Going Way Back

I have pretty much demonstrated that I really don't keep to my self imposed rules of limiting this blog to camp. This post does talk about a boy scout camp, but not the one in the Adirondacks that all the other posts talk about. Rather, this is a post about a camp that I attended as a camper. I am not too sure where it was located. At the time I couldn't drive so I just got in the car and one of my parents would drop me off.

Regardless, many boy scout camps used to employ a lot of European staff members. The idea was that these Europeans were willing to work for potentially low wages in exchange for seeing America for a bit. Most were college age or perhaps a bit older. There are a few that still stick out in my mind. There was an Egyptian that taught me pioneering (essentially knot tying and lashing). Of course, what I remember about him was that he could crack one of your knuckles that I didn't even know existed. He would shake your hand and somehow pop your thumb but at the very base of it, near your palm. There was also a Scottish guy who really loved wearing his kilt as part of his boy scout uniform.

Then there was the welshman. He ran the rifle range and I think he had been part of the Welsh army at some point, perhaps as an MP. He was a big dude probably 6'6" and 250 pounds. He taught me a lot of police style submission holds, i.e. how to twist someone's arm so that you can potentially cause a good deal of pain and keep them from moving about. He ran his rifle range with an iron fist. He wasn't prepared for Peter Whelan.

Pete was a scout in my troop and was a bit weird. He was very bright, but not the most sociable guy. It probably didn't help that he was an only child and his parents were a bit odd. He was lanky with very little muscle and had a shock of red hair that was too long and almost always not brushed. To top it off, he wore very thick glasses. He was not the type that you would expect behind the barrel of a gun.

The boy scouts used low powered rifles, .22 cal, at the range. They were real weapons, but the type that you would use for hunting rabbits or squirrels. All safety precautions were followed and it was a safe place. If you were shot, it was unlikely that anything too bad would happen, but unlike the rest of camp, most safety protocols were actually followed. Pete and I were both doing the rifle merit badge that summer. Over the course of the week you learn how the rifle works, how to clean it and disassemble it and also how to sight it and shoot accurately. Since the round is so small, there is almost no kick to the rifle and once you learn to sight it in correctly you can get pretty accurate.

To pass the badge, I think you needed to shoot 5 shots and all five shots had to be close enough together that you could cover all 5 shots with a quarter. You fire from a prone position, lying on your belly, because that gives you the most stability. The Welshman was very patient and understood that you needed to take your time to make sure that your shots were accurate. However, it was still a live firing line.

Towards the end of the week, Pete and I were both qualifying and I noticed that in order to keep himself calm and ensure accuracy, he had taken to singing to himself. At least he thought it was to himself. The problem is that you wear ear protection on the range, so it is kind of like someone who is singing to themselves while listening to a walkman, they have no idea how loud they really are. I thought nothing of it. All of a sudden I see the Welshman striding towards Pete with a fierce look. He walks right up, pulls one of the ear cups off of Pete and shouts at the top of his lungs "THIS IS NOT A BLOODY CHOIR, BOY"! The singing instantly stopped. In the end, I think we both qualified.

Easily one of my favorite staff members. Hopefully he is still tearing it up in Wales!

Schrooning it up!

One summer, we started canoeing on the Schroon River.  I don't know why we hadn't done it more in summers past.  Part of it may have been that the early Summit Staff was very small and focused almost entirely on climbing.  I enjoy rock climbing, but there is a good bit of work associated with it.  Particularly setting up the ropes and really only one person can climb at a time.  Unless you have a number of competent people, who can set up multiple routes to climb, you really cannot go climbing as a big group.

The Schroon river was perfect for big groups.  I was not on the inaugural trip, but my understanding was that it was a bunch of staff members and a bunch of canoes.  The defacto leader was fresh out of voyageur school and wanted everyone to listen to him about the proper way to canoe.  The problem was that he really did not know what he was doing and all of the training we get at camp school  involved canoeing on flat water.  As seen above, the Schroon has some pretty good currents and rapids.  Not enough where you needed a raft, but pretty challenging to canoe in.  My understanding was that it was an interesting start.  The leader wanted to show off that canoes were actually more stable than you would believe, so he decided to stand up in his canoe to address the group.  This was not a good idea.  While some people can do it, and perhaps he had done it successfully before, he promptly fell in the drink.  Amazingly he continued to instruct people on proper technique.  I think at some point, everyone's canoe either capsized or filled with water, but it was no big deal and it sounded like a bit of fun.

