A Bunch of Fragments

Most summers that I worked at camp I grew a beard. One, I was just getting to the age where I could grow a beard; Two, it sort of fitted the job description; and Three, most of the time you wouldn't get carded if you had a full blown Paul Bunyan esque beard going on.

I have talked about Lake George a few times before, in general, it is a touristy town, but I still have some very fond memories. One of those memories involves a place I can only remember as the "Pitcher Place". It was a little pizzeria in Lake George and served pretty good food. One evening, the Load, the Weebs (full story on that name perhaps forthcoming with his permission), C. Coady, a buxom kitchen lass and a few others were at this place. We started out with a pizza and perhaps a few other dishes. I then ordered a pitcher of beer, almost just to see if it would work; true to form, the beard did not let me down. The pitcher came with 2 or 3 glasses, enough for those who actually were 21 and those who may have had the facial hair of a hobo. However, the pitcher went very quickly. There is nothing to stop someone from emptying a soda glass and refilling it with beer. More pitchers were ordered and I think the waitstaff were onto our little trick. But, business was good and we were behaving ourselves. It was a great night because the place was relatively empty and we had some great chats. Usually when we went to the local bar, it was packed and you really couldn't have a conversation. This was more like a tavern. Also, the bar we frequented the most, had absolutely no beers on tap. It was only because of its location that it did so well. A valuable part of the drinking experience is drinking draft beers from pitchers. We stayed for hours, perhaps until closing time. One of my favorite places in the Adirondacks. At least that is how I remembered it.

More than 15 years later, the Weebs and I happened to visit this place again. At this point, neither one of us had worked at camp for several years. Also, I was now cleanly shaved and it was the Weebs who sported a beard. However, his beard was well kempt and fitting a professional where mine had simply been an exercise in not shaving at all. We had planned a weekend hiking around in the Adirondacks, mainly hitting Mt. Marcy and a few other peaks.

We didn't have the load with us. The load is exceptionally good at planning activities and putting the needed logistics in place. The Weebs and I, not so much. We made it a point to harrass the Load via phone every 30 minutes or so with pointless updates as to what milepost we had passed, but nothing useful. So we ended up in the Daks with our packs, but no supplies. We didn't make it up until quite late the first day, so we decided that we would stay at camp since it was further south and hopefully free.

There was a bit of trepidation though. Camp was in full session with scouts and staff members. The Weebs had received a less than warm welcome when he had visited the camp a couple of summers before. Nevertheless, I thought we might try something that we had never tried before ... respect. So, we drove onto camp and immediately reported to the Central Office and announced ourselves as visitors and asked if we could speak to the Hammer, the director. Curiously, camp actually had official wristbands, sort of like you get when visiting a museum or a bar, to denote that you were a visitor. The young lady that received us got this box down from a high shelf, remarking that she didn't think she had ever issued one before. The thing is, this box was enormous. There were thousands and thousands of wrist bands in there, yet ours were the first two that had been handed out in recent memory.

We chatted for a bit, realized that we knew hardly anyone that still worked there. Eventually the Hammer rolled up. He could not have been more welcoming. We explained our plans and asked if we could sleep in the Howie Hut (the tenament I had occupied before when collecting all the old soda cans) and he graciously allowed it. What's more, he invited us to the staff bbq. The Weebs and I discussed this unexpectedly warm welcome and finally understood some things that had eluded me earlier. First, this was Hammer's full time job. Although the camp was only open for the summer he worked for the Boy Scouts full time. Second, he was responsible for everything that happened on the property. In years past, we would have probably have just rolled up and done whatever we felt like. Understandably, this was not the right course of action.

The BBQ was pretty good, although it did reinforce the idea that we were definitely the old men there. The only person I recognized was good old Maggie. During my last years at camp, Maggie had been a CIT, probably about 15 or 16. She had memorized Lewis Carrol's Jabberwocky and would recite it at campfires. She had become a bit of a free spirit, travelling around the world. Anyway we got to talking with her and agreed that we would prep for our hike by travelling down to Lake George for a few bowls of loud mouth soup.

