Adirondack Peeks Winter 2023

brothers, Philip and David. I honestly don’t remember anything about the hike. But I do have vivid memories of another family hike. That was a climb of Colden on a beautiful day during the summer of 1963. My dad, who had climbed in the High Peaks during the 1930s decided that we would do the loop trip—go up the Lake Arnold trail and down through Avalanche Pass. I remember my brother David being so disappointed when we reached Lake Arnold. He was expecting to see a real lake, not a small, shallow pond. The trip down to Avalanche Lake was hard for my mother. She had arthritic knees, and the steep terrain really aggravated them. She was using my father’s camera unipod as a pole. The trip through Avalanche Pass was slow. The Hitch-up Matildas were not the sturdy, well constructed bridges that they are today. They were random logs strung together with wire, and I have no idea what was supporting them. The logs had rotted, and, in some places, they were two to three inches underwater. I remember thinking we were all going to die trying to make our way across them. But save for some wet feet, we all made it. My mom was walking very slowly so it took us a long time to reach the end of Avalanche Lake. By the time we got to Marcy Dam it was dark and my mom had had enough. She decided she was just going to find a nice tree to rest by and wait for the sun to come up. We convinced her to continue slowly, aided by the one flashlight we had with us. But as its batteries were dying, we thought that waiting it out until sunrise wasn’t such a bad idea. When our morale was at its lowest, suddenly, the sky brightened, and we could see the trail without a flashlight. It took us a few seconds to realize that it was the aurora borealis that was lighting our way. The light show continued until we made it back to the Loj parking lot before slowly fading away. A miracle? A stroke of luck? Just a happy coincidence? I don’t know what to call it. But I’ve never seen the aurora borealis again . . . SR: Wow, that’s a great memory! The 46er’s records show

SL: We finished on Haystack after doing Saddleback and Basin. We backpacked into a lean-to that, as I recall, was near Chicken Coop Brook. It rained cats and dogs during the night and then the temperature dropped. In the morning it was quite chilly and windy. The summits were covered with clouds. We took the Shorey Short Cut to the Range Trail, climbed Basin and Saddleback and then back over Basin. I remember just running across the summit of Basin because it was so windy. No time to take photos—there were no views anyway. On the summit cone of Haystack, the winds were even stronger. We had to crouch down behind rocks, wait for a wind gust to die down before running to the next rock. We did that all the way to the summit. We had a small bottle of champagne with us, and I think we took photos of each other sitting on the summit while holding the bottle. But it was too windy to celebrate, and since there were no views we turned around and left. On the way down we ran into a lone hiker with a young puppy. He had decided not to summit and was heading down. He was oblivious to the fact that his dog was very scared and couldn’t or wouldn’t navigate the steep, rocky terrain on the way down. We coaxed the dog over the worst spots with some beef stick, but it took so long to get the dog down every obstacle. So, David finally picked up the dog and carried it down to the junction with the Range Trail. The owner kept yelling for the dog. The poor thing would look toward where the call was coming from and then look back at us, as if asking “Can I please stay with you?” The owner finally came back up the trail to get his dog. I’ve often wondered if the dog made it down safely. We finally drank our champagne at the lean-to to celebrate. The next day our parents met us at the Garden when we came out and we had a picnic lunch at Chapel Pond to continue the celebration. SR: Chapel Pond, that sounds like a great way to celebrate! I finished on Haystack, too! Although, it was sunny, hot, and there were no winds; however, I’ve been up there with a

you finished your first round of the 46 high peaks on September 18, 1982, with your brother, David Lance #1801V. Did you hike all the high peaks with David? SL: Almost all. We hiked 43 peaks together—34 with just the two of us and nine with other hiking friends along. He had hiked three of the peaks before, so I hiked those with other people. Although, I sometimes say I hiked the 46 solo. David was tall and athletic, and I couldn’t keep up with him. He was always way ahead of me. He says he always kept me in sight though. SR: Tell us about your final climb and how you celebrated your forty-sixth?

Family hike of Cascade, July 1983

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