Over that summer we went on the Schroon a lot.  With each successive trip, we got our technique quite a bit better.  The first time with the canoe went pretty well, but I am pretty sure I capsized at least once.  Some of it is based on skill, but some of it is luck as well.  Taking two nearly identical routes through a set of rapids could involve very different outcomes, just hitting one wave wrong could spell the end of dry canoeing.  Of course, I guess if you had a lot of skill you could always pick the right line to take.  The problem with capsizing is that you then had to find the canoe, make sure you had your paddle and any other gear, right the canoe and clamber back in.  It was actually more fun to ride along in the rapids with your life jacket.

So, we eliminated the canoes and started going down the Schroon in large inner tubes.  This was much better.  First, you didn't have to schlep around the canoes at the beginning and the end.  There was no risk of capsize, the worst that could happen is that you would fall out of your tube, but it was easy to get back in.  We also started going in the evenings, which was even better.  You just needed an inner tube and a headlamp.  We typically went relatively early in the evening so it was only really getting dark as we finished.  It is hard to explain exactly why, but I have always enjoyed being on the water at night, whether scuba diving, swimming etc.  Perhaps it is because the water is not dazzling and bright, but rather inky and a bit scary that adds to the thrill.

The only issue was that there was a limited number of inner tubes and the activity got more and more popular.  On one trip, we had more people than tubes, but I volunteered to go without anything except the life jacket.  I probably would never have done this if there had been enough tubes, but it turned out to be a very happy accident.  Now you were really in the action, with waves crashing over your head and just being a bit lower in the water significantly reduced your line of sight.  From that point on, I was hooked and went with just the life jacket exclusively.  Although I thought this was great fun, apparently the trend had not gone viral.  Any time we went under a bridge or past any area that was populated people would assume you were in trouble.  This was not surprising since typically you only see someone floating down the river in a life jacket if they have fallen out of a boat.  But, since this was the Adirondacks with hearty people who did far crazier things, they did not overreact and call the fire department or the police. Once you indicated that you were ok, they would simply wave and wish you good luck.

Although it was usually flowing pretty well, it was extra exciting if there had been a bit of rain to make the river higher.  One evening, M.L. and I were hanging out and it started to rain really hard.   We instantly decided that we would hit the Schroon up that night immediately after the rain stopped so that the river would be at its highest.  The problem was it kept raining and raining.  M.L. and I did our best to stay up, we wandered all around camp trying to find people that were up, and in the beginning we were successful.  However, eventually everyone who was in camp went to sleep and it was still raining.  For whatever reason, we refused to go while it was still raining, we had become locked in on the idea of going at the first moment the rain stopped.  The rain probably stopped around 3 A.M. I don't know this for sure, because at some point we had both decided to go to sleep. It was probably for the best, we had never gone in the dead of night before.  Also, we had always had two vehicles in the past.  We would leave one at the takeout point and then drive back to where we had put-in.  If we had gone, we would have had to walk back to our only vehicle, at night, on a road with no shoulder.

A Tangent

This story does not involve camp at all.  When I was finishing up my bachelor's degree, I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do.  At the time, I thought that I should go on and get my Master's and eventually my Ph.D because that is what my dad had done.  So I stayed.

Graduate school was way different than undergrad.  First, it was much smaller, my classes had about 10-15 people in them.  I was one of the only Americans.  The others were a mix of Romanians, Chinese, Indians, and a few of the other United Colors of Benetton.  Also, I was outclassed.  There were some super smart people.  Fortunately, they were also incredibly friendly and willing to help me.

One of the perks of doing a graduate degree in Engineering is that it is free.  There is a big demand for engineers, so I think almost everyone who was doing a graduate degree had a tuition waiver and drew about $1200 a month as a stipend.  At the time, this seemed like huge money for me.  I was living in a $300 a month apartment, and in Buffalo, that is actually pretty nice digs!  The heat was included in the rent, so there was no incentive to save money.  There was a window in the bathroom and I loved taking a steaming hot shower, with the window open when it was well below zero outside.

