2014 Measured in Boots and Love

There's a lot of ways to measure and evaluate a year.  I've decided to do it Rent style and measure in love (if you don't get the reference, stop reading and immediately watch Seasons of Love).  There's a lot of things I love, but hiking produces a certain kind of love that can be hard to explain, let alone quantify.  How does one evaluate hiking when the unit of measurement is love?  Why, steps of course.  One will average 2,000 steps in a typical mile.  I estimate I hiked around 200 miles this year, giving me something like 400,000 steps, that's 400,000 footsteps of pure love.  I stepped foot for the first time on both the Appalachian Trail and the Bright Angel in the Grand Canyon, I broke the halfway mark on the way to climbing all 46 peaks in the Adirondacks, and I did it all with a smile on my face, even when isolated or close to death.

Every love story has a downside though, mine coming when I had to dump my long-time pair of boots after my grueling 40 mile hike through the Grand Canyon.  As I took one last shot of them before they were ceremoniously dumped in the trash of the GC convenience store, it dawned on me how my pair of Merrel Moabs had been with me everywhere, and I mean EVERYWHERE.

I'm talking winter in the Adirondacks:

Spring hitchhiking in the Appalachians:

Early summer in the Rockies:

Later summer in the dessert:

Flirted around with other boots:

And this summer met their demise at the ripe old age of two:

I feel like I'm getting more sentimental over mostly ridiculous things as time goes on, but a hiker is nothing without their boots!  Other than the love of wandering hundreds of miles, 2014 was an extreme roller coaster with rock bottom lows and nose bleed highs.  I look forward to making 2015 much more of the latter than the former, with new stories, boots and as always, love to share.  Happy New Year! 

Mount Jo: Ringing the New Year in Right

Hike Distance: ~2.5 miles

There's never a bad time to run into the mountains, but running to them for New Years is one of my favorite things to do.  Lake Placid is the jewel of the Adirondacks, with a never ending amount of indoor and outdoor activities (not to sound too much like an advertisement).  This year I went up with Eva and her family as we did two years before.  The fun started on New Year's Eve when I decided to take a walk down with Eva's brother Sam to get an energy drink so he could make it to midnight.  Several "accidental" shots of liquor named after narcotics later, I literally woke up in an entirely different bar then the one we were taking the shots in.  After an inebriated attempt to find our coats, Sam and I abandoned them and somehow stumbled home in t-shirts....in 6 degree weather.  Needless to say, we didn't make it to midnight.

To help clear our bodies of "Liquid Marijuana" Sam, Eva's other brother Mike and myself decided to hike Mount Jo, a stubby 2,870 peak that has fantastic views for the effort.  After a quick and mostly uneventful climb up, the weather cleared and gave us spectacular sights to properly ring in the New Year.  We were the first ones to summit for the day and possibly even the year!  Granted, it was a non-High Peak, but still a cool thought.

Tragedy wouldn't be far behind though, that spiteful bastard.  After what sounded like a moderate fall, Sam arose from the snow on the decent down and casually remarked, with smile still on face, "My finger's broke."  After a solid 60 seconds of laughing with him, Mike and I realized he wasn't joking, given the awkward tilt of his finger.  A quick trip to the ER and Sam's dislocated finger was back in place, with no shortage of flinches and jeers from my queazy mouth.

We all celebrated with burgers from the Redneck Bistro who, and I must agree, boasts about having the best burgers in town.  Sam buried his pain beneath the Polish Power burger, a 1/2 lb. of beef topped with a 1/2 lb. of Polish sausage.  A summit victory has never tasted sweeter.

Rim-to-Rim-to-Hospital-to-Rim: The Grand Canyon in a Day

This is a long post, but it has lots of pix and is worth the read...minus the plethora of grammatical and punctuation errors because I refuse to proofread as an ongoing protest against the needless idiocy of the English language.

As I may have said in my earlier posts, I feel like the term adventure is overused. Adventure to me necessitates a certain level of isolation and risk. That's not to say one can't be adventurous in a controlled environment, (zoom-in on my complete self-butt kicking at the Five Borough Bike Tour) but generally if there's not the slightest risk of death, it's just not a good trip. Unfortunately, I came a bit too close to the edge in my most epic and death defying adventure yet.

