All in the Upstate

The people who live in these mountains hike hard. These are no meandering lower Appalachian trails with gentle climbs and switchback ascents. When you climb up to the highest peak in New York state, Mt. Marcy, you go straight up its bristling fur-covered knobby backside. The small shrub pines choke the trail, at times making it hard to see ten feet ahead of you. And if the trail isn’t covered in scented stinging pine needles, its littered with boulders of all sizes, trickling water, deceiving quicksand-like marsh pits or uncut trees draped across the path – all ascending with radical steepness. If your burning thighs and calves don’t slow you down, the incessant black flies just might. Still, Hoyle and I, along with Cedars, climbed ever onward.

Lush greenery abounds in these mountains that spill water in every direction. We were always crossing streams, directly from boulder to boulder or over long swinging bridges. At the summits you enter an alpine climate, as the mountain steward told us, where the fragile plants live in an ecosystem not unlike those found in the artic tundra of Alaska and northern Canada.

On the back side of Mt. Marcy we met up once again with the fabled Hudson; this time at its headwaters in Lake Tears of the Clouds, where it is as fresh as it ever can be before flowing south and dumping its acquired collection of gurgling brown refuse into the ocean not far past the Statue of Liberty. But up on the mountain, that part of its story is very far away. Up on the mountain, everything is very far away. The endless miles stretch out to a vanishing horizon of fading green peaks. This is New York at its finest, at its most beautiful.

The chipmunks wrought havoc on Cedars’ psyche, always one step out of his reach. Nonetheless, he cannot help but give chase each and every time. Just as Hoyle and I (of Hoyle,Tanner) cannot help but continue to pursue the open road. She is a wench that refuses to offer satisfaction, always cunning, always calling. Her treasures are endless. Her lessons invaluable. But not unlike every other thirsty road-weary traveler, we pay our six pesos and enter her bedchamber – time and time again.

Now the Adirondacks slowly disappear behind us. Ancient barns and farmhouses on rolling forested hills surrounds us. Canada lies before us. We make one last stop at the site of the 1980 Lake Placid Winter Olympics for some delicious New York chili and beer. With bellies full and bodies black fly bitten, we throw ourselves at the Mounties and the great Ontario lands beyond.