The other perk of being a graduate student is that you get assigned to a lab.  This is a semi-private place to work with other graduate students.  In addition to the workspaces with computers, most labs have a fridge, a sofa and a couple of other creature comforts.  Unlike undergrad, you are expected to work most days, even if you are not at class.  As you can probably imagine, I had some characters as lab mates.

Cosmin (real name - unlikely to be reading this blog)  was a brilliant Romanian.  He had been the teaching assistant for my Aerodynamics class I had really liked him because he sincerely wanted us to understand the material, even if it mean spending lots of extra time explaining it.  This was admirable, because at the time he was making the same $1200 a month that I was.  But, he was supporting his wife and sending money back home to Romania.  He didn't need to spend all the additional time he did explaining concepts, but he loved engineering so much that he wanted to share it with others.  He was a tireless worker, always the first in the lab and often slept on the couch because he spent so much time on his work.  His research focused on trying to model the flame that was created if propane was ignited.  Think about this, think about even just lighting a candle and how the flame grows and shrinks, how it flickers and dances.  He was developing equations that described this behavior.  What amazed me the most was that part of his research involved renting time from a supercomputer.  His programs would take approximately 3 months to run.  If he made an error in his program, he wouldn't find out until 3 months later.  The supercomputer would spit out hundreds of files, each one a few hundred gigabytes.  These were not videos or pictures, just millions upon millions of computations.  He taught me so much about computer programming, I think it was a welcome relief to work on my programs because they were so much simpler.

Then there was Tony.  Tony was actually in my group.  My group was working on a project called the Multi-Recompression-Heater, or MRH.  The idea was that if you could continuously compress a gas (easy) and then allow it to expand without losing any heat (very very very difficult), you could achieve extremely high temperatures.  Tony, was the only other American I knew.  Two things I really liked about Tony:  (1)  He was a big fan of making eye contact with you when talking with you, even if he was driving.  I rode around with him on a few occasions, and he would insist on turning in his seat and looking at you anytime he talked to you.  I have no idea how he did it, it seemed impossible that he could still look at the road, but he somehow managed.  It was particularly impressive because it never seemed like he sneaked peaks at the road, he just seemed to maintain eye contact with you and the driving seemed to just happen.  (2)  I greatly enjoy a good euphemism for urinating.  I have heard the usual ones about draining the lizard or seeing a man about a horse, but Tony had a great one and one that I have never heard again.  I was hooked the first time he said it, he said "I'm going to throw a whizz"  Perhaps it was the verb "throw", perhaps the nostalgia of the word "whizz" but I instantly adopted it as my own for awhile.

We had three faculty advisers.  Dr. Mollendorf, Dr. Felske and Dr. Lordi.  Dr. Mollendorf, first name Joe, was known affectionately as "Smoking Joe".  He never smoked, but it was incredibly difficult to ever pin down his whereabouts, he disappeared like smoke. He was incredibly vain.  He never came to terms with the fact that he needed glasses, so he got himself a pair of prescription sunglasses.  The problem was that at the time, most of the teaching involved using an overhead projector.  Naturally, the lights would be turned down or off to view the screen.  It was an extremely low light environment.    Nevertheless, if a student had a question regarding a particular slide put on the overhead, old smoking Joe would throw on his sunglasses, as if the 80 watt lightbulb was blinding him,  and and take a look at the slide.  Everyone knew what was up, but smoking Joe kept up the facade.

Dr. Felske, even among super smart people, was the smartest of the bunch.  I believe he had finished his B.S., M.S. and Ph.D all with a 4.0 average.  He was a little guy, but a giant in the classroom.  His classes were generally a tour de force in calculus and trigometric proofs.  You couldn't keep up with him, it was mainly an effort in trying to not fall too far behind  Apparently, he had suffered a bit of a mental breakdown a few years ago and had been known to walk the halls of the engineering buildings late at night spouting nonsensical things.  The kind of afflictions only the genius possess.  I admired him greatly.