The first look

The Plateau Trail

 There's a series of hikes that are fabled in the outdoors community. Said to be the most difficult day-hike in the North America, the legendary Rim-to-Rim-to-Rim hike, AKA R2R2R, is a 43 mile trek from the South edge of the Grand Canyon, through its winding and perilous canyons, to the North Rim. This would be foolhardy enough, but turns nearly unfathomable when you turn around to head back again all in the same day. There's warning all over the place that urging you not to hike the 12 miles to the Colorado River and back in a single day, let alone nearly quadruple that distance. In fact, it's so common that hikers fall ill, injure themselves or worse, that the first 10 miles of hike is monitored by a special crew of rescuers ready for the ill-fated. Did I mention it was August and 115 degrees? Because it was.

I made my way to the Canyon the day before I began my hike. After driving for hours from Phoenix I was more than ready to be inspired. What I witnessed at the edge of the Canyon, upon first glance, left my jaw so far hung open that I must have bared resemblance to an anime character. The depth of the valleys, the vastness of the Canyon and the brilliance of the hues of red and orange must truly be one of a kind on Earth.

After a riveting night of sleeping in my rented Ford Focus, I set off with a headlamp at around 4am. I wasn't the only one though, as hikers from far below made their way up, also with their headlamps aglow. I felt as if I was descending into a nest of fireflies, or the mines of Moria. I was well physically prepared for this hike. I had been running a round-trip of ten miles a day to the gym where I would lift. I was making such incredible time on my way down that maybe a dozen hikers coming from the opposite direction complimented my tenacity, speed and endurance.

My first stop of significance was a small ranch called Indian Gardens. I spent no time there, but I did take note of the large thermometer with a plaque hung above it, which read "This is your brain on sun." It was already in the 80's and it wasn't even 7am. I plowed ahead through a bizarre oasis of large trees and brilliant green plants. It was strange indeed, seeing how I was in fact in the middle of the desert. But a small tributary of the Colorado River gave life to thick and heathy tress, whose beauty offered a contrast to the gravel and stones that surrounded me otherwise.


My next stop was the Colorado River itself. Sure, it's just a river, but it was the river that formed the amazing Canyon over an unimaginable number of millennia. It was also much larger and more ferocious than your typical river. It invoked awe and pride as I knew I was killing the hike. By the time I got to the famous Phantom Ranch, where the equally famous Canyon mules reside, it was hot, blistering hot, sickly hot, dangerously hot. Forget anything you've heard about dry heat. 115 degrees is oppressive regardless of the humidity, and since I was at the bottom of the Canyon I had the pleasure of knowing that it was probably only in the 80's at the top of either rim.

I blasted out of Phantom Ranch and headed toward my next destination, Cottonwood Ranch. The hike from that point was in completely open exposure; no tress, no rock walls, no life....except the Diamond Back Rattlesnake in the middle of the trail that I gladly let pass after it shook its deadly behind at me. I had my first thoughts of turning around about here. I was miserable, too miserable to inspired by the scenery or the strength of my own determination. I wanted out in a major way. When I got to Cottonwood I was nearly trembling from the heat. I guzzled 3/4 of a gallon of water at the empty ranch, which ended up being my undoing, but more on that later. I trekked on, this time up the North Rim. With my quads bursting, sweat pouring, lungs gasping, head pounding and my shirt turned white from the amount if salt pouring out of my pores, I made it. I made it, but if didn't care. It felt good to sit, to see people again, to get some Gatorade and take my boots off, but I knew I had to go back. I didn't even care enough to snap too many pictures.

