Monday, July 12, 2010

Adirondacks brilliant on July weekend

We had an awesome weekend of hiking, climbing and a little bit of updating of equipment (new climbing harness!) on our latest training trip to the Adirondacks for the July long weekend (Canada Day July 1 and Independence Day July 4).

Here we are on the summit of Wright Peak. At 4,580' it is the 16th highest in the High Peaks, and one of few that features an alpine zone, with some amazingly resilient alpine vegetation. There is also a Summit Steward program in place to protect them via education of hikers and generally fascinating conversation.

We also made it out climbing one afternoon at the slabs of Notch Mountain off Highway 86 near Copperas Lake. It's one of our favourite spots. And as such a great place to introduce my niece to climbing. She did very well and coped with the stress and excitement of climbing up, rapping down and belaying very well. We pretty much gave her a 4-hour intensive climbing clinic followed by a great swim at Chapel Pond on Highway 73 past Keene Valley, near Giant Mountain.

As for trip training, I carried some big loads all 3 days. The biggest without doubt was the climbing day when I had 20+ kilos of climbing hardware and gear in my pack. Thank goodness that was only a short 30 minutes hike in!

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