What did the bushwhacker get on his IQ test?
Drool.
Bushwhacking is a fine sport. You can spend hours walking hunched over which brings you into touch with your primitive hominid ancestry. Getting slapped in the face and poked in the eyes by stiletto branches adds to the experience that some people prefer never to repeat. You can spend half a day not really knowing where you are and wondering if you will ever make it out. Views are far and few between. Doing it alone adds mental tension and your mind goes all over the place but doesn’t ever get anywhere. It’s a completely useless activity and has no salient features at all.
At least there is a list of peaks recognized by your peers so by ascending these knolls and bumps you don’t feel utterly useless in your insignificant pursuits. You can compare notes and swap photos over the internet with your fellow enthusiast. This list, the ADK-Hundred Highest, is in reality less than 40 peaks that lead the bushwhacker into a state of drooling, primitive hominid-ism and masochistic self-lacerative behaviour.
Well, yesterday I dished myself up a nice dose of bushwhacking but to add to the uselessness of it I did a peak that is not on any list, not even the 777 list. This “peak” stands tall at 4300 feet but shall be forever shunned by the bushwhacking and hiking community because it lacks something that only exists conceptually: col depth.
The ridge, which is nameless, is shaped like a boomerang. I got onto its south-western extremity by descending the Lake-Arnold-Feldspar trail for 20 minutes or so and then I crossed the Opalescent and headed due east for 5 minutes. After that it was one bearing of approx. 60 magnetic and the law of up while keeping track of time and noting my spatial relationship with Mt. Colden whose slides stood out like beacons. When I began to see blue sky through the trees I knew I was close to the top and I began wandering around looking for high spots to the north and views to the south. I clambered atop a big rock and determined my geometric relationship with Gray, which enabled me to position myself on the map just as accurately as with a GPS. As I proceeded I aimed my compass on several occasions towards Gray (not bothering to be precise but eye-balling the angle between the arrow and the white end of the needle). This primitive evaluative technique enabled me to determine that I was making progress towards my goal: the Van Ho trail.
This summit is not even a summit, it’s a ridge with a highest point to which I have already been once before. I crossed this ridge while traveling north to south and ever since that momentous crossing I have harbored a primitive yearning to bushwhack it end to end. The southern exposure is extremely gnarly with a great many dead and exceptionally resistant and pokey trees leaning over at a 45 degree angle. Underfoot there are older tree trunks criss-crossed pell-mell and among it all there is a lawn of crowded young balsams. Even I know enough to avoid such conditions. But, just for fun, and because I had unique and inspiring views of the north-west side of Marcy, I attempted traveling across the grain of this mish-mash. It was hopeless so I baled north with the grain and found myself in delightfully open woods and thick cushiony moss of beautiful colors. I probed the southern exposure on numerous occasions as I wandered about the flat summit of the ridge looking alternatively for high points and views.
Gradually, a bearing of 105 magnetic began to lead me downhill so I switched to 160 which kept me atop the ridge for another half hour or so and then I gradually dropped into a small col. Between me and Little Marcy lay a rising ridge that I planned on ascending until I intersected the Van Ho. However, the woods became very gnarly and choked with blowdown so I deviated north around the impedimenta only to obstinately attempt to re-gain this nondescript ridge. It was no-go so I side-hilled my way uphill until I saw some old deadfall that had been sawed through years ago. I supposed this was an old trail such as is marked on my version of the quad. Soon I heard voices and then I stood on the Van Ho, shook the spruce needles off my person and my pack, changed into a short-sleeved shirt and went to the top of Marcy, which I had to myself. From Marcy it took me 2h 45 minutes of hard hiking to get back to the Loj. I found the Van Ho to be a tough trail to descend when not under several feet of packed snow.
The title of this report is meaningless but I found it catchy.
Drool.
Bushwhacking is a fine sport. You can spend hours walking hunched over which brings you into touch with your primitive hominid ancestry. Getting slapped in the face and poked in the eyes by stiletto branches adds to the experience that some people prefer never to repeat. You can spend half a day not really knowing where you are and wondering if you will ever make it out. Views are far and few between. Doing it alone adds mental tension and your mind goes all over the place but doesn’t ever get anywhere. It’s a completely useless activity and has no salient features at all.
At least there is a list of peaks recognized by your peers so by ascending these knolls and bumps you don’t feel utterly useless in your insignificant pursuits. You can compare notes and swap photos over the internet with your fellow enthusiast. This list, the ADK-Hundred Highest, is in reality less than 40 peaks that lead the bushwhacker into a state of drooling, primitive hominid-ism and masochistic self-lacerative behaviour.
Well, yesterday I dished myself up a nice dose of bushwhacking but to add to the uselessness of it I did a peak that is not on any list, not even the 777 list. This “peak” stands tall at 4300 feet but shall be forever shunned by the bushwhacking and hiking community because it lacks something that only exists conceptually: col depth.
The ridge, which is nameless, is shaped like a boomerang. I got onto its south-western extremity by descending the Lake-Arnold-Feldspar trail for 20 minutes or so and then I crossed the Opalescent and headed due east for 5 minutes. After that it was one bearing of approx. 60 magnetic and the law of up while keeping track of time and noting my spatial relationship with Mt. Colden whose slides stood out like beacons. When I began to see blue sky through the trees I knew I was close to the top and I began wandering around looking for high spots to the north and views to the south. I clambered atop a big rock and determined my geometric relationship with Gray, which enabled me to position myself on the map just as accurately as with a GPS. As I proceeded I aimed my compass on several occasions towards Gray (not bothering to be precise but eye-balling the angle between the arrow and the white end of the needle). This primitive evaluative technique enabled me to determine that I was making progress towards my goal: the Van Ho trail.
This summit is not even a summit, it’s a ridge with a highest point to which I have already been once before. I crossed this ridge while traveling north to south and ever since that momentous crossing I have harbored a primitive yearning to bushwhack it end to end. The southern exposure is extremely gnarly with a great many dead and exceptionally resistant and pokey trees leaning over at a 45 degree angle. Underfoot there are older tree trunks criss-crossed pell-mell and among it all there is a lawn of crowded young balsams. Even I know enough to avoid such conditions. But, just for fun, and because I had unique and inspiring views of the north-west side of Marcy, I attempted traveling across the grain of this mish-mash. It was hopeless so I baled north with the grain and found myself in delightfully open woods and thick cushiony moss of beautiful colors. I probed the southern exposure on numerous occasions as I wandered about the flat summit of the ridge looking alternatively for high points and views.
Gradually, a bearing of 105 magnetic began to lead me downhill so I switched to 160 which kept me atop the ridge for another half hour or so and then I gradually dropped into a small col. Between me and Little Marcy lay a rising ridge that I planned on ascending until I intersected the Van Ho. However, the woods became very gnarly and choked with blowdown so I deviated north around the impedimenta only to obstinately attempt to re-gain this nondescript ridge. It was no-go so I side-hilled my way uphill until I saw some old deadfall that had been sawed through years ago. I supposed this was an old trail such as is marked on my version of the quad. Soon I heard voices and then I stood on the Van Ho, shook the spruce needles off my person and my pack, changed into a short-sleeved shirt and went to the top of Marcy, which I had to myself. From Marcy it took me 2h 45 minutes of hard hiking to get back to the Loj. I found the Van Ho to be a tough trail to descend when not under several feet of packed snow.
The title of this report is meaningless but I found it catchy.
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