Beware of Diamondbacks

The hike back was alright until returning to Cottonwood. It was about there I starting thinking I wasn't going to make it. With the barren exposed portion of the trail ahead of me, I was feeling pretty depleted. I got back to Phantom Ranch after having wonderful conversations with momentary friends I made on the trail, but once there I knew I was going down. I slept for an hour on a bench in the shade, then woke up and was ready to devour my highest protein and calorie dense energy bar. I took one bite and became instantly horrified. Peanuts. I'm allergic to peanuts. Since I hiked a few miles outside of Phantom, it was too late to grab food there. My options were to eat the bar and risk vomiting, a sure way to guarantee a $10,000 helicopter ride out of the Canyon, or not eat and risk passing out, not being found and risking death on the trail. I took the first option.

I sat down by the Colorado river, and every 2,500 feet after that. Then every 2,000 feet, then 1,000. Soon I could stumble no more than 500 feet after every 5 minutes of rest. I was in trouble. Hikers were asking if I needed help, and after splitting off from a group of slow moving Korean hikers who were nice enough to leave me with a couple hot dogs, I decided I would ask the next hiker for help. He was a tall, blonde young man from Switzerland. He was more than happy to take my bag and let me walk uninhibited by its weight. This only got me another 1,000 feet until I collapsed again. He decided he would alert the Park Ranger and come back with help. I kept stammering along for another two hours and no one ever came....then it began to rain. My luck seemed almost out. At the rate I was going, I was two hours from Indian Gardens, had no cell reception and it was getting dark. It was about this time my leg muscles began involuntarily contracting so hard I found myself literally screaming from the pain. I decided to lay down on a clear slab of rock, nurse the gallon of water I had left and wait it out until morning, hoping nothing catastrophic was going to happen overnight. About then a crew of Minnesota hikers, all young and remarkably friendly stumbled upon me. They sent three of their friends to alert the Park Ranger and two stayed back with me.


By the time the Ranger got to me, the true gravity of my situation came to light. I was suffering from dehydration, but more seriously I was suffering from an electrolyte imbalance: my body had expelled practically all its sodium. A part of hiking in the desert that I was woefully unaware of was the need to enrich your water with salt, or run the risk of having the water you're drinking wash all the sodium out of your system. The Ranger tried to be comforting, but he later confessed he thought I was going to have to be evacuated via helicopter. He started his treatment by putting a pill on my tongue to keep me from vomiting. Next, he gave me something approximating Pedialyte and salt water. It tasted oddly comforting, but I could only sip on it. Between the five or six people present they were able to carry me back into the Ranger station. I've never been so grateful for the selfless kindness of strangers.

My hero!

Back at the Ranger station I was fed every salty dish available, primarily a giant bowl of life-affirming Ramen noodles; it was the best bowl of artificially chicken flavored noodles in my life. I slept the night in the station, was given Sprite in large quantities (it helps for a reason I can't recall) then I woke up feeling like nothing had ever happened and was mildly pissed I couldn't do R2R2R in a single day....next time! My name is Stephon and I'm addicted to hiking. I made the last six miles back with a pretty large crowd of hikers, including some tour guides that pointed out ancient painting on the rock wall.  I also ran into the mule train and the terrified riders who straddled their backs. I got to end the hike on a good note by finishing with a mother and her two young girls who only hiked a couple miles in and were on their way back. After telling them abut my night, the mother called me Superman, which her little girls gleefully referred to me as for the rest of the hike.

I didn't quite feel like Superman when I finally crested the South Rim, but I felt battled hardened with a touch of stupidity. Alls well that ends well though, and you hike, you learn. I would like to try the hike again, but maybe in January next time. You'll have to excuse me though, I have some Ramen to cook.

Hellos and Goodbyes: Stephon Gets a Job and Loses a Friend

A few rules of thumb regarding me: I can't spell and my grammar sucks, which I'm sure you've been whiteness to if you've been following me for a bit; I have an obsession with books, politics, and the mountains (clearly); but what you might not know about me is that I'm not a sentimental person.  Not a lot chokes me up and nostalgia isn't really an emotion I visit too often.  Unfortunately, I couldn't keep that up when one of my best friends, greatest pillars of support, drinking buddy, Brown Bear and often featured hiking mate told me she was going to move 6 hours away to Portland ME.  I knew it was coming, it wasn't surprising when she announced it, and I couldn't place one ounce of blame at her feet when she said she was taking off.  I would have to.  None of that mattered the day she left.  It was every bit as terrible as if she told me that morning.  I can only remember crying three times in my adult life.  Once when my mom passed, again when I was dealing with the fallout of leaving New York City, and the third time came about a week ago after I watched Allie get into Veronica (that's her car you perverts) and drive away.  I felt ridiculous, but there have been few kindred spirits like Allie and I.