Finally, Dr. Lordi was mainly an industry guy.  He had worked in various industry jobs and only taught in an adjunct role.  He was the most down to earth guy I had met.  He had a degree from M.I.T., but he seemed like the kind of guy who would chop wood for his dinner if needed.  I spent many hours in his office learning all about shock waves and supersonic flow.

Every week, we would meet to discuss the progress of our research.  Tony was working the mechanical side of the project.  He was re purposing a super charger off of a car to serve as a real life model of an MRH.  Dave, a Russian, was working on the computational fluid mechanics of the various flows inside the MRH.  My job was to develop applications for this heater.  These meeting were always interesting, because you never knew what questions would be thrown at you, particularly from Dr. Felske.

One meeting stands out for two reasons: (1)  Tony was explaining the current status of his research and Dr. Felske was really grilling him, even more than normal.  I don't know if Tony just got frustrated or something else happened, but he threw out some ridiculous hypothetical example.  In a complete dead-pan voice, with a very flat effect, Dr. Felske simply stated "Tony, you are being absurd."  And he was.  Only Dr. Felske would have said it though.  (2)  I was explaining the progress of my research and that I had reached a point that I needed to wait for something else to happen before I could take any more steps.  For some reason, this upset Smoking Joe, and he was pressing me on it.  To this day, I don't know what I said differently the last time, but it was like a light bulb had clicked for Smoking Joe.  At the time, Smoking Joe was getting his pilot's license.  So I finished with my explanation of what needed to happen next and instead of pushing me further Smoking Joe simply said "Holding Pattern, got it!"

That was it.  I finished my thesis and graduated and in a few short months I was in Okinawa.

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.

Canyoneero!

Every so often, we got a nicer than usual vehicle donated to camp.  One example was a pretty nice Cadillac.  For good reason, I never got to drive it, but I heard it had a distinct fish smell.  It was as if the previous owner had been a fish monger and demanded only the most impractical delivery vehicles.

I did get my hands on the Jeep Wagoneer that was donated.  This was a really nice vehicle, particularly by camp standards.  Power windows that worked, seats that were still upholstered, roadworthy, etc.  There were a lot of miles on it, but in someone else's hands, it had a lot of life left.  I am sure someone knows the backstory, but from my point of view it just showed up one day.  Because it had working 4 wheel drive, it was a personal favorite of mine to take into places it shouldn't go.  I don't think it had been taken off road much, if at all, earlier in its life.  I think it was much like the mountain bikes that some hipsters like to hang up in their apartment.  Just for show.  I tried to make up for its coddled childhood.

M.L. and I were engaged in a particularly spirited jaunt around the old race track and for once I didn't get stuck.  At the time, I didn't think anything of it.  Later that day, our camp director, Topher, took us into town in the Wagoneer.  I believe it was me, Toph and M.L.  Topher was an extremely laid back dude.  I think he just sort of stumbled into the director position, but did a very good job at it.  What I appreciated is that he just told you what needed to be done and didn't tell you how it had to be done.  For instance, if you were moving the canoes from the basement of the storage building to the lay down area about 150 feet away, Topher would not mind if you took a quick detour with the canoe to the dining hall.  As long as it ended up where it needed to be.

All trips out of camp involve driving around Brant Lake.  It is a pretty drive, probably 8 miles or so and follows the shoreline of the lake.  At the end of the lake there was a general store, Darby's.  Darby's was a great place, one of the last true general stores.  You could go in get a sandwich from the deli, a bucket of nails, a pair of socks and a hedge trimmer if the mood struck you!  Unfortunately, it burnt down a number of years ago.   There were a couple of other businesses around that area along with the fire station, town hall etc.

As soon as we left camp, we noticed a distinct clicking coming from the Wagoneer.  Toph instantly knew I was to blame.  But, at the time, I thought it was just a click that would lend a bit of character to the old girl.  The problem was that as we kept driving, the click got louder and louder.  In fact, it was more of a repeated screech of metal on metal by the time we reached Darby's and the Wagoneer was essentially undrivable at this point.  So I did what anyone would do, I opened up the hood and stared at the innards as if I had some clue as to what I was looking at.  Of course I didn't.  Fortunately, one of the locals ambled over and immediately noticed that we had a large pool of transmission fluid underneath the vehicle.  This was one of the few times I saw Toph get upset.  He explained to me in no uncertain terms that there were vehicles at camp that were for fooling around in and those that were not.  He was right.  I appreciated that Toph understood that as long as there were vehicles and mud, the two would meet.  He just wanted me to be more sensible about my choices.  Regardless, we had a problem.

