Hiking Trip # 2 – Keene Valley
July 28-July 30
Dave and I finally got some free time to go hiking again! We have both been working hard so we couldn’t wait to escape for a couple of days. Friday night is kind of a haze. I didn’t get out of work until 7 and Dave didn’t get done with soccer until around 8:30, which didn’t give us much time to pack. I helped a little more on the packing end since I knew what we had packed last time. Let’s just say our hiking gear was not neat and orderly like the picture below…
Our hiking gear, although very well organized in Dave’s hiking gear closet, looked like it had been thrown all over the basement. There were boxes of food all over the place, bags everywhere, shoes scattered around the room, piles of clothing…well you get the picture! It was too embarrassing to even take a picture of! Eventually we got everything nice and organized.
Dave put himself in charge of preparing the meals. For breakfast each morning we packed oatmeal and coffee (Starbucks Via instant coffee..amazing little invention!). Since we would be hiking all day, we packed trail mix, cornuts and sesame sticks, honey packets, naan bread, cheese and pepporoni to snack on throughout the day. Let me tell you what, that pepperoni and cheese tastes soooo good on the top of a mountain! Dinner items included: macaroni and cheese mixed with dehydrated beef, mashed potatoes with gravy and corn, and then a ramen noodle combination. These may sound gross but after a long day of hiking, they taste sooo good and fill you up quick! Wine also made the packing list (thank goodness!!). Since we wouldn’t pass any lean-tos on this hike, we had to pack the tent to sleep in. Everything else we packed was pretty much the same as last time. By the time everything was packed and ready for the morning, it was already 11pm! To bed we went!
Once again, we decided to get up super early (4am!) on Saturday morning and leave. It took us about 5 hours to get to the Ausable Club in Keene Valley. We parked in the St. Hubert parking lot that is located next to the Ausable Club. The Ausable Club reminded me of the movie set from Dirty Dancing. The main house had the same look to it. It was GORGEOUS!!
We had stopped at a gas station about an hour before we got there to fill up our camelbacks, get one last cup of coffee and eat our yummy pre-hike peanut butter and honey sandwiches for breakfast. Once we parked at St. Hubert’s, we did some last minute rearranging of items in the packs, making sure the necessities were easy to get to and changed into our hiking clothes. Our plan was to knock off 9 peaks over the course of saturday and sunday. I thought that was a pretty lofty goal, but better to over plan than under plan. Once we reached this gate (below), it was off into the woods for the weekend with Dave.
Before I knew it, I was climbing up huge boulders. My heart rate began to soar. Man, this was getting tough! I guess I should have been doing some leg weights to prepare for this! About 90 minutes into the hike, I had to take a break. Although I had been sipping water the whole time, I was thirsty and hungry! Using an altimeter, we had a good idea of where we were and how many feet in altitude we had to climb.
there were none at all. There were a few false summits, but it was so windy and foggy that I couldn’t really see them. Dave tried to trick me a couple times by saying we were at the top when we really weren’t. This is where I first encountered what I like to call “rock castles,” otherwise known as cairns (more on this topic later!). There were basically 50-70 mile-per-hour winds at the top so we didn’t stay long. We did get s quick video of Dave and I at the top of my first peak.