Often envied.  I've never had a spontaneous adventure buddy quite like this.

Rarely understood.  I suppose society hasn't moved far enough along to understand that guys and girls can be just friends; we can have a Black president, gay marriages, but mixed gender friendships...what next?! Platonic hugging?!  It's felt like high school, the 40's, or Bible camp.  Luckily we've had plenty of practice circumventing questioning eyes in actual Bible camp, where we met 12 years ago, so Facebook has nothing on us ;)

Always drunk.  Can you imagine a time before I liked Guinness?  Because of Guinness's effect on my long-term memory, neither can I.  My first car bombs, shots of Jameson, and pints of brown glory were all shared with my Brown Bear.  She's been a great influence.

Terribly missed...Words can't begin to express how much I'll miss that girl.

The timing of Allie's departure coincided with another major happening in my life; I got a job!  After six years at the blue box known as Lowe's, all those degrees have finally paid off.  I'm the proud new representative of W.W. Norton publishing.  My job is to travel through Central New York and Northern Pennsylvania advising professors on the appropriate texts to be used in their classes and helping to integrate Norton's digital systems.  For this I get a brand new company car, phone, and shiny new Macbook Pro that I'm using to write this post.  Life is awesome.  Breathtakingly awesome.  Norton is also a 100% worker owned publishing house; no capitalists.  My Marxist heart could burst.

Training was in New York City for a week and then in arid Arizona for another week (stay tuned for my epic Grand Canyon post).  The stay in Arizona was at a 5 star resort nestled at the bottom of a mountain...one month ago I was installing refrigerators.  I have never been so humbled.

Lastly, my job requires me to relocate.  I will no longer be  resident of the snowbank known as Syracuse, but the People's Republic of Ithaca.  Ithaca is an eclectic and beautiful hippie town surrounded by stunning waterfalls (Ithaca is gorges!).  It's also home to Cornell University, where I'll be spending most of my time. I'm still in Arizona so Eva has had to do some of the legwork to set up our new place.  I could feel her excitement through her text message when she signed the lease on our new apartment, in an old converted church, at the bottom of a gorge, 800 feet from a waterfall.  Life is good.

It's been a wacky month balancing a torrent of conflicting emotions, all of which have been brutally intense. .."but somehow I can't shake, this feeling I might make, a difference to the human race!!!"

Cliff: The Swamp Mountain

Hike distance: ~15 miles
Peak: Cliff

As times goes on my trips to the ADK's with Allie and Brian have become less frequent, mostly due to scheduling issues.  That is a reason to be a bit sad, but at the same time, the reason that scheduling is becoming more difficult is that we're getting closer to the end.  The days of driving up in the morning, hiking a peak, crashing the night and leaving the next morning are over.  There's nothing left except 17 mile trips or longer, requiring us to stay two days or more.  Once again, the downside is that we're hiking less often, but on the up side, when we do hike we summit 2-5 mountains per trip, not too shabby.

Getting on the trail with my friends for the first time since March was an awesome thrill, almost from the second I laid foot on the trail.  The mission for the day was Cliff and Redfield, two remote peaks that require a 17 mile hike to bag them both.  After a sleepy drive up (see pic at the bottom) we were ready to hit the trail.  Hiking out of the ADK Loj requires an 8 mile hike before the climb even begins.  It was about then I realized how remote these peaks were and began contemplating whether we were going to have enough day light to summit both.  The day was cloudy and a bit ominous because of our terrain. The trail was a swamp, no I don't mean wet, I mean swamp.  I didn't think swamps existed above 3,000 feet, but it was a day for learning.