What I did next, did not make a lot of sense at the time.  It makes even less now.  My solution was to go into Darby's and purchase some transmission fluid.  I then poured the fluid into the appropriate part of the Wagoneer.  Not surprisingly, all this did was increase the size of the puddle.  At this point the locals were quite amused.

Then, we got a really lucky break.  The assistant ranger at our camp was for many years a guy named Chris.  He was a local, probably late twenties early thirties.  I will write a post purely about him sometime, there is a lot of material.  He only ate one meal a day, dinner.  For the entire rest of the day, he subsisted on nothing but coffee and cigarettes.  His rig up at camp was this old pick up truck that was a stick shift, but the shifter was on the steering column.  Apparently, he was the only one who could drive it successfully, because you had to follow a very strict shifting pattern or the linkage would get all bound up.  He had a large family, almost all brothers, and they would often pop into camp to lend a hand.

One of Chris' older brothers, I'll call him Carl, happened to see our predicament.  He understood that the solution was not more fluid.  In fact, he quickly discovered the problem.  During the off roading adventures, I had apparently hit something that caused one of the metal lines that carries transmission fluid to move so that it was up against the drive shaft.  That clicking turned screeching was the drive shaft and the transmission line clashing, over and over again, until eventually the transmission line developed a hole.  Not only did Carl know what the problem was, he knew how to do a quick fix.  Even though it was a super hot day and he probably had his own business to attend to, he dropped everything to help us out.  While he was under the car, M.L. and I had no choice but to stand around and watch.  We noticed that Carl had a half finished bottle of apple juice and we joked about drinking it.  Fortunately we didn't.  First, this guy was doing us a monster favor.  Second, he could have destroyed us rather easily.  Although I had never wrestled Carl, I had wrestled Chris once.  Chris did not look that strong, but he was and he really knew how to wrestle.  Probably because he grew up with those brothers.  Our little bout was over before it even got started.  Instantly, he had flipped me onto the ground and established total dominance.  Carl was bigger than Chris.

Ultimately the patch was put into place and I went into Darbys and bought yet another round of transmission fluid.  This time it stayed in.  We thanked Carl, I got another lecture from Toph about making wise choices and we continued on with our journey.

The next day, I went off-roading in  the Wagoneer again.

The Off Season

Mount Washington is located in the Presidential Range in New Hampshire.  At 6,288 feet, it is the highest peak in the Northeast and notorious for wonderfully erratic weather.  For a time, it held the record for highest recorded wind gust, 231 mph.   Despite its relatively low elevation (6,288') Mount Washington is located at the confluence of three major storm tracks, and being the highest point in New England, it generally takes the brunt of passing storms. The steepness of the slopes, combined with the north/south orientation of the range, cause the winds to accelerate dramatically as they rise up from the valleys. Because of this extreme weather, there is an observatory on top of the mountain, manned 24/7.  

The first time I climbed Mt Washington, I was about 13 and I climbed it with my Dad.  It was a lovely summer day, but it was quite hot.  Nevertheless, we carried what we thought was plenty of water and set off good and early.  The first couple of miles of the trail is along an unimproved road.  It is certainly up hill, but gentle enough to warm you up for the real climbing.  A number of trails to the summit branch off of this road, but if you follow the road to its end, you reach a lean-to.  On this day, we didn't reach the lean to because we branched off earlier to climb the Huntington Ravine trail.  This trail appealed to me because the guide book listed it as one of the more challenging trails involving some scrambling and sort of a mix between hiking and rock climbing, but no special gear was required.  The real risk was that if rain rolled in, you could be in a bit of a tight space, but fortunately there was no threat of rain.

