Dot`sThoughts

Mt. Marcy is a peak in the Adirondack Mountains and the highest point in New York State, U.S.. Iit has an elevation of 5,344 feet (1,629 metres) above sea level. It is located in west-central Essex county in the northeastern part of New York state, and about 12 miles (19 km) south-southeast of Lake Placid village. Lake Placid is way up on the far northeastern part of New York State, not too far from the South Eastern section of the Canadian border . The Hudson River's main headstream, the Opalescent River, originates on the mountain at Lake Tear of the Clouds and waters from this mountain is where the Hudson River and some others rivers also originates. This Mountain was named after William L. Marcy, who was Governor of New York at the time. He was the first to climb it in 1837. He did a geological survey of the Adirondack region. Mount Marcy is now a popular hiking place
Have you ever climb a mountain and seen the glorious view from the very top?
Have you ever spent the night in a lean -to half way up the highest mountain in the State or area where you live? It can be loads of fun as long as everyone is careful while climbing. I had the pleasure of doing just that when I was a teenager in High School. I had joined the Girl Scouts when I was just 12 years old and remained a Scout up until I graduated from High School. We belonged to a Group called the
"Senior Girl Scout Troop". When we left the junior Scouts we needed a leader to continue, so our High School Gym Teacher agreed to become that leader. When summer arrived our Leader asked us if we would
like to go mountain climbing. Of course we all said yes. So, she set a
date for shortly after school ended in the spring. This teacher owned a little coupe with a back that opened to uncover what was then called a rumble seat. This seat held just 2 or 3 people- a bit crowded, but since
we were small, 3 would fit. Two could squeeze into the front seat with
the driver ( was a bit crowded). That left 3 more needing a place to ride. Under the rumble seat in the back was the trunk. We discovered that 3 could easily ride laying down in the trunk. We climb in head first with our feet at the rear of the trunk. Can you imagine anyone daring to ride
in a trunk today? The law would forbid it for fear of suffication. But, I was one of the three who rode in that trunk. I bet our parents would have forbidden us to go if they had know this part of the trip.
I think the three of us in the trunk had the most fun on the long drive to Mt. Marcy. We were just teenagers and we found we could use our feet to slightly open the trunk to see what was behind our car. At first, every time we opened the trunk, the leader could see it in the rear view mirror and she would yell back at us to shut that trunk before we got sick from the gas fumes from the exhaust pipe that extended under the trunk. After a while us three girls realized if we opened it just a little, the driver wouldn`t see it. So, thats what we did.
Now, if you are wondering why we wanted to open the trunk a bit, just remember we were teenagers at the dating age. Have you already figured what was driving behind us? There were boys driving on motorcycles just a few feet from the back of the car. So, we were having one heck of a good time with these flirting boys. We couldn`t hear too well over the noise of the motorcycles, but we all knew the game where you use motions to convey what you were trying to say. Like playing a pantamine game where you used motions to show what you were thinking of and others had to guess what it was. They drove behind us for at least 2 to 3 hours. When they drove off on another road, then the ride seemed twice as long. It took at least 6 hours to arrive at the foot of Mt Marcy where we drove into a fenced in field that resembled a cow pasture, but we didn`t see any animals in the field. All of our camping gear was forced down behind the front seat. Pushed pretty hard to get it in and was also hard to pull it all out once we got there. We left the car there and got ready for our long hike, carrying all our food and hiking gear. I still remember carrying all that weight on our backs while climbing.
We stopped for lunch after a few hours of hiking. Then we trudged upward mostly using trails where we found them. Today, I read there are different trails to use to climb all the way up the mountain . Back then there were some clearings with paths and some places where the brush had overgrown and you had to make your own way thru them. As it started to get dark, we found there was a Boy Scout troop spending the night just around the next bend and we saw a 3 sided lean-to where we could spend the night just before that curve, so we went back to camp there. So, we built a small campfire in the clearing in front of the lean-to to cook our supper. After we retired for the night we saw a mother bear and her cub noseing around where the fire had gone out. We were laying in our sleeping bags just a few feet from the bears. As our leader said, they won`t bother us as long as we remain quiet and don`t bother them. She was so right. When they finished searching for food, they slowly walked off. We had been very careful to clean up any sign of food after we ate. Early the next morning the boys had left, so we started our climb on up the mountain. What a beautiful view , you could see off in all directions, but some places you just saw the top of smaller mountains.
We made this mountain climb again the next summer, but we invited some of the Junior scout to join us and we had a bigger car to ride in. One of the younger girls sprained her ankle shortly before we reached the Mountain top and we couldn`t continue to the top that year. We used our arms to make a chair and took turns carrying the girl back down the mountain. Took us lots longer going down that year. But still we all had a great time.