First Week In August: Do Your Own Thing!

Unbelievable weather.

My college buddy Ted and I danced around on Franconia Ridge while Mr. & Mrs. PM hit Mansfield and the Green River Reservoir. tMail felt lingering sentimental attachment to mud from Jay and apparently waded through it in the 'Dacks for about 19 miles, including tapping Mt. Marcy. Hopefully he'll upload his pics to a photo-sharing site and/or prepare a trip report we can post here.

Links can be found on the left margin.

Update 8/6 2:30pm: tMail Trip Report (Pics Are Here):

Okay so this is how it all goes down. My friend David Westcott's father is a 46er in the Adirondacks and thought he would torture his son's soul and see what kind of stamina this Tmail character has. So Mr. Westcott drives me and David to the Adirondacks Loj and says see you by 4PM on the other side of the Notch/Mountain don't be late wink wink. Okay so 19 miles two summits it is 8:00am we head off. The two main trails we are on are the Van Hoevenberg Trail to summit and Lake Elk Trail to Elk Lake for pickup. The trails are wider gradual the rock is more stable and holds up better than in NH. The summits of these peaks that I was on Mount Marcy and Skylight are smooth (pics coming) no rock hoping and everything is runable and I mean all out runable. We pushed fairly hard during the entire day. Now the best part about the hike was not the two summits but being in Panther Gorge which as Mr. Westcott states one of the most remote parts of the Adirondacks. Dead people yeah it has plently of them winter people that went into Gorge never to be found or people that got lost and never came out. The trail through Panther Gorge was easy to spot if you pay close attention we were very conscious to keep our eyes out for blue markers. We never saw a person for over 5 1/2 hours or trace of people through the Gorge were there is alot of mud knee deep smelly ass shit that stains the skin. Dry river wilderness stuff but I think more remote, Blair Witch project shit. We also saw the start of the Hudson at Lake Tear of the Clouds or something like that. The start of the Hudson is Beaver Fever ally stale brown shit water. We pushed hard and ran at times we got out of the Gorge and back to the car where Mr. Westcott was waiting a little after 4:00PM

I highly highly recommend we all get to the Adirondacks it is a play ground we can conquer and destroy.