We Took to the Woods

"It'll be fun," they said. "Mountain air is healing for the soul," they said.

"So you should definitely come."

Thus ran their reasoning, and thus they—Alex and Bethany—convinced me to join them on one of their Adirondack hiking trips along with Meg and Andrew.

Even though I said yes, I was not entirely convinced. The past few weeks I've done little but lie in the shady hammock and try to recoup. I'm not sure what has felt more strung out: my body, or my mind. Coming to grips with life not going like I expected, and missing a beautiful country that I shared with beautiful people to the extent that it hurts my heart almost as much as contact dermatitis hurts my skin, has been a long road. I know I need to keep moving forward, let the past and that dear form of friendship that I experienced go...but it's hard, and I also know I need to take it slow, and not worry about the future whenever I take a break from obsessing over the past.

Like everything in life, you have to find a balance. Right now, the balance I need to find is the one that lets me live in the moment.

To start the search, I climbed a mountain.

Actually, mountains: Sawteeth and Gothics, 2 out of the 46 ADK high peaks. I shouldn't say "I" either, because it was definitely "we" and I couldn't have done it without them. (Lesson learned: Do not climb literal or metaphorical mountains without friends.)

The day started around 5 AM when we piled into Carla and left Meg's house in Upstate NY to continue into the Adirondacks. It was nice to be back, considering I haven't been there since 2010 and was used to frequenting the area before that. Never, however, have I climbed any of the high peaks.

It was an experience.

The first 3 or 4 miles was just to get to the base of Sawteeth at Ausable Lake, and it was all uphill from there. It didn't take long for me to realize this was a climb, not a hike. When we weren't actually scaling cliff-like walls of rock, there was definitely a trail; but it was muddy and rocky, a wannabee river as soon as the sky decided it was going to drench us repeatedly in soaking rain showers. I was glad it rained because it saved me the trouble of crying. It also had a nice cooling effect. The negative is that we couldn't see anything far ahead, let alone any views, and it made everything treacherously slippery.

The woods were beautiful though—green, eerie, the white swirly mist. Almost sacred except for some swearing, almost silent except the occasional bird calling, rain spattering, a rock coming loose. And then sometimes all you hear is your heart pounding in your head, all you feel is your breath coming ragged and you can't do anything but focus solely on your next step so you don't die (in my case, anyway. I was the baby of the group in more ways than one that trip).

We reached the summit of Sawteeth—cloaked in a cloud—by early afternoon. We ate lunch, assessed the situation, and decided to continue on to Gothics by way of Pyramid. Scaling Gothics was even harder than Sawteeth, but when we got there a few hours later it was definitely worth it:

For 20 minutes the sun came out and we had a view. A spectacular view. Then the clouds rolled in again, and we couldn't see anything...but somehow the 20 minutes was worth the whole painful climb. (Lesson learned: the highs are worth the lows.)

We stayed on the summit for a half hour, chilling and fooling around. I did my victory dance and then just sprawled out and enjoyed the endorphins. Tried taking nap, but it didn't really work. When we headed down the mountain, I kept looking for places to sleep. I thought I had found the perfect spot since it was covered in my favorite moss, but when I dashed excitedly over to it it turned out it was a moss-covered bog. It ate me. Needless to say, I got a bath instead of a nap. At that point, the bath was probably more needed.

Going down was certainly easier than coming up, but still a precarious, rainy venture. Lots of sliding. It took another couple hours and at the bottom we were rewarded with a waterfall:

From there it was 3 miles back to the car, rounding off our 14 mile day. We set up camp and all slept quite heavily.

Thursday morning we spent a few hours on Main Street in Lake Placid, mostly eating and drinking coffee and staring at the lake. Thanks to Meg noticing they had just opened, and Alex's quick re-parking skills, I got my Ben&Jerry's ice cream just before we headed home. It eased the "I miss gelato" pain more than anything else has, even though it's just not the same.

Most things are just not the same. But c'est la vie. I'll take it one step at a time, not worry if it takes a while to get to the summits, and be okay with the fact that when I arrive I'll be muddy and bloody from hard work, uncontrollable factors, and mistakes I made on the way. Perfection is all hype. Ain't nobody got time for it.

So did I have fun? Sure.

Was the mountain air healing for my soul? You've gotta start somewhere. I'm glad I have friends to drag me into the mountains and make me start.