November 14, 2025 • 74 mins
The title says it all. Get ready for an inspirational story of a man who just completed the Adirondack Great Range Traverse at 70 years old.
10 Adirondack mountains, 8 High Peaks, 21 miles, 10k+ elevation gain. What a story this one is.
Looking for help to improve your your fitness for hiking?
Here's 2 ways I can help you:
1.) Work with James 1-on-1 (online)
Apply to work with directy with James 1-on-1 in his Seek To Do More program where he'll help you build the right kind of strength & conditioning for better hiking adventures, along with the nutrition and daily habits needed to support long term transformation.
Book a call with James to see if it's the right fit for you HERE
www.seektodomore.com
2.) Join the next GREAT RANGE ATHLETE Team training program
A 6-week online fitness program to help you imporve your strength and endurance for hiking mountains. Train alongside a likeminded team of fellow hikers who will give you the support, guidance, and accountability you need to succeed.
Over 200 hikers worldwide have joined the Great Range Athlete team program with great sucesss from first time hikers to multi-round Adirondack 46'ers and everywhere inbetween.
Plus, enjoy an Adirondack group hike at the end of the program with your coach and teammates
Join the next team HERE
www.GreatRangeAthlete.com
Follow on Instagram & Facebook:
@46of46podcast
@jamesappleton46
Get my Adirondack hiking books:
1.) The Adirondack 46 in 18 Hikes: The Complete Guide to Hiking the High Peaks
2.) Adirondack Campfire Stories: Tales and Folklore from Inside the Blue Line
3.) Pick up my digital eBook "From 1-to-46" instantly HERE
Visit my websites:
www.46OUTDOORS.com
www.46OF46.com
10 Adirondack mountains, 8 High Peaks, 21 miles, 10k+ elevation gain. What a story this one is.
Looking for help to improve your your fitness for hiking?
Here's 2 ways I can help you:
1.) Work with James 1-on-1 (online)
Apply to work with directy with James 1-on-1 in his Seek To Do More program where he'll help you build the right kind of strength & conditioning for better hiking adventures, along with the nutrition and daily habits needed to support long term transformation.
Book a call with James to see if it's the right fit for you HERE
www.seektodomore.com
2.) Join the next GREAT RANGE ATHLETE Team training program
A 6-week online fitness program to help you imporve your strength and endurance for hiking mountains. Train alongside a likeminded team of fellow hikers who will give you the support, guidance, and accountability you need to succeed.
Over 200 hikers worldwide have joined the Great Range Athlete team program with great sucesss from first time hikers to multi-round Adirondack 46'ers and everywhere inbetween.
Plus, enjoy an Adirondack group hike at the end of the program with your coach and teammates
Join the next team HERE
www.GreatRangeAthlete.com
Follow on Instagram & Facebook:
@46of46podcast
@jamesappleton46
Get my Adirondack hiking books:
1.) The Adirondack 46 in 18 Hikes: The Complete Guide to Hiking the High Peaks
2.) Adirondack Campfire Stories: Tales and Folklore from Inside the Blue Line
3.) Pick up my digital eBook "From 1-to-46" instantly HERE
Visit my websites:
www.46OUTDOORS.com
www.46OF46.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
This is the forty six of forty six podcast Summit Sessions,
where we'll talk all things Adirondack back country and beyond,
from high peaks stories and adventures to trail tips and tricks.
We'll dive deep into the heart of these mountains and
the people who passionately climb them. Adirondack maps and spruce
traps to bushwackx and backpacks. It's all here, the forty
(00:22):
six of forty six Summit Sessions. Hello everyone, and welcome
back to the forty six of forty six podcast. Fall.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Well, fall is slowly going away.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
The leaves are gone. Winter is just around the corner.
But that's all right. The outdoor adventures do not have
to stop just because winter is showing itself. But tonight
I'm going to tell an amazing fall slash end of
summer story of a man named Steve von Schenk who
just completed the Great Range Traverse. Except Steve is seventy
(01:10):
years young and absolutely crushing miles in the mountains still
to this very day. We're going to hear Steve's story
on the Great Range Traverse back in September, as well
as what he's been doing to actually keep himself trail
ready to be strong, to keep climbing mountains well into
his retirement and continue enjoying the adventures that he's having,
because I think we can all find inspiration through Steve,
(01:33):
because he is living the life that I think all
of us want, which is to continue to have mountain
adventures long, long, long into our life. So Steve, Welcome
to the forty six to forty six podcast.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
Hello James.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
I really appreciate you coming on here. You have been
an absolute massive supporter of me, so let me on
the podcast say thank you to you for supporting my
endeavors and just being a part of my little, my
little ecosystem here in the world of the forty six
Outdoors Company. I appreciate you a lot, and I am
just so excited to hear about your hike along the
Gray Arange Reverse. September two was the date, so I
(02:07):
remember getting the pictures from you and I didn't.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
I have not heard the story yet, so there's a
lot to go into.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
But before we dive into that, you are a two
time out around I forty.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Six are correct, correct, Yeah, it's very cool.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
So I want to hear from you, like give us
a little background on yourself, where you're from, how'd you
get into hiking the Adirondacks the outdoors, Just kind of
give us a little background on you before we start
talking about the gray Orange reverse.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Yeah. Well, I mean I grew up in the city,
actually in the Bronx, and my wife from Long Island.