Although the beginning of the hike is through a forest, the last thousand vertical feet or so, is above the tree line.  There is nothing but rocks and moss.  I remember my Dad remarking that it reminded him of hiking in England because even though the peaks are even smaller, tree line is lower so you frequently hike above tree line.  Once we emerged from the ravine, there was still considerable hiking left.  When you are not above the tree line, your view is generally limited by the trees.  Above the tree line, you can see for miles.  While the view below was spectacular, the view of what remained to be climbed was a bit demoralizing.  We were also running low on water.  Because there were no trees, there was no protection from the sun.  We persevered though and pushed on to the top.  

Since Mt. Washington is the highest peak in the Northeast, it is quite popular.  You encounter a number of hikers on the trails, but it certainly would not be described as crowded.  The summit is a different story all together.  Unlike most mountains, in the summer, you could reach the summit either by hiking, driving up the auto road or taking a cog railway to the top.  Consequently, the summit was quite packed.  You also see people you wouldn't generally see at the top of a mountain.  In addition to the observatory there is a concessions area.  Best of all, for us, there was a spigot.  My Dad had realized far earlier than me that we were going through our water supply too fast.  He had not said anything to me though, but looking back it was clear that when we took water breaks he would take sips to my gulps.  Had the spigot not been there, we likely would have been OK, just very thirsty.  We did have some water left at the summit and the hardest part was behind us.  However, with the spigot and its limitless supply of clean water, we could drink like Kings!  That spigot alone made up for the crowds of people that had not climbed the mountain on their own. The descent was far easier, as you would expect.  As we approached the bottom, we passed a group going up.  It was unusual for a few reasons.  First, it was pretty late in the afternoon at this point.  They certainly were not equipped to spend the night.  Second, they were hiking in jeans and t-shirts and carried no other gear.  Finally, it appeared that the only thing they had to drink was beer.  A couple cans each.  My guess is they turned around shortly after we passed them.  

Over the years, I would return to Mt. Washington.  Unfortunately, never with my Dad again.  

It became a bit of a tradition of a group of us from camp to get together over the winters and do a number of hikes.  I believe the inaugural trip involved me and the load and my St Bernard hiking a portion of the Long Trail in VT.  It was not a huge success.  First, we were not climbing a mountain, we were simply walking through the woods in the winter. There was quite a bit of snow and we did not have snowshoes. We spent one night camping and turned around the next day.  The highlight of that trip was that Load and I tried snowmobiling for the first time.  At first it looked like it wouldn't be that much fun.  Our guide, who was all of 13, told us that under no conditions could we pass him.  So we meandered along trails at 5-10 mph.  Then we reached a frozen lake that was at least a mile long.  Our guide nailed the throttle.  I then realized that there was no way in hell I was going to pass this kid, I couldn't even come close to keeping up.  My guess is that Load and I were doing 50 mph or so, this kid must have been doing 70+!  We spent the rest of the time just racing back and forth over this Lake and having a blast.  

The next winter, we added K.W. to the mix.  This was advantageous for a couple reasons.  First, K.W. lived a bit further North than the rest of us.  We almost always spent the night at his place and then left early in the morning for these trips.  Second, K.W. was a beast of a hiker.  Finally, and most importantly, as mentioned earlier,  he had a knack for making sure we did not leave something crucial behind.  On this trip, we planned to climb Mt. Marcy.  Mt. Marcy is the tallest peak in the Adirondacks, and is quite popular in the summer.  It is not nearly as popular in the winter.  This time we had snowshoes.  We needed them, the snow was more than 2 feet deep.  Even with the snowshoes, you sunk several inches.  The person in the lead had the toughest job because they had to break trail.  Initially, we planned to alternate who would go in the lead with K.W. taking the first shift.  He set a good pace.  Then it was my turn.  Holy shit, K.W. had made it look much easier than it actually was.  Our pace slowed down dramatically.  K.W. was not having any of this, so he took over the lead and never relinquished it.  