Navigating the trail was a mixture of acrobatics and luck.  The trail snaked along the most shallow portions of the swamp, with 6 inch wide log bridges allowing you to avoid outright wading through the muck.  I would have bet every penny to my name that Allie was going to fall face first into the grime, shortly after a series of shrieks and "Nooooooo!" (Her balance is notoriously and hilariously awful).  Somehow we all managed to avoid swamping ourselves...sorta.

Neither Cliff nor Redfield have maintained trails to their summits, just heard paths where past hikers have climbed.  Once at the junction for the climb we decided to take on Cliff first, given the fact it has no views (another peak below the 4,000' mark, but was mis-measured decades ago).  The trail up Cliff was miserably muddy and claustrophobic.  Branches reached out and touched you from both sides of the trail at practically all times.  The march was made so much better by the mud that was knee deep in spots.  After about an hour we were on what clearly seemed to be the summit.  There's only a small and faded trail marker indicating the summit, which was impossible to see in the clouds.  Eventually I had Brian pull out his altimeter as we started going down in elevation again. "3,890 feet" he said.  "Turn the hell around!" I shouted.  We had descended dozens of feet and the mountain is only 3,900 odd feet tall; we walked up and over the summit.

After what was the most lackluster summit ever, we began the march back.  I had the misfortune of slipping knee deep into the grossest mud ever.  After unleashing a torrent of obscenities and grunts Allie was kind enough to break the post-rant silence with "That's what she said, all of that, even the grunts."  I was slightly less irritated after the laugh.  The march back was chilly as it began to rain and the wind joined in.  Unfortunately, I was correct and we didn't have enough time for Redfield, no matter though, we were camping next to a BBQ joint that was going to eliminate all of our pain.  Now, it's a given that you're going to smell after a long hike, however this was freaking stunning.  We've never held quite a stench as magnificent as this one.  I blame Brian.  The car ride back involved rolled down windows despite the rain.  A bit later, showered and starving, we begin chowing down on Memphis burgers (pulled pork on a half pound burger) and fries with Maple syrup dipping sauce (don't knock it tip you try it).

The night ended the way all nights should end, drunk with friends and laughter.  Allie and I became reacquainted with our favorite black man (other than me), Guinness, while Brian nursed a Canadian, Labatts.  For a second we were at a loss for drinking games, until it was discovered Allie had never played the most common one under the sun, Kings.  She was thrown into the fire, as Brian and I were more than happy to interject bizarre rules and not explain the normal rules all that well.  Eventually she got the hang of it and produced my favorite moment of the entire trip.  Brian and I both broke a rule, making it so we both had to take deep sips of our beers.  First she called out Brian, then after her realization I had broken a rule too, Allie leapt to her knees, took a deep breath, pointed at me like she had just discovered the body of Jimmy Hoffa, and shouted "BOTH OF YOU DRINK!", before falling back to her butt and nearly falling over into the wall of my tent.  I can't remember the last time I've seen excitement with such reckless abandon...giggling followed.

Bonus picture of Brian sleeping like a fool!

The next day we took on another peak, but I'll save that for my next post.  For now I leave you with the words of Sublime, whose music was playing in my internal soundtrack all night.

Love's what I got

Don't start a ri-ot

You'll feel it when the dance gets hot

First Steps: Appalachian Trail, Great Barrington MA - Springfield CT

Having been an avid hiker, Bill Bryson fan, and one to romanticize absolutely everything, it has always deeply bothered me I had never been on the Appalachian Trail.  The AT extends some 2,000 miles, running between Maine and Georgia.  One will summit the distance to Mount Everest several times while trekking its entire length, as several hundred hikers do a year (called thru-hikers).  Given my chaotic schedule it's always made more sense to hike it in chunks (called section hiking).  For the first time in the years I've been imagining it, I did it!

My hiking trips normally come out of two places.  Firstly, a genuine love for everything outdoors; secondly, and not necessarily as dreary as it sounds, to clear my head.  Hiking will save you hundreds or thousands in shrink fees and you'll get a much more fulfilling result.  As are many of my hiking trips, my mission on the AT was motivated by a bit of both.  After a long and ultimately unsuccessful job search (more on this later) my mood was not the greatest.  Syracuse has a way of feeling like you're living in a lung, every couple weeks the walls start to breathe and close in on you with every inhale, exhaling the stale stench of mediocrity and lost opportunity; I want to choke it to death.  I was in one of these moods when I decided to take a three day weekend and hit the AT.