But we found our way to the Capitol District in
the early eighties and I was going to grad school,
and ultimately when I get out of grad school, we
decided we like the area and really wanted to stay
in the Capitol District, so we moved to Clifton Park
after we got married and had three boys and spent
(02:54):
the eighties and nineties and early two thousands in Clifton Park,
and somewhere along that time frame, when the kids started
to get a little bit older, you know, we had
heard about the Iaronics. We'd actually visited Lake Placid in
the early eighties and fell in love with it before
the kids came along, and decided that that would be
kind of a good adventure for the kids healthy, get
(03:17):
them outside and do some healthy activities. So we started
hiking in some of the smaller mountains around the Lower Adirondacks,
like Buck Mountain and some of the fire tower things
and Mount Arab I think it was up in Tupper Lake,
and really fell in love with that concept, and we
ended up when my middle boy was eight years old,
(03:38):
we were up in Serac Lake on a little vacation
and we decided we were going to try to do Marcie.
So he and I did Marcy and he was eight
and that was kind of interesting. It was the first
time we had ever experienced a hike like that, and
my wife was getting really interested in doing something like
that as well as a family. So we ended up
(03:59):
doing Phelps not too long after that, and that was tough.
We were in no we were young, but we really
weren't in great shape. The kids handled it well, but
by the time we got back down off of Phelps,
I mean I was gassed and you know, legs were
shot and I was just in no shape. I hadn't
really I didn't expect Phelps to be what it was.
(04:20):
And my wife said to me, and I anticipated she
was going to say I'm done with this, that's the
last time we do. She turned to me and she said,
I want to be a forty sixer. So I looked
at her and I said, are you crazy? You want
to be a forty six er? This is one We've
got to do forty five more. I said this, you know,
and this is a relatively easy one. But that was
the wrong thing to say to her, because she was
(04:41):
determined after that, and ten years later we became forty
six ers. And what was interesting was it took us
a while. The first eight years we were just dabbling
at it, and the last two years we were in
our mid fifties. I was mid fifties, she was young fifties,
and she really wanted to get them done and you know,
stop dabbling and commit ourselves. So we did thirteen in
(05:05):
the ninth summer, and then another thirteen in the next
summer the tenth summer, and finished off to forty six.
But I learned there was what incredible shape you can
really be in if you take the high peak seriously.
You know, you go out every weekend for ten weeks,
twelve weeks. By the time you finish up that summer season,
you are in remarkable shape. And that was the first
(05:27):
time I had really experienced what it was like to
be in really good shape to hike a high peak.
But again we were quite a bit younger than we
are now, but it was. It was a great, great experience.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
That's great. It took you, it took you.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
So it took you eight years to do the first
half of the high peaks, basically in two to do
the second and haunt.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
So would have finished them off. And then we finished
them off, Like I said, those thirteen it just really
you know, I was we were so fit by the
fall that, you know, we just couldn't believe that the
kind of conditioning you can get in from hiking.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
Absolutely, so your kids did, okay, climbing up the high piece,
isn't it? Isn't it so interesting how kids can just
kind of zip their ways up the mountains, but us
as adults sometimes not so simple.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
For sure, not so simple at all. Yeah, kids are
a little mountain goats.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
So for you, I know, you hike, are not hiked.
I know you've you've been quite quite fit throughout your life.
You've done a ton of marathons. How many marathons have
you run at this point?
Speaker 3 (06:27):
Yeah? I did twenty one, and you know it's actually
my first one was the Lake Placid Marathon in nineteen
eighty three and it ran from from Paul Smiths College
to Lake Placid, and they don't run it anymore. I mean,
they have the Lake Placid Marathon, but it's not that
(06:47):
same course. And it was a pouring, pouring day up
in the Adirondecks and I ran it and I was
twenty eight years old and I finished in four hours
and eight minutes. And I had no concept of training.
I just I trained a little bit, but I just
just had no concept of that. But that was my
first experience and over the next couple of you know, decades, actually,
(07:08):
for me, running a marathon was a way of staying
in shape. I always needed a goal, always needed a
goal to keep me fait. I couldn't just every day
work out just to work out. I needed something to
shoot for. So for me, the marathons were something I
could shoot for, you know, six months out, I could
train for a fall marathon and I could start the
process in February, and that kept my weight down and
(07:31):
kept my fitness up. And that's why I ended up
running twenty one of them, just because I kept kept
using them as goals every couple of years to just
keep in shape and keep fit. And that was, you know,
the last one I ran. I was actually sixty six
years old when I ran my last one, but back issues,
neck issues, all of those kind of things finally took
(07:53):
its toll and my running days, at least my marathon days,
were coming to an end. I just couldn't go out
and do the power any more on a pavement, so
I had to stop doing those and actually needed something
else to do to that was goal oriented, that that
I could still do, but that was a big challenge.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
Absolutely, So You've kept yourself nice and fit throughout your
life purposely, and I'm the same exact way. I need
to be shooting for something. I mean, I'm still going
to train regardless, but I always need that next thing
i'm working towards. I just think having that, you know,
that little north star that you're going towards, makes things
a lot easier. I'm always very hesitant about what, what
(08:35):
goal or what task I decide to embark on, because
I know if that's what I set, you know, like
that's what I'm going towards, like I'm going to get it.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
I'm going to get it.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
So yeah, so I've become very cognizant of the fact
that I need that. But I also know that I'm
always going to get it. So I'm just like you
in that regard having something to be aiming for. Is
is just it's a better it's a better workflow, in
my opinion, than just kind of whibbley nibby going through
life a little bit but very good.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
So I want to hear a little bit from you.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
About your you know, your you did the high peaks,
you finished with your wife and your mid fifties, and
then you've already since done a second round. So clearly
it wasn't a one and done thing. So clearly the
Adirondack Mountains have really taken hold of you.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
Yeah, so the second round was I had dabbled in
you know, some I'd done Giant and a couple of times.