We spent one night camping out on that trip.  The load had this great all weather tent.  It was listed as a two man tent, but we all piled into it.  It was a tight squeeze, but not unbearable.  Because it was quite cold, we sealed up all the doors and were quite comfortable.  Sometime during the night, I awoke to a strange sensation.  Everyone was breathing incredibly hard.  It was not the typical breathing that you associate with sleep.  This was labored breathing like we were climbing again.  I certainly could not seem to catch my breath.  I don't know why I didn't say anything immediately.  No-one did.  I think part of it is that during that interval, no-one knew that everybody else was awake and generally feeling the same thing.  Finally, I asked if anyone else was having trouble breathing.  Both the Load and K.W. responded "yes."  We realized that the tent may have been too well sealed.  Particularly with three of us, rather than the recommended two.  We were breathing in air faster than it could enter.  Someone unzipped one of the screens on the door, and it was instant relief.  We hadn't realized how difficult it had become to breathe until we were able to breathe normally again.  We were lucky that the discomfort was enough to wake us up.  

The next winter, we set our sights on Mt. Washington.  We expanded the group to include 2 additional members, M.L. and C.C.  both were a couple years younger than me, but strong hikers.  We knew that we needed specialized gear for this trip, namely crampons, an ice axe and special boots.  This gear is expensive, but fortunately there is a shop in town that rents it.  We spent most of the day getting outfitted and then planned to hike to the lean to halfway up the mountain.  One delay led to another and as a result we started out quite late.  Most of the hike was done in the dark and it was very cold.  When we reached the lean to, we saw that someone had set up a tent in there.  There is a rule against this, but it is not like you can call the cops or anything.  We made room for ourselves.  Setting up a tent in a lean to was a major breach of trail etiquette, so we all decided we too would abandon etiquette and were not exactly quiet as we got ready to be down.  In fact, we were way too loud, telling jokes that seemed hilarious to us but were anything but hilarious to anyone else.  One of these jokes revolved around K.W.'s sleeping arrangement.  Most of us had thick winter sleeping bags that we had rented.  K.W. was using a bag rated for fall weather.  But, he also brought a blanket that he wrapped himself in.  We all found this hilarious and ribbed him mercilessly.  The next morning, the tent group had left by the time we got up.  Although it was winter and cold, the weather the next day was spectacular.  Good visibility, lots of sun.  So we suited up and headed for the summit.  The climb up was tough, but no tougher than expected.  With the crampons and the ice axe we were able to keep a good grip.  Most of the trail had little snow, it was a sheet of ice.  So it was actually rather pleasant hiking with the right gear.  M.L., K.W. and I were all approaching the summit together, I think Load and C.C. were a bit further behind.  K.W. is a very competitive person.  We were probably 50 feet from the summit, and all of a sudden K.W. started running.  In crampons, with an ice axe.  It was important for him to be first.  

Then came the descent.  One way to descend an open snowfield is to do something called a glissade.  Only the load had heard about a Glissade, and began a lengthy discussion of how to do it correctly.  The proper technique involves removing your crampons, sitting on your buttocks and using your ice axe to slow you down without ever getting too out of control.  We did not follow the proper technique.  About 10 seconds into the Load's instructions, K.W. took off.  I decided that I of course had to catch him.  We were both out of control very quickly.  Even though we dug in our axes, we were not slowing down appreciably.  Both K.W. and I ended up crashing into a pile of rocks.  It hurt.  To his credit, K.W. did win though.  A lot of people had seen us do this.  Because we didn't want to admit the obvious, we acted like everything was OK and we had planned this.  In reality we were both having trouble walking.  The rest of the descent sucked, but we made it.  

We returned for several more winters.  Unfortunately, we did not get as lucky with the weather and had to turn around on a number of occasions.  Still, I think we summited at least one more time.  

Hired Guns

Like so many things about camp, I have no idea how this tradition got started.  Almost every summer, the same guy would roll into camp in his big Suburban and request that two staff members accompany him to Pharoah Lake.  Accompany might be the wrong word.  Really, he was looking for Porters.

He was a golf pro at some resort in Westchester, far more affluent than the typical staff member.  I don't think he had any real tie to the scout camp.  But he had been coming up for years when I first met him.  It was a simple job.  He loved canoeing around Pharoah Lake, and for good reason, it is quite beautiful.

You cannot drive directly to the lake though.  You can get within a few miles of it through a series of rugged roads, but you have to hike in the last bit.  It is not a difficult hike, it is mostly flat, but like most Adirondack trails it had a tendency to be quite muddy in stretches.  Pharoah Lake was where I "fought" my first forest fire.

