Treks - NLP Northern Section

The authors of this blog have two master's degrees, a law degree, and teaching certificates in Social Studies and Robotics - yet this picture will remain sideway cuz I can't figure it out - Load.

I chose this trek to be my first write up as it was the first trek I did and my absolute favorite.

My first year ('93) I couldn't head out my first two weeks because I didn't have the lifeguard certification and we were light on treks anyway, so Toph took the first two out, while BJ and I hung out with the Summit Staff.  This is where the "Summit doesn't work" phrase/put-down came from.  There were more of us on Summit staff than we had groups signed up for our COPE course, our rock climbing or our zip-line.  So we all had time off during the day - we weren't shy about advertising this to the other staff.  Of course this situation didn't last, but the rep did.  :)

My first trek was troop 28 Croton-on-Hudson, and that is as rich a town as it sounds.  There were five people, Bill Ayers and his son Little Bill (just turned 13 at the time), a 16 year old, and another father and son.  

Our camp does two (actually three, but one's just an extension) trips on the NLP.  The Northville-Lake Placid trail is a trail that was actually used when the railroad only went as far as Northville and people wanted to get to Lake Placid.  At least that's what they guidebook says.  As such it avoids high points like mountains and sticks close to water sources most of the way which makes it quite popular.  The drop-off for this trek is almost at the northern most point, just shy of Lake Placid proper.  If you're ever in this neck of the woods, the drop-off is really close to the Olympic training facility where you can luge or bobsled and right around the corner is John Brown's farm which is a very cool place to visit if you're into history and your wife is not with you begging to leave before you're done.  :)

That first day we got dropped off and started hiking, up, not a lot of up, but some hills and upward movement.  The other father and his son were having trouble, lots of it.  After a mile or two there lots of references to old hockey injuries and the such.  This happens, often, but it was my first trek and there were no injuries so other than soldier on, I didn't know what to do.  We made it past Wanika Falls, which is a really pretty place and on to Moose Pond lean-to.  Bill was a ridiculously avid fisherman and he tried to fish Moose Pond, but unfortunately, like a lot of smaller ADK lakes/ponds, it was dead.  The other interesting thing that happened is the hockey injury family decided to turn back.  I had no idea what to do, as my training had only stressed to keep the group together, but I was a day into my first trek ever and 3/5 of my group wanted to leave.  So I gave them some food, first aid supplies and a quarter (that's how you made phone calls back then) and sent them backwards.  Luckily the other trek from my camp was also doing NLP so there were Scouts and a guide camped at Wanika Falls - who I found out later were kinda pissed at having two extra people show up that night.  Can't really blame them, but didn't have much choice.  The rest of the trip was really cool.  

We moved quickly covering quite a bit of mileage.  I think that second night we went to Duck Hole Pond Lean-To, which is a beautiful place.  A nice bridge over a dammed pond, a swimming area, a family of snakes living under a bridge, a pretty clearing, it was a great place and since we had come so far the first night we arrived here early.  Lots of swimming and relaxing in the sun that day!

Next was my favorite day on any trek.  Most of the trek this day is a hike along the Cold River.  Which is aptly named.  Around lunch time, you pass Miller's Falls, which was cool because that is my name.  Miller's Falls is an amazing swimming hole.  There are rocks to jump off, pools to swim in, and small little rushing water falls to try and swim against or climb over.  There are so many ways to break safety rules at this one spot.  One summer, when I was here with a trek group there was a group from a nearby college on an orientation trip.  This meant lots of 18-24 year old females in swim suits.  We lingered a bit longer even though we had finished lunch.  

You usually end that third night at Shattuck Clearing which is a nice clearing with a close by sandy beach on the Cold River.  We stopped here on my first trek as well.  What's great about this day though is at about lunch time you pass by Noah John Rondeau's hermitage.  He was one of those characters who's taken on mythical proportions in Adirondack lore, but if you read his biography, it seems like he was quite the character.  He lived along the Cold river, in a hut he had built.  Living off the land, trapping, hunting, fishing.  Playing his violin with deers gathered around.  Writing an un-deciphered (undecipherable?) code in his journal - some people think it might have been gibberish with no actual code.  He toured the states later in his life as a curiosity in a show touting the Adirondacks, and they even built a replica of his hermitage in that show.  It's always a good place for lunch time and stories.

From Shattuck Clearing you head towards Long Lake and hike down its eastern shore.  This is a boring day as it's a usually muddy trail without a lot of scenery.  But you do get to swim in Long Lake and there's an number of campsites to choose from.  

The next day is a very short hike to the end of Long Lake where route 28N crosses it and then it's a short drive to ice cream and then home.

I've had some memorable trips on the northern section of the NLP, but that first one was the best.  Bill and his bought me a copy of the NLP guidebook and signed it as a thank you gift.  That was my first trek and though we often got tips on most (75%) after that, I hadn't been expecting anything at all.  Later, during the off-season, I met Bill in NYC and he took me out for a very expensive sushi dinner where we took out Adirondack maps and planned the trek his troop would do the next summer.  He showed up a day early with his boat that next summer and took me water skiing with his son and his son's friend on Brant Lake.  Things like that made for memorable times.  

One less than memorable time involved a troop from Rye, NY.  They had signed up for the 50 miler, which was basically the above trip with 14 miles tacked on.  Not that difficult if you add a few miles each day and actually hike a long length that last day as opposed to just a few miles to the pick up.

Now I'm in my 40s and not in the shape I once was, so I'm sympathetic to the fathers who signed up to go on these treks.  But if you're a totally out of shape smoker with no backpacking experience, don't sign up for the 50 miler!  And this particular group was full of rude and obnoxious scouts who had a really awful problem with outspoken homophobia.  

It was as early as the second morning when I heard the two fathers talking in their tents about how they didn't think they were going to make it.  I thought that was entirely too early to give up so I started something that became a ritual for me later on.  I got everybody up and we hiked 4 miles quickly in the rain and then stopped for breakfast.  It was still only about 9 am and we had gotten a good jump on the day's mileage.  Though this worked in all other cases, on this particular trip it had little effect.  The group continued to complain and spout their racist homophobic lame jokes.  The heavy smoker kept falling behind and by the third day started in on the "I'm never gonna make it, when is this day going to end?!" routine.  I was getting fed up.

By the fourth day we were camped on Long Lake, but towards the north end, which means we would have a looooong last day.  The group was fed up and not having it and I was done with them.  This is literally the only group in 8 years of guiding that I couldn't stand.  So that afternoon I hiked to the end of the regular 36 mile trek, hitch-hiked to Stewarts, made a phone call to camp, asked for the regular pick up the next morning instead of the 50 miler pick up and bought some soda and chips.  So by Thurs. I had finished the trek.  Then I hiked back to our camp and as I passed some of the Scouts with the bag of chips one of them said, "Great, give me some."  My answer was a curt, "Fuck you."  Then I walked away and ate the chips in a lean-to.


Rock on!