I did some of the at Marcia a couple of times,
and so you know, I had a few doubles and
triples under my belt. My son in twenty nineteen went
to grad school and graduated right at the time that
(09:44):
COVID hit. So he had this job lined up in Denver,
but instead of starting in say July or whatever it was,
they told him his start date was January, so he
was out of fumes financially and came to live us
in Diamond Point just that summer because you know, he
had no place else to go and no job, and
(10:05):
we were in the height of COVID. He had about
I would say eleven or so high peaks under his
belt growing up in Clifton Park. So he decided, well,
I might as well become a forty six er myself,
and so I ended up he actually became a forty
six or that summer he did thirty five or so
(10:26):
of them. Are thirty, yeah, thirty five of them that summer.
I ended up going on twenty three of them with them.
So when I did the math at the end of
that summer, I go, you know, I'm about eleven shy
of a double. So that became my new goal, if
you will. I said, you know what, I'm going to
become a double. Not that that really means much, but
you know, I said, I'm going to become a double,
(10:46):
just to become a double. So I ended up hiking
the next eleven over the next year or so and
became a double from that, but largely because he was
home for COVID and just wanted to do them as well.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
So yeah, great, must have and some nice, nice adventures
I'm sure, or nice memories of the adventures I'm sure
that you guys have from that summer.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
Yeah. I mean one time we were up that we
were doing sant Nni and Panther and Gucca, and we
were up at Times Square and it was the height
of the mosquito season, and he was much faster than me,
so we were in Times Square. He went off to
do Cooch and I went off to do Coach. He
was way ahead of me. By the time he got
back to Times Square, it was probably he was a
(11:26):
good half an hour ahead of me, and I stuck
to talk to people along the way, not really thinking much.
By the time I got this Times Square to hook
up with him, he had been so eaten up by mosquitos.
He was actually going going insane. They were that bad.
So that was one one adventure we had together that
he'd like to forget. And I felt bad for him
(11:47):
because we didn't have any but I had the book
Spray in my backpack. He did not have any, so
he got totally eaten up.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
Yeah, No one, nobody likes to experience the bugs out
in the high peaks, and there's a noogle, lady.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
Gone, just had to wait for wait for dad.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
That's it very good.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
So, so, Steve, you're a you're a two time Adirondack
forty six or you've experienced these.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
Mountains and you've done them.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
I mean you have maybe haven't done all of them
more than twice, but I know you've been You've done
many more than twice. What has you continuing to go
out there? Why do you still want to be able
to go out and run around in these mountains Because
a lot of people could be like, I been there,
done that. I've you know, you're seventy years old. You
could easily say I don't need to anymore. But what
(12:32):
like keeps you coming back? Well, it's that It's.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
That goal thing. It's that's what it is. So you know,
if if I could still run, it would probably be
another marathon. I mean this marathon in Albany, the Mohawk
cuts in marathon. I've run that six or seven times.
So it's not about necessarily one and done. You know.
It was just always a goal. So uh, absent being
able to do that, I just needed a new goal,
(12:55):
something to shoot for, and so uh the Addiran next
became that thing that I knew if I could do
I could do a high peak and if I kept
in shape and that cardio from a cardio point of
view and just a strength point of view, it just
kept me in great shape. So it was really more
for that as much as anything. It was to just
(13:16):
go up and they were an hour away from my house,
so it was something I could easily do and I'd
knock them off, you know. I'd go up and do
giant numerous times just to get the cardio in and
the strength training in on the legs. So it was
it was as much for that as anything else. The
other thing is I always do these things solo. I
know that's not always the smartest thing in the world,
(13:37):
but there is a you know, aspect of being out
there in what's called the dismal wilderness by yourself. It's
a bit of an adrenaline rush, and obviously you got
to be real careful about that and be well prepared.
But there's a certain rush you get from that that
you don't get it you don't get running a marathon,
because there's nothing perilous about running a marathon, but there
(14:00):
is a little bit of peril when you're in the adironics.
As you know, the mountains don't care about you, as
you often say, and there's such truth to that.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
Yeah, absolutely, I can completely relate.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
There are so many times I've been out in the
high peaks and you know, especially solo, but like you're
looking around and you just realize, you just have that
moment where you just realize, I am in the sick
of just wilderness, right, Yes, I am so far from
anything right now that it becomes not just humbling, but
(14:32):
you know there like you talk about like the adrenaline,
like you get a little dopamine from it as well,
because you're just so far from civilization. You you know,
when you see these pictures of the High Peace and
I'm looking at one literally right above my computer, shout
out to Jonathan'sheric for this awesome picture. You're just like
right there in the middle of those mountains and you
(14:52):
know there's no road anywhere near you. The only way
out is on my feet. I am, you know, so
many miles away. Like it does have that really magic
quality too, and I think that's really what keeps people
drawn to the Adirondacks and keep coming keeps keeps them
coming back here is because it's hard to find that
anywhere else. Like you said, like with a marathon, it
(15:12):
doesn't quite doesn't quite scratch that itch, like the dismal
wilderness seems to despite the bugs, despite the mud.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
Yeah, I mean, and you go through those trails, as
you know, it's it's both you're experiencing heaven and Hell
in one afternoon, you know, I mean, there's nothing more
gnarly and in some ways ugly than being down in
one of those calls, with all the blowdown, the you know,
the narrowness of the trails, the slippery rocks, the mud
(15:40):
and all of that. It's it's not overly beautiful. But
then Alsten, you summit, and you know, it's the opposite experience.
