Mount Marcy • New York’s Highest Peak

My next mountain climb was supposed to be Tennessee, but apparently that was not meant to happen for me at this time. I made plans with three different people and every one fell through at the last minute because of: differences (first guy), tropical storm Fred and work scheduling conflicts (second guy), hurricane Ida and Covid sickness (last guy). I can’t make this shit up! So, I said screw it and continued on with my plans to climb Mount Marcy the highest peak in New York!

Months beforehand, I met this awesome chick on the “50 States High Pointing” group on Facebook named Carla. She has the same twisted sense of humor as I do, swears by minimalist shoes even when others poo poo them for climbs, and is a late-starting insomniac. To make matters even better, she lives over in New York and said she would do this long hike with me even though she has already conquered Marcy 2 other times in the past. Translation: she knows the area AND the mountain. Perfect! I was excited! I was finally going to do a high point with someone knowledgeable as a guide! Plans were made.

This is the third time that I was planning on hanging out with Marcy, but it kept not working out. The first time I was trying to add it as the 6th high peak on my Northeast road trip, but I ended up being too sore and too tired to do that one as planned. You can read about that trip here. Then, I was trying to add it after high pointing 3 states with my girlfriends on my last trip, but that was going to be hard to make happen with such a long drive from where I was going to be at, so it was dropped from that trip as well. Third time’s the charm, right?!

So, I did a 15 mile hike a few days beforehand to try to get my body somewhat ready for the punishment it was about to endure. That was the most milage that I had ever recorded me doing in one day! I felt fine after that long hike and had no pain the next day, but there is a huge difference between a long flat ground hike and an inclined rocky, slippery, muddy one. I had no idea the pain that was waiting for me…

Friday, August 27th: I said goodbye to my kitty and got out of the door at 11 AM to start the long drive to Syracuse where Carla lives to meet up with her…6 1/2 hours later. The original plan was for me to pick her up and drive together to the campsite, but that changed when she wanted to go kayaking on Sunday with a friend. So we decided to drive separately, so that she could leave Saturday night after climbing all day and drive back home. Whew!

When I was close to her house, I was starving so I asked her about dinner options before we went further north into the wilderness. She suggested a Thai place called, Thai Love NY, on the way. Yum! When we got back on the road, we had about a 3 1/2 hour drive until camp. I just want to point out that she was an awesome person to follow behind. Some people leave you in the dust, some people drive too slow and some people don’t even check and see if you’re still behind them. I was pretty impressed with her leading skills while driving, so I knew she’d be a great guide for the mountain ahead. We stayed in contact with each other on the entire drive and pulled off together for a gas stop and a stop to pick up more water.

When we found our campsite, she suggested that she take all that she needed for the night out of her car and set up her tent and then we would drive her car to park it at the trail head. I have read about how horrible it is to find parking, so I thought that was a pretty darn good suggestion to at least have one space secured. The parking lots fill up by 5 AM and neither of us are morning people. We also thought that, by the time we got to the parking lot, that the 5am-ers would probably be leaving by then.

Once back at camp, we foraged in the woods a bit and found enough wood to make a nice little fire. We stood around it chatting for a couple of hours. Some asshat set off his car alarm for at least a good 4 minutes at 1:30am, so i’m happy to say that we were NOT the loudest people out there! Ha! Since we didn’t get back to camp until midnight, it was 2am before she went to shower and I went to get comfy in my hammock. Probably later than that should have happened, because it takes me forever to fall asleep, but I was having fun. She had to come check out my crazy hammock-in-the-car-set-up before leaving for the shower house. She’s a fan. It was a chilly night. 56°, but I had my under quilt and 2 blankets. Ahhhh!

Friday, August 28th: I woke up at 8am because some dudes next to us were super loud. Ugh! I tried so hard to get more sleep, but it was not happening. 3-4 hours of sleep. Sigh… It would be great if my mind could give me a break. So, I messaged Carla to see if she was awake and sure enough, she was awoken by the same guys and we agreed just to get moving.

I was sluggishly out of my hammock and all broken down by 10:15. While she was starting breakfast, I needed to try to “wake up” by getting a shower, as much as one can with very little sleep. Then we had a great breakfast courtesy of her awesome meal planning and rolled out of the campsite. When I booked the site through my search on my Roadtrippers app, the campsite was called, Whispering Pines Campgrounds, but it comes up as Draper’s Acres in GPS. Why? No clue. Also, GPS said that I had arrived 2 minutes before Carla kept going and found it just by knowing the area. So glad to have had her with me. I still was not sure we were at the right spot until I saw the map pinned on the bulletin board with my name on it. Spelled wrong. I would have had a hell of a time finding that place in the pitch dark by myself having never been to that area.

