Stow Aways: Manly Adventure 2008 (aka Man Trip)

A couple of weeks ago I embarked on another annual trip with some of the guys in my ward. This has become an annual tradition that has been going on for the last six years and I have participated the last two. Last year we went to Maine and did some white water rafting and hiked Mount Katahdin (see my post).

This year I was privileged enough to go again, but I also had to plan the trip. Early in the year we threw out some ideas and people wanted to do some canoeing and hiking. I spent several weeks investigating possible trips. In the end I choose Lake Placid, New York. This was mostly due to a co-worker who has told me for three years I need to go to Lake Placid, and because none of us had ever done anything in the Adirondacks.

So with some planning and preparation, we decided that we would drive 250 miles with 3 canoes, canoe across Lake Placid, spend the night at a lean-to on the trail, hike Whiteface Mountain, and then spend a day touring the Olympic Village. The trip really came together nicely.

We left early Thursday and made the drive to Lake Placid. This included a ferry ride across Lake Champlain near Fort Ticonderoga that was rather interesting. We were lucky enough to all fit in one car (although we must have been a site with a canoe on the roof and towing 2 canoes behind us). We had a lot of fun chatting about the trip, backpacking gear, and next years adventure. We got to Lake Placid around lunch time and I have to say that I was quite impressed with the town and the lake. It reminded me a lot of Park City, UT. It had a small town feel but with that touch of yuppie. Not so much as to be offensive, but just enough to have some nice shops and eateries.

The canoe across the lake was a lot of fun. It was just over 3 miles across the lake to the trail head up Whiteface and we had originally planned to hike in about a mile and spend the night at a shelter on the trail. However, the map I had showed two Adirondacks on a island on the north part of Lake Placid that we decided to check out. In the end, lake front property won out (even though we did hike in and check out the trail shelter) and we spent the night on Lake Placid. This was definitely the right decision. Lake Placid is beautiful and we were able to enjoy some boating, swimming, and our dinners by the lake.

Canoeing across Lake Placid

Lake Front Property!

The next day we got an early start and canoed the 3/4 of mile to the landing and locked up our boats and headed up the trail. Whiteface is the fifth highest peak in New York and is referred to as the sacrificial lamb of the Adirondacks. It is similar to Mount Washington in that it has a road going to the summit with a weather observatory, restaurant, and loads of tourists in high heels. The hike up the Whiteface landing trail was fun. The first mile is pretty flat, but then it quickly becomes quite steep. You are in the trees until near the top, but for the last half mile you have nice view looking out over Lake Placid. It is also interesting to come to the summit and round the bend and come upon people who have driven up. They looked shocked that someone would actually hike when you can drive.

I promise that we didn't take the elevator the first time we summitted.

The views were very nice and although the hike wasn't as memorable as Katahdin, it was still very enjoyable. We ate lunch at the summit and then decided to attempt another of the 46ers, Esther Mountain, but in the end had to turn around less than a mile from the summit due to injury. One of the guys I was with had slipped and banged his leg against a rock leaving a 3"x4" hematoma on his leg. We had to hike back to Whiteface and luckily we arranged for the staff there to drive him down the mountain and leave him at the restaurant we were going to eat at that night. Jeff's time at the Wilderness Inn is another story in and of itself. Sufficeth to say, he charmed the crowd and had them all thinking we were horrible friends who had abandoned him by the time we showed up.

The intrepid group at the summit.

Looking back at Lake Placid (a little hazy that day).

Knowing the Jeff was going to be down well before us, we hussled down in about 90 minutes to our canoes. Unfortunately we had 3 miles of canoeing to do into 35 mph headwinds. I don't know how many of you have canoed in that kind of wind, but it is not easy. We had 2' high waves and I think that we went back 1 stroke for every 2 forward. It took us twice the amount of time to canoe back as it had the day before. By the time we got back to the marina we were all exhausted. It was nice to enjoy a nice dinner and a state campground with hot showers that night.

Saturday was our fun day. We had scheduled to go down the bobsled track in Lake Placid and we also were doing a ropes course in the trees in Bolton Landing, New York. The bobsled was great fun and it was interesting to see how the technology changed between the 1932 and 1980 Olympics in Lake Placid to the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City. The g-forces going around the curves were intense and we all want to go back and do it on the ice in the winter.

2012 Olympic bobsled team?

The final piece of the trip turned out to be the most memorable. Adirondack Extreme opened up a couple of years ago and have done a very nice job incorporating zip lines and obstacles course through the trees. They have four courses that progressively get harder and higher up. This was a blast and the only regret is that it is 4.5 hrs away. We had a great time alternatively encouraging and sabotaging each other's attempts across the obstacles. In the end, only 2 of the 5 of us made it through all 4 course (I had to be "rescued" half way through the final course), but we all had fun. It culminated with a long zip line where we raced against each other. I should have come in first, but was aced out by 1/100 of second due to my lower mass.