Hiking the AT can be a complicated task when doing it in sections.  Getting to and from the trail either requires a friend to drop you off, a fellow hiker on an internet forum who doesn't mind picking you up, or some stranger benevolent enough to grab a hitchhiker from the bus station; I was lucky enough to find the last.  After a couple of miles of walking from the bus stop a pickup truck pulled along side me, rolled down its window, and a young man asked "Appalachian Trail?".  After a quick nod I hopped into the truck bed and was whizzing down the road, but not after the man who picked me up commented on how soaked I was from the torrential downpour, and implied I was silly because it was New England and "They pick up hitchhikers here."  I was never so greatful to get a ride, despite the fact that hitching felt wholly and completely weird to me; I guess I've see too many horror films.  No matter though,  I was on the trail!

My feeling of awe, aimed at both the trail and myself for deciding to walk 50 miles in the woods, by myself, in a part of the country I had never even laid eyes on, was interrupted not even five seconds later by my first trail friend, Lauren.  Lauren, who I greatly regret not taking a picture of, was a friendly Southern Bell that majored in Classics at a top-notch university.  We walked together for nearly half the day, with her entertaining me with her fluent Latin and tales of Greek tragedies.  I think I showed a bit too much interest as she would not stop talking after every question I asked.

The trail in Southern New England is generally flat, a bit rocky, and takes you past many farms and country roads.  The sights were gorgeous, but the morning storm turned the trail into a swamp.  I was getting sick of the puddle hopping and mudslinging.  Just as I was about to get annoyed, Lauren and I made our first assent up a steep hill.  Looking at Lauren one would be surprised to know she has run marathons or would attempt the AT, but she stuck with my above average pace all morning.  After the first climb though, it became apparent I was going to have to leave her.  After giving a friendly wave good bye, I was on my own.

I started flying from there, wanting to make up a bit of lost time.  The trail was incredibly slick at the higher elevations; moss, limestone and a hiking pace close to a jog was not a good mix.  As I bopped from hilltop to valley back to hilltop, I must have slipped 20 times, some falls worse than others.  The day had cleared a bit around noon, but at five the clouds rolled back in.  While admiring the erie scene I had put myself in, I took my worst spill of the day, jamming my finger into a jagged boulder as I was trying to slow my fall.  I'm writing this post a month after my trip and I can still see where the chuck of my finger had been ripped off.  At this point I was 25 miles in for the day, soaked, muddy, and still 7 miles out from the shelter I wanted to camp at.  After adding "bleeding badly" to the list, I was completely sick of the trail.  I had no choice but to trudge on though.  I summited the Connecticut high point, just to read the plaque marking it and verbally reply "I don't give a s***."  After being almost completely defeated by a midget 2,200ft high "mountain", I was finally at my destination, Brassy Brook shelter.

Sleeping by myself in the middle of the woods was the part of the trip I was least looking forward to; I thought I would be creeped out and uneasy.  Oddly enough, I was right at home, only bothered by the occasional scurry of animals I couldn't identify.  I woke up the next morning feeling proud of myself, not only for having no fear of the night, but for having no fear at all.  I felt a lot of things on the trail,  but fear was never one of them.

My initial plan was to take on the Connecticut Challenge and hike the entire CT section of the trail in a single grueling day.  Given the trail condition, I knew that was impossible.  I cut off the trail early and headed back to NY on foot.  My trip back to Syracuse involved a 130 mph trip in a Maserati, two trains, and a hippy bus.....no, I'm not making any of that up.  Hitchhiking and mass transit is an adventure in its own right, but that's another story.  In the first days coming off the trail, I had had it with hiking for a while. Hiking 30 trail miles and another 20 on the road, all in 36 hours, had me feeling pretty adverse to even walking, let alone climbing.  I knew it wouldn't last long though, and I'm already planning my next jaunt on the AT.