You've got, like I said, Heaven and Hell in one afternoon.
So there's something sort of magical about that as well too.
So it's hard to really put my finger on what
it is, but it's a combination of so many things,
and you know, largely wanting to be fit, wanting something
(16:00):
big to shoot for, and still being able to do that, thankfully,
you know, with the right training.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
Yeah, absolutely, So let's talk about training. So you came,
you came to me because you wanted to get stronger
so that you could keep doing this stuff and then
you know, eventually like this was what the goal was,
was a twenty twenty five great range traverse. So it happened.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
But let's talk about the Let's talk about leading up
to that hike before we get into the hike itself.
Talk to me about your experience preparing for this hike.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
Well, So I had obviously, like a lot of people
heard about you on the podcast, and I was such
a big fan of the Adirondecks from the early eighties
and all of the things we just talked about. So
I really loved your podcast, and I started to learn that,
you know, you were also into fitness and coaching and strength,
strength training, and I started to realize that strength training
(16:53):
was a very very important aspect of one's overall health,
especially as we get older. And it was something I
had never ever done before. You know, it was always
cardio and running and those kind of things. So I
knew I wanted to do a strength training program, and
I you know, I didn't want to just go and
start lifting weights because I you know, it sounds easy,
(17:14):
but like anything else, there's a complex science behind all that,
and I wanted to do it the right way. So
I went on one of those pikes that you do.
That winter, we did the Mackenzie Range with a group
of people, and I tagged onto that and learn more
about your programs of the Seat to Do More and
the Great Range Athlete and all that stuff, and I
(17:35):
started thinking, boy, this Seek to Do More program that
might be just what I need. I really need somebody
to coach me through this stuff. And so I contacted
you in July of last year and we talked about it.
But I told you, if you remember, I said, James,
I've got next surgery coming up in September. And this
was in July, where I'm going to have a fusion
(17:57):
of some vertebrae in the neck and that's going to
leave me kind of dilapidated for a couple of months.
So I thought, well, maybe we should start the Seek
to Do More in January or something like that. And
you said to me, well, Steve, you still got about
eight weeks before surgery. Why don't you get into shape
before your surgery? And I thought about that. I said, yeah,
(18:19):
maybe that does make a lot of sense. Why put
off this kind of stuff when you can start right now.
So I embarked on the Seat to Do More program
that July, and by the time I had the surgery
in mid September, I was as fit as you know
i'd been in many, many years, and ultimately not what
(18:39):
I was going to become, but I was really fit
for surgery. After surgery, we still had the Seek to
Do More program left a few weeks left, and I
couldn't do much, but I could walk twenty thousand steps
a day, or yeah, twenty thousand steps a day that
I could do. So that became part of my program,
was to commit myself to doing twenty thousand walking steps
(19:01):
and to keep up with all of the other aspects
of the Seek to Do More program as well too.
So by the time January rolled around, I was you know,
I had kept my weight down. I was really fit.
By the time I went to surgery. I was a
little worried about getting overweight, but I had kept my
weight down through the program, even though I couldn't lift
or run, but I could walk. And by then I said,
(19:24):
you know what, I said, I need another goal. And
it was January. I know it wasn't going to do
a marathon in the fall, But I said, what about
the Great Range. I know I've done I did a few.
I did a hike right before surgery, and I actually
went up Giant maybe a month after surgery, against doctor's orders.
But I felt fine, and uh it worked out well.
(19:47):
But I said, maybe I need another goal, and maybe
that goal is the Great Range. And so you and
I embarked on you know, private training app after the
seek to do more, and that is what those sick months.
When I started in January to one actually eight months
in August, when I was prepared for the Great Range,
(20:08):
I got an even better shape than I had been
prior to surgery. My strength levels went way up because
I could lift. I could really start lifting. You know.
The trap bar was just an amazing thing. I started
on the trap bar. I had twenty pounds on the
trap the trap bar, so that's what sixty five pounds total.
Within four months, I was doing one hundred and twenty
(20:31):
pounds on this trap bar, and so one hundred and
sixty five pounds or whatever it was total. So the
improvements that I made were dramatic.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
And for someone who has already has a nice base,
nice physical fitness base, obviously from just hiking mountains. In
the fact that you've run eight thousand marathons throughout your life,
adding strength training in it sounds like really boosted your
your ability out in the mountains.
Speaker 3 (20:55):
Yeah, no question about it. I had no real concept
of how important body strength was, but it made the
hikes so much easier because you know, I was using poles,
and the poles helped a lot. And with that upper
body strength against the with the poles, I mean I was,
you know, maybe twenty five percent less effort went into
(21:17):
moving with the upper body, being able to use my
upper body, plus pulling myself up some of those rocks,
scrambles and getting over some of those rocks where you know,
I needed every bit of body strength I could muster,
and so that paid dividends. I don't think I could
have done I know I couldn't have done it without
that upper body strength that I had achieved.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
Yeah. Sure, So what made you?
Speaker 1 (21:40):
You know, I know you said you wanted you wanted
this new goal to go after. So why of all goals,
why the big one, why the Great Range Traverse?
