Thunderbolt Mountain is there, No there

At the end of camp one year, KW, BK, BC and I decided to go hike out to Pharoah Mountain and do some of the 5.10 rock climbs out there. Pharoah Mountain was a nice mountain in the Pharoah Lake Wilderness behind camp. There was an old fire road out of camp that eventually turned into a trail and then into a bushwhack that would bring you to Spring Hill ponds. From there an actual trail led to Pharoah Lake which you could then circumnavigate to get to the base of the mountain. A hike up the mountain would take you to the top and then with the help of the guide book we could hopefully locate the 5.10 climbs off the top. There were easier ways to get there, but we wanted to go this one. Okay, let's back up a bit. Nobody in recent memory had hiked out the trail to Spring Hill Ponds. Toph and the Voyageur and Ken Smith had made the hike once but had turned back as far as I recall. And though we had been rock climbing, none of us had ever climbed on Pharoah before, and though we were all in good shape, only KW was what you would call a 5.10 climber. The rest of us could fall up 5.10s on top rope pretty well. In preparation for our hike we first sought out Ranger Bob to get some info on the best route to take to Spring Hill Ponds. We figured a bee line from the end of the fire road would be good but wanted to take advantage of his local knowledge. He kept pointing to the map and mentioned Thunderbolt mountain and how we wanted to keep it on our right. That was strange because Thunderbolt was out by Grizzle Ocean way past Pharoah and nowhere near the trail between Springhill Ponds and Pharoah or the bushwhack from camp to Springhill ponds. Except it was. After about 15 min. of confusion and argument with Bob and spinning the map around and upside down it became clear that Bob was referencing a nameless (according to the USGS) hill to the Northeast of camp. "Thunderbolt" was a local name applied to this hill and not one listed on any map. So there was that. It was late August and about 95 degrees with NY humidity. This humidity did not often reach all the way to the Adirondacks, but this week it had. One of our last stops on the way out was the dining hall. The cook staff was still at camp cleaning things up and we were looking to scrounge whatever we could. We were pretty lucky in that we were given some nice steaks that were leftover from the end of Summer banquet as well as a bunch of fresh veggies and other food. So we loaded up our packs, added climbing ropes and harnesses and top rope gear and shoes and anything else we felt we needed and headed out on a Monday afternoon. It was hot and muggy. And the mosquitoes were everywhere. And we weren't sure where we were going, though we were all in good shape and I (at least) could read a map and use a compass to orient through trail less land. After about 3 hours during which we felt like we were getting more and more lost and during which we passed a lot of bear scat and prints, KW yelled that he had found the trail. We had shot for Springhill Ponds, but actually ended up quite a bit West of there, either way we had found the trail we were looking for. So we hiked about another hour and reached Pharoah Lake and found an empty lean-to. We set up our sleeping bags and refilled our water bottles using a filter and the lake water and settled down to get dinner. At which point I realized we had forgotten the food. We was probably I. Yes, I think it was I who left the food back at camp. Sorry guys. We were hungry and it was very hot out still and we were tired having just hiked for four hours with our regular packs plus climbing gear. KW was pissed. I mean everyone was pissed, but he was the hungriest, so also the most pissed. He took a hot dog (the only food we had) and broke it into pieces and put it on a hook and line he found (the lean-tos were littered with junk like that). He dropped it in the water next to a little rock shelf where we noticed a bunch of small fish gathering. These fish were at least as hungry as us and they bit on everything. So much so that we started dropping the hook without hot dog and just hooked the fish with a yank. We got about a half dozen of these fish, but they were all about 3-4 inches long. There was not much meat on them at all. But we cooked them and ate them and went to sleep. The next day was as hot as the previous and we set off around the lake and up the mountain with our climbing gear. We got to the top after a 3 hour or so hike and were sweating profusely and still hungry but at least we were there. We took out the guidebook (Don Mellor's last edition before Jeremy Haas and his partner wrote the newer one) and tried to follow the directions. The climbs were supposedly a certain number of feet off the top in a specific direction. But they weren't. We walked all over the top and looked all around and could not find any climbs we could rap down to and lead or set up a top-rope on. We looked for hours but could not find anything. I think our bellies admitted defeat before we were ready to and we headed down. On this hike we all got spread out and some of us were really hurting. Tired, hungry, hot, dis-spirited, it was not a fun time. It is the only time I can remember stopping someone on a trail and asking if they had any food. Luckily the couple I stopped had some fruit to spare. And when we got back to one of the lean-tos on the lake we found some cans of chicken and some packs of ramen. This was not uncommon in the Summer to find some food left over in the lean-tos after a busy weekend. We put together the canned chicken and ramen and heated it all up and shared the fruit on the side. It was one of the best meals I had ever eaten. The next morning we hiked out towards Pharoah Lake road and then Beaver Pond road and then back to camp. We immediately hopped in our vehicles, drove to Stewarts and ate ice cream sundaes.