix trail.
A brief digression to talk about "plan". Okay, some folks might think it's a bit over the edge to carry a spreadsheet with intermediate times marked, especially down to the minute. But if you think about it this is a good idea, in fact the itinerary is a prudent and necessary tool when embarking on a very long hike. By monitoring our time with respect to plan we are able to determine whether we should continue on our hike or modify it. On this particular day this information helped us make an important decision. More on that later. Enough serious stuff, back to the trip report...
The bushwhack went "pretty much" as expected. The upper reaches of the ridge were thick and pokey, but opened up below about 3300' elevation. Still, compared to my last time through here in '03, the thickets seemed thicketier, the pokeys seemed pokeyer, the blowdown seemed blowdownyer, and the open woods seemed less so. Correspondingly, the pace seemed slower. But finally we reached the first of five stream crossings in the valley. In quick succession we reached the second, third, and fourth crossings, then were treated to a nice stroll through open birch forest before reaching the stream that runs alongside the Dix trail at around the 2900ft elevation. At this point, as Joe crossed the stream on the rocks, I was "treated" to an encore performance of the flailing arms and legs act. This time it lasted longer, seemingly in slow motion, while I helplessly watched Joe as he unsuccessfully tried to recover then wisely gave up at the last moment to plan his landing amongst the rocks. Amazingly, other than to the pride I'm sure, no injuries were incurred. The trail, only 30 ft away, was quickly reached and Joe tended to emptying debris from his boots while I tried to shore up my own faltering strength with some peanuts and water.
The trail from there up to the Dix Slides isn't steep, but I was feeling it. I had started losing my appetite, and the fuel I was getting down didn't seem to be helping...at least it certainly wasn't eliminating my deepening fatigue. When we reached the slide we sat and took a long break...food, rest, and water. I filtered 4 liters to Joe's 3. This would be enough to get us over the Dix Range. The pb&j sandwiches were still not going down well, but I forced another one, then we headed up the trail. Here is where my butt started getting seriously kicked. My pace was slow, ever so slow. Joe stayed behind, and every time I groaned to get over a particularly large step I heard, or imagined I heard, him chuckling behind me. I tried to refocus my mind to the challenge of accepting and dealing with the pain I was experiencing, and it helped. Sometimes on these long hikes there comes a point where one breaks through the pain threshold, not by backing off but by pushing ahead. I don't know if the brain shuts down the pain receptors or what, but I've reached it only a few times and it's a pretty fine place to be. I wish I could say I reached that state on this hike, but I never did. But at least I was ascending, and after a long haul up a steep and blowdown strewn trail we reached the Dix summit.
Between the bushwhack, the long break at the slide, and the slow ascent of Dix we had fallen drastically behind plan, 56 minutes in fact. Our schedule was backed up tight to darkness as it was, and now we were nearly an hour behind. And I was feeling pretty much totally spent. Joe on the other hand, seemed to be walking with a new found bounce in his step. Either that or he was faking it really well. I thought briefly of asking him if I could take a 10 minute nap, but then I thought better of it after recalling how I badgered him about lollygagging up on Gothics a week ago. I decided instead to float a trial balloon, suggesting to Joe that we could always just bail out down the Beckhorn trail. But Joe didn't seem to hear me, and by coincidence quickly followed my suggestion with one of his own - we could always just skip East Dix. I was spent, but not delirious, so in my mind I quickly translated Joe's suggestion - "skip East Dix" = "climb Hough, South Dix, and Macomb." But, lacking a ready rejoinder, off I went following Joe to the Beckhorn then down the Hough path. Less than 100 ft down the path I made a last feeble attempt at salvaging the situation, suggesting to Joe that it really wouldn't be too difficult still to reclimb the Beckhorn and go down the trail. But once again Joe's ears didn't seem to be attuned to the frequency of my voice and he quickly disappeared around the next bend in the path.
At the Dix-Hough col I informed Joe that he should just go ahead and wait for me at the summit. I told him I wanted to go a bit slower. I didn't want him to know my real reason...I was concerned that all his bouncing around and jumping over blowdowns might be a sign of delirium, and figured that waiting on the summit for me would give him some extra time to rest. When I reached the Hough summit, even further behind plan, Joe was sitting there looking fresh as ever, but I decided that he might be faking it so I sat down and washed down another disgusting pb&j sandwich with lots of water. It wasn't that I needed the food or water, of course not. I just wanted to make sure Joe had plenty of time to rest before we continued. As added encouragement and to help revive his spirits, I remarked "I came up here to climb nine mountains today, not eight." I didn't elaborate, but I secretly hoped that Joe would take that as a sign that I was taking a position against his plan of skipping East Dix.
The trip over to Pough then on to South Dix went without major incident. As before I hung back on the uphills to give Joe a chance to recover while he waited for me on the summits. He didn't seem to have caught on to my ploy, which was just as well. I still would need to use it on Macomb and, heaven forbid, East Dix. On the summit of South Dix the gods finally looked down kindly upon me. Joe turned to me and said, "I think it's probably best if we just skip East Dix and head for Macomb." I briefly considered laying the guilt trip on him for failing me at this late hour of the game, but decided he might actually call my bluff. I just couldn't risk it. "Okay Joe, I'm glad you had the courage to admit you don't have the stuff today. We'll head out. Afterall this IS a team effort." So, now you know how we suddenly went from being 1h22m behind plan to just 7 minutes behind. Excel to the rescue!
(continued)