A grand scheme

Story edited on 12 April

This is a view of camp from the summit of Mt. Stevens.  The small lake/pond in the foreground is the waterfront for Camp Buckskin, the lake behind it is the waterfront for Waubeeka. The largest body of water is Brant Lake, and the furthest end of the Lake is where the infamous Wagoneer episode took place.

The camp is ringed by 6 mountains.  On one side (in this picture the left side) are first brother, second brother and third brother.  Now, right away this is confusing, because there are a series of mountains in Lake Placid that are known by the very same names.  On the other side of camp, there is Mt. Stevens, Little Stevens and a peak that does not really have a name, at least not one I can remember.

Mt. Stevens was the only mountain that was climbed regularly.  The other mountains/hills didn't have trails, didn't really have very good views and were not really worth the trip.  So of course, one weekend I decided that I would try to climb all 6.  The plan was to climb First Brother, then basically stick to the ridge line and traverse over to second and third brother.  From there, I would move over to Mt Stevens and follow a similar scheme of sticking to the Ridge Line.  It seemed like a grand scheme, and there was no real reason it should have failed.  But, as detailed later, it was about as successful as this plan:

The problem was that I chose my climbing partner unwisely.  Extremely unwisely.  I took Annie.  You may remember her from accidents on purpose.  Although M.L. successfully did the entire traverse in a later summer, to my knowledge no-one had attempted it in recent history.  So, I was not really sure how long it would take and I wanted to get an early start.  My plan was to grab an early breakfast, pilfer some supplies from the dining hall and set off.  Annie's plan was slightly different.  I only became aware of Annie's plan as it unfolded in spectacular failure.  Early breakfast came and went.  Regular breakfast came and went.  We probably did not sit down for breakfast until 8:30 or 9.  Annie then insisted on taking a shower.  I don't know why, it was pretty unlikely that we were going to encounter anyone on the trail.  In fact, the most people we would encounter were at breakfast that morning and she had decided that it was OK not to shower for that occasion.  There were not a lot of showers at camp, this suited me just fine as I viewed the lakes as my primary source of bathing.  Not surprisingly, there were a few people ahead of Annie to use the shower and she dutifully waited her turn.  I should have just left.  Instead, I waited around and looked at the sun climbing higher in the sky.

Finally she was showered, but I realized she had not packed.  I didn't think it would matter since we were only going for the day and I already had food, water, a waterproof jacket, firestarter and flashlight.  For some reason, Annie insisted on packing her own "supplies".  I kind of watched what she was throwing in her pack from the corner of my eye.  She brought two books, not books about edible plants or how to survive, but regular books.  Maybe she thought there was going to be a lot of down time where a good book would come in handy. So much downtime that there was a real risk in finishing the first book and needing the second book.   Perhaps she planned to read them as we climbed.  She then packed her hairbrush and hairspray.  Again, who the fuck were we going to run into.  Much less, who were we going to run into that would be concerned with how someone's hair looked.  This was a walk in the woods, not a fashion shoot.  I think she then thought because her backpack could carry a certain amount of stuff, it was important to fill every available cubic inch.  I think she packed 3 or 4 extra pairs of socks, some makeup, two or three sticks of chapstick and who knows what else.  It was as if you put a 3 year old in an area with a bag and let the three year old pick what was needed based on what colors and shapes were appealing.  If someone were to discover this pack, with no clues for context, they would have almost certainly concluded that Annie was involved in some sort of demented scavenger hunt.  They certainly would not have concluded that the person was going hiking. Of course, this took up even more time.  So much more time that it was now lunch time.  Maybe this was her plan all along, because she was now showered and had a couple of good books to read at lunch!

It was probably noon by the time we set off.  Climbing first brother was relatively straightforward.  It was not overly steep and though there was no trail, there was not much underbrush to slow you down.  In about 45 minutes I had made it to the summit.  Annie had not.  I waited a few minutes and she did not show up, so I started walking back down.  It felt like I had almost reached the bottom when I found her.  It wasn't that she was out of shape, it just that she did not understand walking with a purpose.  She was walking around like someone at a carnival or an art fair.  Taking a few steps then looking around, perhaps going up to a tree and feeling the bark.  This was near the base of the mountain, it was not particularly pretty, she had been surrounded by trees for the last several weeks, but for whatever reason found these particular trees fascinating.  We finally made it to the top.  She then made it perfectly clear that she considered this to be enough of an adventure.  We had been at it for just over an hour.  Even though we had started late, there was still plenty of daylight left, but she had called it quits. And that was it.  We had climbed a small mountain, with no real view.  We probably could not have completed all 6 peaks, but we certainly could have done at least one more, probably two.

Not surprisingly, when we made it down, it was not too long before dinner.  At dinner, there was a good deal of ribbing, both gentle and not so gentle about how much of an utter failure it had been.  I should have just done it by myself the following day.  After all, I still had all my supplies packed, and I am sure that Annie would have let me borrow from her treasure trove of absolutely unnecessary supplies.  But I didn't.

M.L. gave me a trip report after he successfully made the trip.  Turns out, it was quite a trek, he had started early in the morning and it had taken him most of the day.  He had even brought along some climbing rope and used it on one portion of the descent.  I guess it is good that we didn't make it that far, I don't think we could have fashioned a climbing rope from chap stick and hair spray.

P.S.

Here is a link from someone who did the three brothers hike in winter.

P.P.S.

I don't think there is enough material to make this an entirely new post, but one other sort of interesting story involving Annie:  In the summer of 98, a man we called the Piton was the Summit director.  The Piton is a very interesting guy, he started working at camp a lot earlier than I did and so I don't know too much about his youthful days.  In the summer of 98 he was definitely far more mature than the test of us there.  He had a wife and child and did his job well.  We used to have these pretty elaborate staff meetings on Saturday nights.  The meetings were necessary to plan out the following week's activities.  M.L. and I were both guides that summer, so we did not have much to do at these meetings.  We knew we would take our trip out and then come back.  Naturally, we would get bored.  I think the Piton's kid had a wiffle ball bat in the office.  He was a toddler, but already far more mature than us.

During one meeting, M.L. and I are just whaling on each other with that wiffle ball bat.  Never to the face, but some pretty good body shots.  Since it was plastic it didn't hurt too much, but I decided I was going to reenact the "Dumb and Dumber" scene where they are sword fighting with the canes.

Since we only had one bat, I could only do the last part where Jeff Daniels nails Jim Carey across the back of the knees.  It worked out pretty well.  The Piton was incredibly patient with us, and generally let us blow off steam during these meetings.  Part of it may have been because at the end of the day, we did our jobs pretty well.  The participants in the trek almost always had good reviews.

Annie did not do her job that well.  So, after M.L. and I finished bashing each other with the wiffle ball bat, Annie asked one of her usual dumb questions.  The Piton unloaded on her and told her not to interrupt and that it was a stupid question.  I almost felt bad for her.  But, then I thought about the failed trip.