Speaker 3 (21:51):
What?
Speaker 2 (21:51):
There must have been some sort of draw for that
massive hike for you to make that your goal for
the year.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
Well, my son and I had you know, I had
heard about the Great Range Traverse maybe fifteen years ago,
and I talked to one of my sons about it
and we were all gung ho about it, and yeah,
that sounds great. And I said, you know, if the
goal is to do it within twenty four hours, not
over several days, but just to get it done. And
so it just became one of those things, those big
(22:18):
things that you know, like climbing Everest. It was a
mini Everest, if you want to think of it that way.
That just drew me, compelled me to say, you know,
this is something big. It's bigger than going up Marcie.
It's bigger than going up Haystack. It's bigger than a
lot of that. And it's a thing, it's an established
thing that you can shoot for. So that's when I
(22:42):
just said I'm going to do it. And I looked
at all of the you know, it's twenty one miles,
ten thousand feet of elevation, it's daunting by all means,
but I said, you know what I can do that.
I know I can do that. So it became the
thing I just wanted to shoot and I knew I
had the ability, I just needed the right training. Was
(23:05):
I was skeptical a little bit because I am seventy
and there's a difference between being seventy and being sixty
by a lot, and so I was a little bit
apprehensive about it. And in my mind, there were several
off ramps that I could have taken had things not
gone well. So I always knew, you know, okay, Steve,
if you end up doing the lower grade range, still
(23:28):
that's not bad. So I was. I was copping out
a little bit along the way, but I still was
with your help. I mean, you're a good motivator, and
you taught a lot You taught us and me a
lot of things about about your body and what it's
capable of doing, even when the mind wants to quit.
The body's more than capable of doing more than you
(23:49):
think it is. Also being accountable, and you know, those
kind of things that were just motivational for me. So
I knew, I knew I could push myself more than
I thought I could, and that's what I ended up
doing on that hike.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
Absolutely, and we're going to get into it shortly here.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
But there was one hike that you did right before
the Great Range Traverse that didn't quite go how you
wanted it, and I know that must have shaken your
confidence a little bit.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
Oh well, yeah, so there was, yes, so there was.
The bad experience I had was is one of the
I was training by using Roostercombe, Hedgehog and Lower Wolf
and then coming back to the car. That was sort
of my one of my training routes. It was kind
of boring, but it was one of my training routes.
And the week before I had done in that one
(24:39):
hundred degree day, I had done Roostercombe and Hedgehog and
then come back, and so I wanted to go out.
It was a week later it was actually cooler, and
I wanted to go out and tag on Lower Wolf
as well. I mean, if you do those three and
come back, you're talking about almost eleven miles and forty
five hundred feet at elevations. It's a great training hike.
(25:02):
But I got halfway up Roostercomb and I was like,
I don't know, I'm just not I just do not
want to be here, do not want to be here.
So I ended up abandoning the hike, going back, feeling
miserable in a sense, like you know who your kid
and Steve, you can't even make halfway up Roostercomb and
(25:23):
you know two months from now you're going to be
two in the great Range. You know, you got to
be kidding yourself to you and I had a chat
and that's when you know, you said, you told me
that many times the mind can want to quit before
the body really needs to. And that was clearly what
was going on in my mind because my body was
was capable of that that journey and the next week boom,
(25:46):
I did it. You know, I did Roostercombe, Hedgehog and
then Laurel and then came back. So it was just
a matter of pushing through it.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
You know.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
I I tell people all the time, your brain is
going to quit far before your legs do. That's always
going to be the case. If you are one of
those freaks of nature athletes who can push and push
and push so far where your body is what fails
your brain unbelievable. You are a top point oh one
percent type of athlete. You are a freak of nature.
(26:18):
Kudos to you for winning the world. But for the
rest of us mortals, yes, our brain will quit before
our legs will. So when we remember that all of
a sudden we're able to go further, able to do more.
We can keep climbing, we can take a little break
and then keep going, you know.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
And these are and these are just things we need
to remember.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
And of course this doesn't this doesn't mean like if
it's time to call a hike, you shouldn't go turn around. No,
that we're not talking about that. We're talking about the
ability to keep going. And you showcase that obviously with
the next hike. So let's get into the actual Great
Range traverse September second, why that day, and then take
us through the hike.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
Let's start it.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
Let's start at the beginning, take us through it. I'd
love to hear the story because I haven't heard the
story yet.
Speaker 3 (26:58):
Well, I'm a fairweather hikeer, so to me, you know,
I need every advantage I can possibly have when I'm
doing something like that. I had no interest in, you know,
hiking in the rain, and I wanted the trails to
be dry. I just wanted every advantage I could possibly have.
And so I was very being retired, I'm somewhat flexible
(27:18):
in when I can do things. So I had a
window of like three weeks or two weeks where I
was going to look ahead and go, there's the day,
that's the day I want to do it. So a
few of the days that were open, you know, something
else came up, or you know, it rained or something.
So it was that day that I looked and I
finally said, you know, I got to pull a trigger
on this because now we're into September and I don't
(27:40):
want to go too far out into the you know,
with the daylight and all of that stuff. It was
important to get this thing done somewhat in the summer months.
So I picked a day where I thought it was bluebird,
but it turned out not to be blue bird. It
was the day before I went on the hike all
of a sudden changed to a thirty percent you know, chance
(28:02):
of rain in the afternoon up in the high peaks.
But by then I was like, I cannot delay this anymore.
