Adirondack Peeks Winter 2023

goal was to reach the rim in time to watch the sun rise. We were grateful for several rest stops and reached the rim just as the sun was rising. The views were simply fantas tic! There was steam belching here and there, burbling sounds and sharp peaked volcanic shapes poking up from the floor of the volcano. It was like a futuristic movie set. The views from the rim in every direction confirmed our remote location. After walking around and snacking, it was time to head down. Whoa! It was really steep with lots of loose debris—the ball-bearing kind. The steepness of the ascent was an eye opener—a wrong step on the way up could have been rather unpleasant. By now, the sun was up in all its glory, and it was getting very hot. Of course, there was no shade of any kind. We began slowly zigzagging down with lots of stopping. At one point, I lost my balance on some loose rock and careened to a stop just inches from our Maasai guide. He was not amused. It took us just about as long to get down as it did on the climb, roughly six hours. When we got back to our campsite, our reward was a leisure ly walk up a creek bed to a sizable waterfall where we lounged in the refreshingly cool, roiling water. The capstone to this exciting adventure occurred just three months after we returned home. After a long time sleeping, Ol Doinyo Lengai had roared to life and was once again active! Climbing was shut down and several Masaii villages in the area were evacuated. Yikes! Timing, they say, is everything. tains that summer and his finish motivated me to become an Adirondack 46er. Teaching provided me with great opportunities to explore all sorts of summer activities. For me they would be hiking and traveling. That summer, over extended trips in the Adirondacks, I knocked off the essential firsts—Cascade and Porter, as well as Giant of the Valley. That fall, I’d leave school and head to Keene Valley, park my car in the Garden Parking lot (yes, there were spaces in those days), spend the night in a lean-to, and climb both Saturday and Sunday. One Saturday saw the completion of the Great Range. Once, in late October using a lean-to at Bushnell Falls, several of us made an ascent of Marcy only to find ourselves in a sudden snow squall, improperly dressed and foolish enough—or smart enough, depending on one’s point of view—to look for the trail and head down. By the good Grace of God, the hike had an uneventful happy ending. It did, though, hamper any further hikes into the high peaks late in the season. By the end of the year, I was an Adirondack 11er and well on my way. First love is beautiful, and what made mine the most beautiful was a mutual love for hiking. In the ear ly to mid-1970s we’d knock off chunks of mountains on compound the challenge were two joint replacements, lower back surgery, and advanced Lyme Disease. It’s been a journey. In 1972, a roommate had completed the moun

track back to the rim, we encountered a water buffalo, also feeding. They are the most dangerous animal in the bush, and we were entertained for about twenty minutes by lots of snorting and grunting. Our Maasai guide, Kong, wisely held us back until it was safe to move. Kong, a young war rior, was armed with his spear, and I think he would have welcomed the chance to engage. Fortunately, the buffalo finally moved deeper into the bush, and we were able to continue the climb out. One of our daily adventures stands out in particular. It was an option to do a night climb of Ol Doinyo Lengai, the Mountain of God. An active volcano, it tops out at nearly 9,500 feet. It is a steep, classical stratovolcano in the Rift Valley. The only carbonate lava volcano in the world, Ol Doinyo Lengai last erupted in 1993 and was deemed safe for our ascent. We would be led by a local Maasai and the climb would be around 6,500 feet of elevation gain. The plan was to spend the afternoon and evening resting as much as possible before the climb at midnight. Five of us chose to make the climb and anxiety made it almost impossible to sleep. It was a relief when the call came to get our gear and head out. We left camp by truck, and it was dark—Africa dark. After driving for about an hour on rough tracks, we reached our destination in a field and began the climb. In addition to our Maasai guide, we were accompanied by Rick and our local guide, Au gustino. It was midnight when we started out with head lamps, walking single file behind our guide. The absolute darkness was disorienting and the climb was steep. Our Five Decades and the New England 111 Dan Ladue ADK 46er #2694 New England 111er #1030 W hoever said that life is more about the journey than the destination was thinking of me and my 49-year journey to become a New England 111er. It was 1971, and my friend Michaela and I were a few weeks out of college when I called her to see if she’d like to climb a mountain with me. It was June 15, and I was ar ranging a day off from my college job at a grocery store. The specifics are lost in memory, but our goal was New York’s Whiteface Mountain. There are only a handful of details that I do remember from that hike: the trail was wet, we had terrible footwear, black flies and mosquitoes were monstrous, and, thanks to Michaela’s memory, we made snowballs near the summit. What I did not know that day was that it would mark mountain #1 in my quest to become an Adirondack 46er and, ultimately, a New England 111er. The accom plishment included two careers, hiking in four states, driv ing countless miles traveling to and from trailheads, and equally countless miles on trails in all sorts of weather. The arc of years spans youth to middle age to senior. To

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