Dates: May 6, 2000
Team: Mike Bowen & Mark Salas
Location: Adirondack High Peaks
Destination: Gothics Peak (4,736')
Approach: Ausable Club parking to trailhead
Author: Mike
After the obligatory 5-hour ride from Rochester on Friday night, we checked into the Woodlake Motor Lodge on Saranac Avenue in Lake Placid. Our intended excursion was to hike the summits of Gothics (4,736') and Armstrong (4,400') Peaks. Due to the extensive post-hole maneuvering we performed up to the summit of Gothics, we did not have enough time to hike Armstrong and get back before dark. So we hiked down the back side of Gothics peak, into the messy abyss left in the wake of Tropical Storm Floyd six months earlier. We didn't stay at the top of Gothics for any period of time due to very high winds and cold temperatures. At the end of the day, we had dinner at the Artist's Café in Lake Placid, and drove back to Rochester on Sunday, but not until we got some good mountain biking in!Details:
What a fantabulously beautiful day! We could not have asked for better weather at the onset of our hiking adventure. The skies were partly cloudy (mostly sunny!) and the temperatures, though cool at the start, reached between 40 and 50 degrees Fahrenheit. We started hiking the dirt road to Ausable lake early, and reached the dam in good time. We were feeling rather competent that the results of this day would yield great stories of mountains conquered. Maybe something was in the air. Could the fresh scents of spring have clouded our vision? Nah… We were mountain men. So began the day.
The ascent to Gothics was rather smooth and easy. That is… Until we hit the snow pack. Although we brought our snowshoes, we decided to leave them in the car. After all, it was May and we just finished with another easy winter. Lack of snowshoes hampered our trip immensely as we both post-holed our way up the mountain. Our once brisk pace slowed to a painful crawl. To add additional interest to the story, we started to hear rumbles ("is that thunder?") as the skies darkened, the temperatures dropped, and the winds picked up. But… We were determined, and we reached the summit around 1:00pm.
Before reaching the summit, we stopped for a quick lunch on a false summit, and took some pictures. We were pretty badly beat up - our shins were cut & bruised from the constant post-holing despite the fact that we were wearing gators. The temperature had dropped precipitously during our ascent, and the winds were very fierce, nearly knocking each of us off. Since we burned most of our energy on the ascent, and the weather was turning ugly, we decided to high-tail it out of there as quickly as possible!
Why is it that when choosing to take the path already traveled or to take the "other" path down from a summit, we humans usually take the "other" path? Is it for the experiences? Is it for the thrill? For certainly, we had BOTH on the way down. In hiking the trail between Gothics & Armstrong, we reached a point where the damage from Tropical storm Floyd made the trail impassable. At this point, we had to decide between hiking back up the mountain, or finding our way down, trail-less, amongst blow down and mudslide damage. We chose to hike down.
Throughout the hike down, we encountered blow down and damage on a scale that is hard for us to conceive to this day. We climbed over, across, under, and through mud, brush, trees, etc. At one point, we used a series of felled trees as catwalks to get across a very tall and expansive slide. It was getting late, 4:00pm to be exact, and we were still fighting for every inch of progress. Amidst visions of being the subject of a Stone Phillips "Survivor!" special, and stumbling across a bear's den (with cubs), we arrived at a clearing - the bare rock slides on the south side of Gothics/Armstrong. Nearly 3 hours of hiking, and we only dropped several hundred feet.
With time running out on our day, the slides resembled expressways. Steep? Yes. Traversable? Yes. Comfortable? No. But it was the only way to go if we even wanted to get to Ausable Lake before dark. We began our decent cautiously for the slides were wet & icy. For the step sections, we crab-walked our way down… In minutes, we had broken through the worst of the blow down & damage. Within ~20 minutes of exiting the slides, we discovered the trail that would take us to the Ausable Club and our freedom. We got back to Lake Placid just before 7:00pm that night, exhausted. We crashed early after dinner, and slept through our alarm clocks the next morning. Stiff & sore, we packed up the car, choked down some bagels & coffee, and headed out to do about 10 miles of mountain biking before heading back to Rochester.
Did we learn anything? Yup. To this day, we're both still throttled by the amount of devastation that one storm can wreak on an area. In human terms, it's enormous! However, by nature's definition, the damage was just a tiny amount in a small area. I suppose that's the thought that throttles us the most! J
Pictures:
TBD - Converting all the old trip reports into this blog