I've just got to do it. And thirty percent isn't
one hundred percent. So I said, you know, uh, let's
let's let's launch this thing and let's go. So that's
that's why that I kind of ran out of time
(28:23):
to choose too many more days. It's really what why
September two was picked. Okay, great, so let's take us through.
You get to the trailhead, you start, you start, and
like take us through it, take us through the hike. Yeah. So,
you know, I went to bed at eight o'clock that
night because I had to get up at midnight and
leave the house at one so I could get to
(28:44):
the trailhead at two. So I got to the trailhead
at two a m. And Edlan Amson you know, and
all of that stuff, and decided to push forward and
do it. And it's quite an experience. And I'm sure
you know, hiking in the Aronde at night is even
more of a you know, an element of adrenaline rush
(29:06):
then during the day. I mean there's just something dark
and mysterious about it that's a little eerie at times, definitely,
especially if you're by yourself. And so, but I knew
that I had done a few trial runs of going
up Hedgehog and Rooster Coom at night just to get
you know, adapted to night hiking, and so I was
(29:27):
pretty comfortable with using the headlamp. And in some ways
it's easier because your lamp is focused right on the
trail and you can certainly see the trail markers were
flicking back at you one hundred feet away, where you
don't see that necessarily in the daytime. That's, of course
if there's trail markers. But you know, so in some
ways going by headlamp could be easier than during it
(29:47):
during the day. But I also knew by the time
I got past Lower Wolfshaw it would start to brighten
up and that would lift my spirits. So I only
had three four actually four hours. It was six thirty
by the time I could shoot off my headlamp, So
by then I was over Lower wolf Jaw. I had
(30:09):
done the three Roostercombe, Hedgehog and Lower wolf Do and
I was heading down to the call between Lower wolf
Jaw and Upper wolf Shaw, and that's when the sun
started to peek out, and you know, spirits were.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
Lifted all of a sudden. It feels like a different
day once the sun comes up.
Speaker 3 (30:27):
You know.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
That's why I say miles in the dark don't count. Yeah,
I thought of that.
Speaker 3 (30:31):
I thought of that as well, too, James. I heard
you say that. I was thinking those exact words. James
would say, the moles and the dark don't count. So I, uh,
the sun came out, spirits are lifting, I'm real And
then I realized, Wow, I've got a good twelve thirteen
hours of just daylight here and I'm already three mountains
deep into this thing, so this is going to be
(30:52):
kind of a piece of cake. And I was really
elevated in my spirits, so I get I'm going up.
Oh the other thing about all of these mountains, And
I'm sure a lot of your listeners know, and you know,
for well, every one of these mountains seemed to have
baby brothers or sisters associated with them, So you know,
there's supposedly ten mountains in this traverse, but I swear
(31:14):
there's a lot more than that when you count the
little ones that don't have any names to them. There's
a lot of up and downs. But I was going
up Lower Wolf Upper Wolf Jaw and it was light
out and I got off trail. There was a sharp
right turn that I didn't quite see, and I just
kept going straight and alson. I realized, well, I'm off trail,
(31:36):
and I went to look at my first I had
pulled out all trails because I really didn't think I
needed it, and I just had it for backup, and
I saw that Yeah, I was off the trail, but
I could bushwhack a little ways and get back on
the trail, and you know, bushwagging in the Adirondecks, it
(31:56):
sounds kind of easy. But boy, that was a bad call.
That was a bad call. I should have just gone
back to twenty yards, got back on the regular trail,
and done it from there. But I was stubborn and said, no,
I'm just going to bushwhack. So it was so thick
you just could you had to close your eyes to bushwhack,
you know. And so you're pushing through this gnarly stuff
(32:17):
and you're not really seeing where you're going. And then
I go for twenty yards or whatever it was, and
I look on all trails and I'm further away from
the trail that you know. I'm like, this is, this
is a little it was a little maddening. It was
I never packed, but I was like, you know, this
is I'm not going back, and I'm going to get
on this trail. And then I got to another point
where all of a sudden, there's a rock slab in
(32:38):
front of me, and I'm like, okay, I didn't know
this was going to be there, but it was. Eventually
I got back on the trail, but it cost me
about twenty minutes, and mentally it was a little bit
you know, I said, I don't need this stuff. This
is hard enough traverse without throwing this kind of stuff
in the mix. But you know, it was still early
(32:59):
on in the morning. It was not even seven o'clock yet,
and I found the trail was twenty minutes. But it
was just a little bit disheartening. But I pushed on
and soon got right back on track. Hit Upper Wolf Jaw,
took some pictures, moved on quickly to Armstrong, got to
Armstrong really easily, got down to the call of Armstrong
(33:23):
and Gothics, and feeling really good at that point, and
just kept pushing.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
Sorry, my daughter's just popped in shed quarters and had
to show me their Halloween costume. S awesome, all right,
So you're on your You just lost some energy mentally, physically,
et cetera, bush whacking your way back onto the trail
to Upper Wolf Jaw. So at that point, like when
you finally got to Upper Wolf Jaw, you know, you're
a couple of mountains in but on this hike, there
(33:56):
are so many more mountains to go. How are you
feeling mentally and physically when you were on Upper Wolf Jawn, I.
Speaker 3 (34:01):
Felt pretty good. I felt good mentally, and I felt
good physically. I was I was just ready, and it
was kind of almost like that scene in Rocky where
you know, on the top of the stairwell raising his hands,
and you know, I felt like that, I was just ready.