I can't remember exactly what we talked about during the 40 min ride, I wish I had, because a lot of it was absolutely hilarious. Maggie told us stories about studying in NY and missing a lot of classes. She didn't intend to cut classes, she would dutifully set off from her apartment to the college. However, if it was a particularly nice day or if there was a sidewalk performer or an exhibit that caught her eye, she tended to miss classes. This tended to happen a lot. Also, Maggie had been working at camp for quite a bit while we were gone, so she was able to fill us in on some history. We did not end up at the pizza place that night, we visited a bunch of other places.

The next morning, we had a lot to do. I am not sure about the exact sequence of events. I know that we phoned the load a lot to give useless status reports. Even though it was in totally the wrong direction and we still hadn't picked up and supplies, I was able to convince the Weebs that we should have lunch at the pizza place. It wasn't exactly how I remembered it. It hadn't changed, it's just that my fond memories had painted it to be far better than reality. The pizza was good, not great. The tables were kind of sticky. In short, everything you would expect a touristy pizza place to be. Still, it was fun to be back. Some of those same memories came back.

We then had close to an hour and a half drive to the trailhead. Still, we had no supplies. At least if we had the load he would have at least planned the menus so all we would need is to run in and pick up the supplies. But, since it was the Weebs and me, we wandered around this supermarket like a couple of idiots. Picking up 20 pound sides of beef and joking about how funny it would be to pack something like this. In the end, we got the usual trail food, also some not so usual food like big cans of stew. But, we figured we would eat it the first night and it was not too far to carry.

Turns out we reached the trailhead at around 4 or so. Really late. We only hiked 2-3 miles that first evening to a pretty popular campsite. It looked like a woman's college outing club had claimed the lean-to. It was clear that they meant business. They had that lean to impeccably organized. Sort of like a display at a camping store. Everything was set out neatly, they had color coded stuff sacks, the works. So Weebs and I roll up and ask if it is cool if we pitch our tent in the clearing a few hundred yards off. We could not have gotten a colder reception. They avoided us like the plague. So I don't feel too bad about what happened next.

First, we had to open the cans of stew. Naturally, we had not packed a can opener. So I used Nature's can opener, a big rock. After wailing on it like a gorilla, I finally got it to the point where we could get at the contents. I happened to do my cave man routine in an area where the girls could plainly see me. I am sure they had no end of can openers, but offered no assistance.

After the Weebs and I had eaten, got the tent set up and generally set up for the evening, we realized that we had no way to hang our food. Since this was a very popular area, the bear activity was pretty high. So we did the only thing that we could. I went up to an 8 foot tall spruce. I was able to pull the top of it down, hook our plastic shopping bag full of food on it and once I released it our food was about 6 feet off the ground. A squirrel could have easily got it, much less a bear.

Sure enough, in the middle of the night, the Weebs woke me up to let me know there was a bear outside and it had been making a lot of racket and had even put its nose against the tent. I had missed most of this, not sure how I slept through it all. Of course, my first reaction was to think that the Weebs was just messing with me. But, he was absolutely serious.

The next morning, our bag was in tatters. The bear was actually quite picky. For instance, it ate most of the pepperoni stick we had bought and a good bit of the cheese. We had also bought a pack of 6 tortillas, the bear evidently did not like it. There was an enormous bite mark through the entire package, but it looked like very little had been consumed. Regardless, we would press on. We still had quite a bit of food and only planned to be in the Daks for a couple more days.

Unfortunately, the Weebs developed a bit of a problem with his knee. Apparently the knee cap was rubbing against some bone causing him quite a bit of pain. He pushed on, but by the time we reached the summit of Marcy, he was hurting. What's worse, going downhill was a lot more painful than going up. We phoned the load at the summit for a status update. So we ended up limping out that night. Funny thing was, Weebs was wearing sandals for while carrying his 40 lb pack. Probably not the wisest choice. At some point on the way down, this very fit older gentleman came up to me and told me "I cautioned your friend back there on his choice of footwear." Of course he was right. He was also very prim and proper, so it only seemed right that he would be so formal! It was a long day hiking out. I think we spent the last day just cruising around Lake Placid and phoning the load. We stayed at the Econo Lodge in Lake Placid, which had very good rates and even a pool and a hot tub. The Weebs and I may or may not have ended up two guys just chilling in a hot tub, Dumb and Dumber style. All in all, a great trip.