So, we arrived at the trailhead and just as we thought, the morning people were already leaving. So crazy! There were a few spots opened up and it was a Saturday! That worked out well and we did not have to walk a ways from another parking spot or try to get a ride from passing mountain peeps. I had thought about car camping right at the parking lot like I’ve heard others do at times, but then she couldn’t set up a tent. Also, I love my morning shower to wake up.

Once parked, we quickly got our gear on and headed on the trail. It was 12:30. A little later than we would have liked, but I was not worried and no shits were given by her. Haha! We had no less than 20 different people (including Summit Stewards) asking us if we were prepared for darkness with headlamps, and if we were camping cause it was so late. They were looking at us like we were bat-shit crazy stupid girls not knowing what the hell we were doing when we told them we were not camping and that this was to be done as a day hike. Would we have been questioned as much if we were 2 guys passing them? Would we have gotten those looks? There was a steady stream of people coming down off of the mountain as we were heading up and nearly everyone that passed us, said something to us. It got to the point where I would just look at their face and know we were about to get a lecture. Jeez, not everyone is a morning person!!

A river went along side the trail pretty much the entire way. Beautiful waterfalls and the sounds of running water followed us for most of the hike. There were several places with wood planks down to help cross over water or deep mud. However, my shoes still got saturated fairly early on and stayed wet the rest of the long miles. Partly because I’m clutsy and partly because I knew it would happen anyways, so why fight it. I just got tired of playing it safe and started trudging right through. There was a lot of mud!

Carla told me before the trip that she was serious about food, but I had no idea that meant that she would be hiking with a big backpack with a small cooler! She asked me what I liked to eat days before the trip and was so sweet to bring us awesome trail foods! I really appreciated that because I’m usually a granola bar and light snack type of hiker. I brought snacks to share, but she made pasta salad and amazing chickpea, feta cheese, and spinach wraps for us. We sat at the dam and ate, we sat at an amazing overlook and ate next to water flowing off the rock we sat on, and various other light snack stops. I don’t think I’ve ever been so well fed or hydrated on a climb ever. I usually forget to drink and get hyper focused when I’m alone, but seeing her drink water often made me remember to do it! It was great! I’ve never peed so much on a mountain in my life! Haha! At least I knew I was well hydrated!

It seemed to take forever to get above the tree line and to the summit. We kept waiting to pop out of the trees, but the last few miles seemed really long. Then we started seeing misty trees and got excited. After a bunch of bouldering near the summit, we stepped up to the top of New York! Wow! I actually said, “Wow!” or I at least thought it really loud in my head. I couldn’t tell. The wind was so deafening that it sounded like a freight train, or thunder as my mom said when she saw a Facebook live video I took up there. I couldn’t believe that I had cell service for most of the hike. I lost it here and there, but I usually don’t have any until the summits because these high peaks are usually pretty out there.

We were alone. That’s another great thing about our late start…no crowds at the summit! We saw a TON of people coming down when we were going up and I can only imagine how crowded it gets up there at times. But, not for us… It was us and the mountain.

Stepping onto the summit was like stepping onto another planet. The weather was insane! It was a complete hazy white-out. Was it fog or low-flying clouds? I’m not sure. Maybe a combination of both. It was misty and wet and super windy, but it wasn’t raining. I couldn’t see anything with the wind blowing the clouds into my face and fogging and wetting my glasses up. I kept wiping them off just to have them wet again in seconds. I eventually put them on my head and just enjoyed the experience. I’d look over and see Carla engulfed in the clouds as an eerie silhouette like something out of a horror movie and was so giddy that I got to experience that! I thought it was insanely beautiful, but not the typical beautiful view that most people long for after a hike like that. I wasn’t mad at all about it. I thought it was spectacular and otherworldly. I’ve had the “perfect” summits with the clear views for miles and miles, so it was nice to mix it up with a little bit of spooky crazy.