I was ready to go, and I was. I was
in good shape. I was, I was, And I knew
(34:22):
Armstrong wasn't that So I was now four deep into them,
and that wasn't one deep or too deep. It was
four deep. And I knew Armstrong wasn't going to be
that much of a challenge compared to what some of
the other ones were going to be. So I knew
I could knock off my fifth relatively easily. My son
and I did Gothics a few years ago in the winter,
(34:44):
and I knew once you were in that call between
Armstrong and Gothics, you could see Gothics, it really isn't
as far as it looks. And I knew, you know,
so psychologically, I said, I'm going to knock off my
fifth one Armstrong in relatively order. And it's that's exactly
what happened. I hit Armstrong, and uh, I was. I
(35:07):
was in pretty good shape. But you know, but before
going back to the lower wolf Jaw, right before you
get to Lower wolf Jaw, there is a steep cliff
that takes you up to get to the summit a
lower wolf Jaw on that side, and doing that in
the dark was kind of interesting as well too. Fortunately,
through a lot of those trial runs that I had
done for training, you know, I knew that cliff pretty good,
(35:30):
and it wasn't as daunting as it as I knew it,
you know, as it looked, because I had done it before.
So so I got through that pretty good and felt
pretty good about that. So by the time I was
on Armstrong, I was I was again.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
In good spirits, all right, very good Armstrong.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
I also think, I always say it's the I think
it has the best view in the adironic high peaks
for a mountain that nobody ever talks about.
Speaker 3 (35:55):
Yes, you're absolutely right.
Speaker 1 (35:57):
No one ever talks about Armstrong in conversation. There's never
a story about let me tell you about that this
time on Armstrong or climbing up Armstrong, because it's just
this little little blip in the hike, and it gets
overshadowed by both the wolf jaws and Gothics of course, right,
But man, the view on Armstrong it is just so
(36:17):
it is just so underappreciated. It's a mound that is underappreciated.
But yeah, and it is.
Speaker 3 (36:23):
It is, as you say, And almost all of them
in that range are really quite remarkable. And by that
at that point in the day it was quite quite nice.
It was bluebird and I hadn't seen anybody at that point.
I was still you know, up to Armstrong, I still
hadn't come across anybody, So it was really solo and
by myself. But again feeling like I had boom another one,
(36:45):
knock off another one. And it's like running miles in
a marathon, you know, once you hit you know, five
miles in, and then ten miles in and then fifteen
miles and you start do you start to get elevated
when you start getting some of these miles behind you. Well,
you've run a few half marathon and so you know
that feeling as well too. Yeah, I've run three of them,
three of them three years in a row. Half marathon yep,
(37:07):
all in Lake Placid. YEP. I've done that one and
that those are that's a grueling half.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
Yeah, all in Lake Placid.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
So yeah, I know, I know you're talking about you know,
these mile after mile after mile, but very good. Okay,
So we're on Armstrong. You're picking off these high peaks
as we go. You're almost done Gothics, and at that point,
like Gothics is the you know, it's like that, I'd
say for you, it's the like second checkpoint. The first
checkpoint is getting to Lower Wolf Job, getting on Lower
(37:36):
Wolf Job, because that's okay, we're on the we're on
the the Lower Great Range. Now I think Gothics is
the end of the Lower Great Range. So as you
got up to Gothics, which is kind of a hop
skip in the jont from Armstrong, how are you feeling
at that point?
Speaker 3 (37:48):
I was starting to feel a little you know, uh,
it's getting later in the day. I was starting to feel,
uh less elated because I was starting to get a
little bit tired. My legs were definitely feeling it. I
was getting a little bit not guess so to speak yet,
but I was starting to feel it, and I knew
(38:09):
I had a basin that's settled back in basin in
front of me. So that was a little daunting. It's
kind of almost like getting to the twenty mile mark
in a marathon, but or maybe even the fifteen mile
mark in a marathon. You achieved a lot, you feel good,
but then you look out at what you still got
to do, and it was like, and you're starting to
get tired of when you start to get fatigued, there's
(38:30):
nothing more humbling than that first notch a fatigue that sets.
Speaker 2 (38:35):
In absolutely one.
Speaker 1 (38:38):
Okay, so you know, and that's part of the hike, right, Like,
that's part of why this journey is such a a's
why it's such a big hike. There's all these moments too.
And the thing about the Great Range diverse that there's
so many moments that you can quit, you can go
home at so many different bail jerks. You don't have
to keep going, and that makes it harder sometimes.
Speaker 3 (38:59):
Yeah, the or Bend trail to take you out, You've
got the one beyond base and there's a whole bunch
of exit points along the way where you can just say, Okay,
I've had enough, and you know in your mind you're
going you're playing games with yourself, you're going, well, I'm
seventy years old. I just did four eye peaks. You know,
that's pretty darn good. Nobody's gonna you know, but you know,
(39:20):
I just again, I kept thinking about what you said about,
you know, mind and body and the difference between the two,
and I knew that although I was starting to get fatigued,
I knew I knew my body well enough to know
that from running those marathons that I could still push
forward and I was going to be fine. And I
always did have in mind that there were future exit
(39:43):
ramps ahead of me as well too.
Speaker 2 (39:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (39:46):
No, it's a good thing that there's all these exit ramps.
It just becomes one of those things where you know,
it's a double edged sword, like it can hit you mentally,
it could hit you physically. You can quit at any time,
which is good in some situations in you know, harder
in other situations for sure. Okay, So take us through
heading down to the ore bed trail down the So
(40:08):
you went down the cable route and then you you know,
you're heading heading towards the upper the upper Great Range next,
So take us through it.