For the life of me, I cannot remember this guy's name, so I will call him Arnold since I associate him with golfing.  Arnold had this really beautiful kevlar canoe.  Something like the below:

Kevlar canoes are expensive and incredibly light.  The Grumman canoes we used at camp weighed about 70 pounds.  However, they were virtually indestructible.  This was a good feature, because the scouts tended to treat them with the same care as you and I treat a rental car.  The trusty Grummans stood up the abuse, it seemed the worst you could do was dent one.   Kevlar canoes would have never lasted at our camp.  A good kevlar canoe was several thousand dollars and might weigh 15 - 20 pounds.  Where a grumman would dent, the Kevlar would tear and be ruined.  One of the teachers at Voyaguer school, a legend known as Paddling Paul,  had a Kevlar canoe and towards the end of the training, when I got with the program and was not about to be expelled, he let me try it.  You do things differently with a Kevlar canoe.  For one, entry and exit are done "wet".  In the Grumman, it was typical to get in the canoe with the stern still on dry land.  This was nice because your feet stayed dry.  Once in the canoe, you would use the paddle to push off, and kind of scrape along for a couple of feet.  You could not do this with a Kevlar canoe.  Rather, you floated the canoe in the lake a few feet off from the shore and then climbed in.  At no point would the canoe touch the river bed.  Similarly, the typical method of exiting a Grumman involved approaching the shore at ramming speed and causing the bow to impact the beach head.  Consequently, the canoe would scrape along the shore line for several feet and both occupants could exit the canoe and keep their feet dry.  Exiting the Kevlar canoe was the opposite of entering it.  You would stop a few feet from shore, get out and then carefully carry it on shore.  Fortunately, because they were so light, it was easy to carry.

Arnold had a very particular method of getting his beautiful Kevlar canoe to Pharoah Lake.  He had a cart which went in the center of craft.  He then loaded all his gear into the canoe.  Every inch was crammed with gear.  Somehow, once at the lake, Arnold would find a way to cram himself into the canoe.  The cart made things infinitely easier.  Because Arnold balanced the canoe quite carefully, all that was required was a push on the rear and a pull on the front to move it along.  Arnold would typically request that two staff members accompany him, one to pull and one to push.  Arnold would simply walk along side.  I think he had injured his back, so he was careful not to get involved.  To top it off, Arnold, even though he was in the wilderness, did not dress like it.  He wasn't wearing a three piece suit, but he did have gear that looked like it came from the front page of L.L. Bean.  I have never been a very snappy dresser, but while at camp my attire and level of personal hygiene was similar to that of a homeless person.  The difference in class was very clear.

Arnold was a great guy though, he would drive his vehicle to the end of the road and then accompany us on the trip to the lake.  He had some great stories and was not at all pretentious.  The only thing that was slightly ridiculous is that when we reached some of the muddiest parts of the trail, he would climb into the canoe to avoid the mud.  I may have done the same if I was as well dressed.  Getting a Grumman to the trail head would have been quite a chore.  Carrying a canoe for mile or so is not too difficult, but the hike into Pharoah was about 5 miles.  The upshot of it all was that Arnold typically had the lake to himself, most of the other people who came to Pharoah simply hiked there.

The best part was he was incredibly generous.  Once we dropped him off, he would typically give us each a hundred bucks and the keys to his vehicle.  We would drive his vehicle back to camp, park it, and come back to pick him up at the prearranged time.  We weren't supposed to use his vehicle around camp.  I never did because he typically arrived on a Sunday and was picked up the following Saturday.  I was usually out guiding a trip during the week.  One of the other porters interpreted the instructions of "drive this straight back to camp and park it" as "drive it back to camp and use it as your own personal vehicle during the week, don't worry about taking it off road, it is after all a 4 wheel drive vehicle."  Fortunately, he did not do any real damage to it.

The pick up went very much like the drop off, just in reverse.  Even though Arnold had been in the wilderness for a week, you would not have guessed it.  He was shaved and clean and it even appeared that his clothes had been pressed!  If he noticed that his Suburban had a few too many miles on it, he never said anything.  He would give us a ride back to camp and then head home.  I always looked forward to his arrival.  Not only was it chance to make a few bucks, but I always enjoyed the hike into Pharoah Lake.