We both wore minimalist shoes and I wanted to get a photo of our feet all muddy around the benchmark, but I was mesmerized by the gorgeous scene and forgot. I saw the benchmark, but I did not get that photo. That’s OK. We took our photos by the sign and sat down for another snack and water break. It didn’t take long for the wetness to lead me to shivering. I had my rain jacket on at that point, but my shirt was already so wet with my sweat from the long hike up, that the jacket did little to keep me “dry”. As soon as I told her I was getting really cold, we decided to pack it up and head down. The moment I put that backpack back on and got just a tiny bit below the summit, I was already hot again. Off with the jacket…

The sun was getting low in the sky, but I was not too concerned and no shits were given by Carla Ha! We just wanted to get past the bouldering part at least before pitch black. Right after that point, it seemed to get really dark, really quick. With headlamps on, we trudged down the mountain. She noticed a little frog on the path and pointed him out to me. This ambitious little dude was trying so hard to scale up a large rock, but would only get so far and then would slide back down. He would look up at me with these cute little faces every time he slid back down and it seemed like he was almost pleading me for help. If you can for a moment, imagine 2 girls in the dense woods giving verbal encouragement to a little creature in the dark on a mountain. Got it? OK…back to the story…He just couldn’t get a grip. His skinny baby frog arms just couldn’t do it. I watched him try a few times, but it wasn’t happening. So I gave this adorable sweetie a butt boost with my hand. He seemed so excited that he finally conquered that boulder, that he immediately jumped into my hand with joy. Now am I personifying the situation? Probably. Did he jump into my hand for joy or did he just jump because that’s what frogs do and he just happened to hit my hand and startle me to scream like a little girl? Probably. But let me have this one. His struggle was over, but at that point Carla and I were struggling ourselves.

We started to hit mental and physical walls when we had about 6 miles left to go. The darkness made us tunnel visioned and we started to feel the pain more. Maybe it was because we didn’t have a beautiful view to look at to distract us from it. Maybe it was because our bodies just finally had enough. Maybe, it was Maybelline… So. many. rocks to go over. Every step became painful at that point. We did pretty well going up to the summit and even much of the descent wasn’t horrible but then all of a sudden it all caught up to us. 6 miles is an eternity when every step you take hurts. That was the longest 6 miles ever. I started obsessively checking the millage on my phone and being completely disappointed with what I saw. Although, we had lots of snacks, we were over them all and craved real hot food. We started fantasizing out loud about all the things we wanted to eat when we got down. Except as it got later and later, we knew even getting greasy bar food was out of the question because everything would be closed. That was hard to accept.

The total hike ended up being 16.6 miles. Now THAT is the most miles I’ve recorded in a day! Two days after and I was still walking like I was ancient. Carla is 10 years younger than me and she was sore as well, so that made me feel better Ha! We got along great and chatted pretty much the entire time up and down Marcy except for a brief moment at the summit. We had some silent alone time for a few moments. I think I would have lost my mind with no one to talk to and commiserate with for all of those hours and miles!

On the way down, once dark, she was telling me stories about her first 2 Marcy summits. She said that the first time she hiked it, she broke down and cried on the way up and the second time, her friend broke down and cried on the way down. She pointed to the exact spot where her friend sat down and refused to go any further. But, with food and convincing, she got up again and kept trucking. I’m happy to say I did not cry. However, I did do a little light bitching and moaning over the last 6 miles or so. We both did. There we were in the pitch darkness of upstate New York hobbling over wet rocks and sinking in the quicksand mud. Oh yeah….So I fell into quicksand up to my knee on the descent in the dark. Yeahhhhhh, that happened. There I am splashing through the mud like I had been for miles when all of a sudden Bah bam I just kept going down fast. I’m glad I stopped falling at knee level because that was hard enough to get me out of that as it was. Carla heard my alarmed scream and turned around and was like, “Just pull your leg out!” Hahahaha! I’m like, “Don’t you think that was my first thought to pull myself out of this frigid ass mud?!” I was laughing at the total absurdity of the situation and I tried with all the strength I had left to pull my leg out and maneuver around, but I was completely suctioned in with a cold mud death-grip. Carla at that point saw that I couldn’t get out myself and came over and grabbed my leg with both hands and pulled. Yay! She was surprised at how grippy the mud actually was. We laughed it off and kept slowly moving at a labored pace.

