Another mountain, another hike, another summit… Sadly the weather had other plans for my intro sentence to this blog. Another mountain, another hike and a turn around before the summit. But that’s ok. Mount Marcy may have alluded us but we’ll be back.

This past weekend my hiking, adventure buddy Jamie Wainman and I headed down to the Lake Placid, NY area to tackle Mt. Marcy. I’m so thankful I’ve found someone who 1. likes camping and 2. is up for any adventure because we planned the trip in a relatively short amount of time.

I packed up all my gear late Thursday night. What really helps with camping packing is Mike and I have a really big tupperware in the garage that we throw all our camping odds and ends into so it’s easy to find before the next adventure. Otherwise everything else I need is usually stored in my big pack when not in use.

Can you see our puppy, Rogue in the top left? She really wants to be able to adventure some day. I wanted to bring the dogs with us but don’t know where Havoc’s proof of rabies shots are and Rogue can’t do long distances yet as she’s still growing. So…

We headed up Friday after I finished work. The drive is only 3 – 3.5 hours which was so much easier to do than the time we headed there last year from Toronto. Despite the rain we got there around 8:30pm. I booked us a tent campsite this year at the same KOA Campground that we stayed at last year. Despite driving down in the rain, we arrived and it was just spitting. So with the car head beams on the campsite area we set up the tent and got ourselves inside.

We were starving for dinner so headed over to the camp kitchen and made ourselves some grub. I had picked up some gluten free, nightshade vegetable free meals at MEC for us. I’ll be bringing a ton of freeze dried food down with me to Patagonia, just in case I can’t eat any of the meals provided to us, so this was a perfect chance to test drive the Beef & Green Beans.

They weren’t that bad. The beef could’ve sat in the hot water a little bit longer as it was a tad chewy. But the meal was actually very hearty and was enough for both Jamie and I.

Saturday morning we set our alarms for 6:30am and got up to a chilly, rainy morning. We got ourselves geared up and made breakfast. I had pre-cooked peameal bacon. So we boiled some water for instant oatmeal and added the cut up bacon to the bowls. It was delicious! 

We drove 30 mins to Adirondack Loj, filled up our water bottles, bought a map and headed out on the trailhead. I was super excited to sign the log book in! We actually left from the same trail head as last year’s Avalanche Lake hike so that was pretty cool to see that portion again.

Although the day started out with rain, it quickly turned to freezing rain and eventually snow. The hike was slow going both up and down due to all the rocks and puddles. I’m so thankful I brought my hiking poles they are really amazing to help me keep my balance when my body decides to have MS symptoms and keeps me upright and safe.

After 4 hours, we came across a well prepared group of hikers who were turning around at 1pm. The leader said the winds & freezing rain near the top just wasn’t fun and portions of the trail was slick rock so they just didn’t want to be out if the streams we were hiking in decided to freeze. We got to this clearing and with the sideways freezing rain and high winds and zero view we decided to turn around instead of push for a summit. We came across a group of 3 guys. One guy looked slightly miserable and said “Did you guys lose a bet?” My response was “Huh? Oh… No. We’re here willingly and having a spectacular time!”

Jamie and I were all smiles for the photo and then started our descent. It was slow going and we were definitely in a lot of pain. My right foot decided to start hurting andJamie’s hip decided to move out of place. The freezing rain turned to snow and the trail got pretty slick. Thankfully my Scarpa boots from MEC are gems. I did get them wet at one water crossing so I had to contend with wet feet for the last hour but other than that they were amazing. I gave Jamie one of my hiking poles and we made our way back down the mountain.

We booked it back to the car, drove back to the campsite and I made a call to head back to Ottawa. With the weather conditions so bleak I didn’t really want to sleep in the summer tent if it was going to snow badly or drive in the snow the next day. Unfortunately that meant driving in whiteout conditions back to Ottawa that night but we made it back safe and sound.

Mt. Marcy you know we’re coming back for you. And next time we’re renting a cabin if the weather is supposed to be bad lol.

Have you conquered Mt. Marcy?  Tell me about it in the comments.