Giant Mountain

We arrived at the parking lot of route 73 at Chapel pond at 830am and signed into the trail head registry at 834am. It was just Derek and I on this warm November day. It was the day before Thanksgiving and there was no snow on the ground, today's high temperature was expected to be in the forties. This used to be unusual, but seems to be the norm now, weather wise.

We meander our way up to the first lookout just below the washbowl and arrived at 09:19 am. We were passed by one hiker and her dog there, and soon passed her and the dog as they turned around before second lookout. Funny how that happens.

We arrived at the fake summit at 1130 am, its not much further from here to the summit, but you can get discouraged with false summits, because if you do not know any better the summits are there, just being illusive.

We started to come across ice from underground spring runoff, but managed around it. We had a very beautiful day, not a cloud in the sky. We had flushed several grouse between the cols which was really cool.

We came out on the out cropping just below the summit, I had slipped and fell just below the junction for Rocky Peak, Crushing my finger and abrasion on lower right back, thankfully no broken bones since we had not seen any other hikers.

We arrived at the junction for Rocky Peak at 1245 pm.and reached the summit of Giant at 1:00pm.
Was surprised to find a hiker relaxing in the sun at the top, he had come in from New Russia, he was from Syracuse, nickname on the forums is Mastergrasshopper.

We did not do Rocky Peak because we did not think we had enough time, not to mention energy since this was the first hike since early spring, not in shape.

Arrived back at trail head to sign out at 4:40 pm.

Donaldson and Emmons Mtns

What a beautiful day we had, life is good! I had the privilege of hiking with HOL, and what an awesome person indeed.

Our plans were to hike this via the Calkins Brook trail, go over to Seward, then back track to Donaldson, Emmons, and back to the Calkins Brook.

We met at the trail head at 530 Friday morning, signed in and were off. The trail to Calkins Brook is a very nice walk in and especially nice on the way back out. We arrived at the cairn for CB around 630, took a quick break and were off. At around 23-2800 feet I started to get fatigued, I definitely wasn't in my mojo like I typically get into after getting warmed up. We discussed our options to either continue or turn around, we opted to play it by ear, push the fluids a bit more and take in some extra carbs, this improved a bit as we continued up, but was short lived. Around 2800 feet we started to run into snow and the further up we went the more accumulation, albeit maybe 3" at most. There is a fair amount of mud on the CB, and the trail over to Emmons. We got up on the ridge around 10:30, this is where we started to run into icy conditions, crampons would have been over kill, and for the most part we were able to chip the ice away from the rocks with our hiking poles. The only time we took out HOL micro spikes, was to compare them with my stable-icers, big difference and I will switch over, they are allot lighter, more aggressive, and I wont be walking around with loose screws :twisted: .

When we got to the ridge we went to Donaldson for a break, ate, drank, and review our options, I admitted to HOL there is no way I can do the 3 today, HOL stated "we'll do what we can, we're just out for a walk in the woods", so I suggested D and E, then if things change maybe we could go over Seward and out the blueberry. Things did not change for me, I was having difficulty in the col going over to Emmons, it was a weird feeling that I had not experienced before, and I felt confident I wasn't bonking, but that's where the final decision was made, HOL agreed, we would bail out after going back to Donaldson. We ran into the most amount of icing in the area between D and E, again nothing that required crampons, but some strategically placed feet. We took a break on Emmons, took pics, chatted, and then went back to Donaldson. Again we had a snack, and water on Donaldson, soaking in the sun and the views, when a group of four from Buffalo came up from Seward, these were the only hikers we had seen all day. We left the summit of Donaldson at 1:30ish? We enjoyed our hike down the CB, nice trail for going down, easy on the knees. We got back to the cars at 5pm, said our goodbyes and were off. I stopped at the emergency room to get checked out, and after a sleepless night and many test from heart to thoracic, nothing wrong was found, which is great news, but leaves me wondering, maybe I was bonking with different symptoms....

I'll post pics later, Nancy it was a blast, correct me if anything is wrong, I purposely left out the "I hear voices comment..."