mirabela
07-25-2007, 01:56 PM
It didn't help that it was near 10 am before I left my truck at South Meadows. Made good time up to the Tabletop (#32) herd path. I thought this mountain was a pleasant hike -- not one I would necessarily repeat, but the views from the herd path are decent, and there's a nice little vantage just beyond the summit with an interesting perspective on Marcy and Haystack. The only drawback was some previous peakbagger took a dump and left it & a flower of TP right in the middle of the path, practically on the summit. Grrr.
It was a nice day to be on Marcy.
Skylight is always Skylight. It is pretty much my favorite spot on Earth. Yesterday did not disappoint. What a view! What a serene, removed spot! I have found since I was a teenager that a visit there is good for restoring clarity and perspective.
Gray (#33) was the surprise of the day for me. By the time I summited a cloud had descended and there was no view; that isn't the surprise. The climb was quite a bit more rugged than I expected. I am not sure where my expectations came from, but I had anticipated sort of a cakewalk from Lake Tear, and what I found was some dicey wet scrambling in a few spots and a whole lot of steep root ladders and mud. Still, nice to be out ...
But by the time I left the summit of Gray, it was well past 5 PM ...
I bombed down Feldspar / Opalescent & had a sort of long dinner snack over that great big flume 3/4 mile above Lake Colden, then really started trucking.
I had an encounter with a REALLY MENACING BEAR in the deep twilight near the north end of Lake Colden. I was moving quickly and quietly, and I surprised it in the path at a range of about fifty feet. It wuffed and huffed and got into the woods -- and came closer. I backed off and yelled and banged my sticks like you are supposed to do, but the more I backed away, the closer it came. After a while I sort of flanked it along the lake shore, and when I was convinced I had gotten around it I continued on my way. This was really scary, as it was a big bear, real close, and in the near dark I had no way to know if there were cubs around or an animal carcass or anything else, or which direction constituted moving closer to or further away from what would annoy it. The bears around there have been legendarily bold for decades; I was plenty afraid.
I surprised ANOTHER BEAR in the narrow confines of Avalanche Pass. At this point it was so dark I was picking my way along mostly by shadows, and I heard it more than I saw it. I put on my headlamp, and there were its two eyes, a foot apart in its head, watching me from fifteen yards off in the blowdown. Yikes! Got past that one too, and made a holy racket with my sticks and whistling pretty much the rest of the way down to, and past, Marcy Dam.
I got back to my truck exhausted and sore at about 11 PM -- and rolled into East Hardwick, VT, twenty-three hours after leaving.
Long day!
It was a nice day to be on Marcy.
Skylight is always Skylight. It is pretty much my favorite spot on Earth. Yesterday did not disappoint. What a view! What a serene, removed spot! I have found since I was a teenager that a visit there is good for restoring clarity and perspective.
Gray (#33) was the surprise of the day for me. By the time I summited a cloud had descended and there was no view; that isn't the surprise. The climb was quite a bit more rugged than I expected. I am not sure where my expectations came from, but I had anticipated sort of a cakewalk from Lake Tear, and what I found was some dicey wet scrambling in a few spots and a whole lot of steep root ladders and mud. Still, nice to be out ...
But by the time I left the summit of Gray, it was well past 5 PM ...
I bombed down Feldspar / Opalescent & had a sort of long dinner snack over that great big flume 3/4 mile above Lake Colden, then really started trucking.
I had an encounter with a REALLY MENACING BEAR in the deep twilight near the north end of Lake Colden. I was moving quickly and quietly, and I surprised it in the path at a range of about fifty feet. It wuffed and huffed and got into the woods -- and came closer. I backed off and yelled and banged my sticks like you are supposed to do, but the more I backed away, the closer it came. After a while I sort of flanked it along the lake shore, and when I was convinced I had gotten around it I continued on my way. This was really scary, as it was a big bear, real close, and in the near dark I had no way to know if there were cubs around or an animal carcass or anything else, or which direction constituted moving closer to or further away from what would annoy it. The bears around there have been legendarily bold for decades; I was plenty afraid.
I surprised ANOTHER BEAR in the narrow confines of Avalanche Pass. At this point it was so dark I was picking my way along mostly by shadows, and I heard it more than I saw it. I put on my headlamp, and there were its two eyes, a foot apart in its head, watching me from fifteen yards off in the blowdown. Yikes! Got past that one too, and made a holy racket with my sticks and whistling pretty much the rest of the way down to, and past, Marcy Dam.
I got back to my truck exhausted and sore at about 11 PM -- and rolled into East Hardwick, VT, twenty-three hours after leaving.
Long day!