Adirondack Peeks Winter 2024

part of my day, as it had certainly been broken out. Trudg ing along a frozen Herbert Brook, the first part of the route was standard Mount Marhsall in winter affair: in and out of the brook, over the brook or along the brook. Up the brook until the track broke right and into the trees. It was once the path got to the swampy, marshy area that things began to get interesting—to the point that later on in the day I would ask myself how one man could do this. The track I was following did leave high left of the swamp, but I figured that it would eventually swing back to merge back with the traditional path. This was always where the steeper climbing began, so I put my head down and set myself to the task of fighting against gravity, the trees closing in, and the terrain crawling by. After an ex tremely steep haul, the trees abruptly ended, and a wall of white rose up in front of me. That’s when I did a double take—where was I? I went to the right of the wall where the path led and after another steep pitch, I looked down upon a fabled false summit of Mount Marshall, which had wreaked havoc upon many a winter climber in the past. A light snow was falling, and Iroquois loomed large out of swirling, gray clouds. I could only imagine what spec Early Hiking, Lessons Learned Mike Becker, #1889W I t was 1981 and I was between my junior and senior year of high school. I was just getting the hiking bug and wanted to climb Mt. Marcy. The only high peaks I had climbed then were Dix, on a three-day weekend backpack the pre vious year, and a day hike to Whiteface a few weeks prior. My goal was to, arbitrarily, climb the five highest peaks. I had never heard of the 46ers. I recruited high school pals Craig, Pat, and Tom, and we picked a three-day period that was supposed to be rain-free that fit into our summer job schedules. I was the presumptive leader, having scoped out the trails in the ADK High Peaks guidebook and map. I saw that there were a lot of lean-tos in the Lake Colden area and figured we could get one there. I don’t think any of us owned a tent, so we had to find a lean-to. Our back packs were cheap external frames from K-Mart or Service Merchandise. Our sleeping bags were heavy and cotton. Surely, we had no money for expensive or functional gear or clothing. With confidence we set out from the Upper Works along the Calamity Brook Trail. Just finding the trailhead seemed like an accomplishment. I had new leather hiking boots that I assumed were waterproof right out of the box. Wrong! Walking through the brook at the various cross ings turned out to be a bad idea. I loved the picturesque Calamity Brook with the suspension bridges. Looking at a picture from that day, we were wearing jeans and sweat shirts. I didn’t have a hiking mentor to help me make bet ter decisions. But we thought we were cool! We got to Flowed Lands without seeing the Henderson Monument. I had read about it, but we walked right past it. I figured it would be right on the trail. We grabbed a lean-to in the Opalescent River area south of Lake Colden. I would have

tacular views might be hiding behind the stubborn wall of clouds. Once past this steep pitch I plunged back into the trees and began to make my way up the ridge. The trees, however, seemed to take my presence personally and used their combined force to push me backward. Ducking, weaving, untangling, and cursing, it dawned on me that it was no mere mortal who put in such a route . . . and so the Varney Indirect was born that day. The toughness of this fabled track did not slacken all the way to the summit; it was only when I got close to the summit sign did the trees relent in their assault upon me. A quick break—it was frigid at the summit—and then I was headed back down the Indirect. I could go on about the rest of the day and how my track across Flowed Lands was wiped away by wind and intermittent snow showers, leav ing snow drifts deep enough to flounder through even with snowshoes on, and how I ended up at the wrong lean-to, but that’s another story for another day. What I can say is that I have climbed Mount Marshall many times from differ ent directions, but it is safe to state that the Varney Indirect was by far the most interesting one I’ve ever taken! things used to keep food warm at wedding receptions. We figured we would make a fire and cook directly on it. But finding down and dry wood was not easy, although I think we had enough wood for a decent campfire. We all had wet boots and haplessly tried to dry them with the fire. Unfortu nately, Pat’s boots were too close and caught on fire, and the rest of us all laughed under our breath. We were hoping to get an early start the next day on a loop hike to Marcy, Haystack, and Skylight; however, when morning came, we were disorganized, wasting too much time boiling water for breakfast with the Sterno. The hike up to Lake Tear was gorgeous with the many flumes in the Opalescent. I was beyond excited as we went up the rocky trail to Marcy, and reaching timber line was incredible. The view from Marcy was like nothing I had ever seen. We weren’t good at budgeting time and probably lingered on the summit too long. The walk over to Haystack was beautiful as it was mostly above tree line. Go preferred a lean-to right on the lake, but we were tired and didn’t even get to the lake that day. Our “stove” was a couple of cans of Sterno gas, the

L to R: Mike Becker, Pat Smith, Tom Marble, and Craig Rasmussen

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