That was actually the second time that I have been attacked by quicksand. The other time was on a hike the day before climbing Maine’s highest peak. I was solo that time and fell up to my thigh…that goodness with JUST one leg again because I don’t think I could have gotten myself out myself if both legs were in that deep. At first I panicked, but then I saw a young tree in front of me and decided to basically pull with all my might and grab a hold of that tree to prevent my other leg from going in. For the most part, it worked, but I ended up bashing my shin HARD against that tree. I had such momentum going and that’s what stopped me….my shin. Talk about seeing stars. I still climbed Katahdin the next day much to my mom’s dismay. And, of course, I hit that same injury repeatedly throughout the climb. She thought that injury would keep me down. Pft…

Back to that bitch, Marcy…Carla noticed my backpack was “open” on the descent. Turns out that it was not unzipped but ripping open. I stuffed everything deep down in hopes that it would not drop anything out. I’m so happy it did not start raining because for a moment there we thought it might. That would have sucked! It took 12 hours and 34 minutes and 16.6 miles before I was peeing my last pee at the trailhead and seeing my car in the distance. We walked like The Walking Dead to our cars. I had swollen knees and ankles and my calves and quads were on fire with every step. That added elevation, rocks, and mud made the 15 miles I did days before seemed like a one-mile stroll. I felt Marcy in my muscles for days. The second day after, my ankles, knees, quads, and calves were still all swollen, tender and it hurt to walk. But I could still walk! We made it up and down that mountain safely in one day like badasses and that’s all that matters.

I happily pulled off my muddy, wet shoes and socks immediately upon reaching my car. Man, that felt great! We both took a super hot shower the moment we pulled into the campground. It was wonderful! I was chilled to the bone from being wet and muddy for so long that the super hot water was completely blissful. Back at our site, we pretty much just set up and laid down right away. While in my hammock, I tried to be satisfied by eating stupid car snacks. It.was.not.enough. I felt like I lost several pounds on Marcy and I really wanted to pound an entire large pizza by myself like I have before after a long hike. Alas, I had to force myself to go to sleep and know that we planned on eating everything the next day for breakfast.

Friday, August 29th: I only slept about 4 hours again! I had to pee and couldn’t go back to sleep, even though I tried, because my stomach reminded me that it needed ALL THE CALORIES! I saw that it was getting late and check-out time was 11:30Am, I thought. Turns out it was Noon, but we were not out of there until almost 12:30. Thankfully, no one said anything to us. We were half dead. Sore, starving and feeling hung over because of lack of enough calories and water the night before. I definitely felt like I overdid it.

Once all packed up, I followed her to Noon Mark Cafe. I was there before on my high pointing road trip doing the surrounding states. We started off breakfast with desert first, per Carla’s recommendation. I thought that sounded like a fabulous idea! I got a slice of blueberry pie and she got pecan. After we devoured that (I was still starving), I ate most of my Blueberry pancake, eggs with cheese, and french toast. Mmm! When Carla went to the bathroom, I recognized the same waitress that was there when I was last there. She was recognizable because she had little bells on her shoes. She was a cute, petite older lady. I told her that I remembered her from the last time I was in the area.

I thought Carla and I would part ways there, but I quickly realized that we were taking the same path back. She messaged me and suggested a slight detour an hour and a half down the highway. As an off-the-road-attraction, Christine’s Falls was really pretty. We hung out, looked at my very swollen ankle, and chatted for probably a half hour. The very tiny hike to the falls and back included a river crossing balancing on WET ROCKS!!!! Too soon, man. Too soon! We probably looked ridiculous struggling on that trail, but I had to stop procrastinating and get my overly-tired butt home. Carla and I hugged goodbye again. She said that if I was ever in the area again to go hiking with her! “Totally! As long as it’s not Marcy!”

On the drive home, I noticed just the tiniest extremities of certain trees were starting to change colors. It is such a pretty area. I stopped to take one last photo of a beautiful lake scene (Lewey Lake) and quickly carried on. My exhausted mind started to wander. I started to imagine relating mountain climbing to having kids. People always tell you how awful child-birth hurts, right? But then they quickly seem to forget how awful it was because they replace that pain with a beautiful baby that they made. In the same regards, intense hiking/climbing can hurt like hell, but you quickly forget about that when you look back on the photos and remember all of the great parts.

1,176 mile round trip driving time. 5,344 feet up Mount Marcy. 16.6 miles. This was my big 25th state high point that I have climbed, hiked or walked up. No driving to the summits for me!!!

Upon getting home, I got all sorts of awesome congrats on social media. But also just as many people saying that they were sorry that I did not have a view…kind of comments. One person even said, “Oh man sorry you did not have a good view, You’ll have to come back and do it again for that great view.”

“Hahahahahahahahahaha…NO.”