Speaker 3 (40:15):
Yeah, so I'm down the cable route, and again I'm
feeling I'm starting to feel fatigued, and I knew I
had saddle back next, and I got to the bottom
of the cables, and saddle back wasn't that hard. I
remember getting up there. It just seemed like, you know,
before I knew it, I was up there. And but
but in my mind, what was playing games with my
(40:37):
mind was I knew I had the saddleback cliffs, and
I had done those before, and I just there's just
never easy. And you know, the older you get, I
guess you worry about that kind of stuff a little
bit more. It's kind of a young man's game in
some ways to scramble down those those cliffs. And so
I was a little worried about that because once you
(40:58):
commit to that, there is no gate. Right. You're either
going up the saddleback cliffs to get out or you're
going up basin to get out. There's no side trail
that takes you out of that call. Between saddle back
and basin.
Speaker 1 (41:11):
You're committed, and they're both hard no matter which way
you decide to turn around. It's hard no matter what
you are, So in no man's land at that point
for sure. Yeah, it actually brings me my next question
I meant to ask this before. Was there a reason
you chose to go this direction versus starting on Marcy
and going down you know, was there a reason for
(41:33):
going this.
Speaker 2 (41:34):
Direction or was it just the way you chose.
Speaker 3 (41:36):
It's just the way I chose when I looked at
the fastest nome times not in any means what, you know,
because I'm trying to look for the official way of
doing it, and there really isn't any official way. And
you know, either or is fine. Some people like to
start out at the lodge and do Marci first and
or you know, the highest to lowest. I rather, I
wanted to do it the other way around and knock
(41:59):
off the easier ones first, just clip them off, clip
them off, clip them off, and then get to the
two big ones at the end. And so it's just
the way that I had. I had chosen to do that,
for sure.
Speaker 2 (42:11):
Very very good.
Speaker 1 (42:12):
All right, continue, So you got down the saddle back
cliffs and now, yeah, I got down those, you know.
Speaker 3 (42:17):
I swear, you know, you're like, if I was an
inch shorter, I don't think I could do this. So
it's just amazing when you're going down some of those
scrambles that you go, Thank God, im you know my
the height that I am, because I don't think another
inch I could do this, but you never know. I
guess everybody's different. But you know, I got down those things,
(42:37):
and you know, just.
Speaker 2 (42:41):
It was hard.
Speaker 3 (42:41):
I've gone up them and I've gone down them, and
I think going down them is the harder part. But
it's just it's just my head was was was really
nervous about that whole thing. But I ended up down there,
and I knew that Basin was no joke either. Basin
you can do the settle the back cliffs, and that's
(43:02):
an accomplishment, but Basin on its own is a bad boy.
I don't care which way you're coming from, whether you
go up the other way or you're going you come
down Basin over to settle back. That is one tough
downward climb and going up and yeah, it's And then
talk about the little brothers and little sisters that the
mountains have. Basin I think has two in front of
(43:24):
it before you finally get to the real summit. So
it's it. It's gnarly, and it's steep and it's dangerous. So, uh,
you know, I got up that. I was a little
apprehensive about that because I knew that that was that
was a tough part. That was a tough mile, and
a half of the of the whole traverse was between
Saddleback and Basin.
Speaker 2 (43:44):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (43:44):
There's also the point too, where you know we were
talking about Armstrong, is that like has the best of
you that no one ever talks about because it just
gets sandwiched between these other more popular mountains to discuss.
Basin is what I you. I like how you said,
you said it's the bad boy of the range. Basin
is the thing that no one talks about that mountain,
(44:04):
and I think that mountain start to finish no matter
which direction you go is what I would determine one
of the quote harder mountains to climb that again, nobody
talks about because there's so many of these slabs that
you got to find your way up or find your
way down, and you're sitting there looking at it for
five minutes trying to figure out how do people go
up this or how do people go down this? So
(44:27):
I can I feel like that is usually a good
indicator that mountain of how do you feel after in
terms of in terms of like actually finishing the hike.
By getting up that and getting off of it is
a good determiner of if this is going to happen
or not because of the fact that it really takes
a lot out of you.
Speaker 3 (44:48):
Yeah, agreed, I mean it is. I would say it's
the toughest. If I had to pick a toughest one,
that's the one. And also because it's so far in right,
I mean, you don't just pull off the highway and
start going up at You've got to You've got a
long journey no matter which way you attempt to take it,
and by the time you get to it, you know
you've been hiking a long time. So it's it's it's
(45:09):
I think it's the toughest. Yeah, absolutely, So I made
it up Basin and that's a you know, that's a
stunning view in and of itself. I mean, because you're
looking right at Haystack and then you're looking at Marcy.
But part of that is it's beautiful. But then you realize,
my god, Haystack looks forever away, and Marcy even looks
(45:30):
forever beyond that a way, so you're like this, I've
still got a long way to go, And so yeah,
I hit Basin I might have hit it around noon.
I think it was about noon by the time I
got up to Basin, and so I still had a
good piece of chunk of the day left. But I
knew I had to go down Basin. As I said,
if we said that, that is so hard, and what
(45:51):
makes it harder was you know, by then you are
legitimately fatigued, or at least I was. You know, my
legs were definitely starting to get jelly like, and so
that makes everything that much more perilous because you know,
it's so easy to misstep when when your legs are
feeling a little bit like there's some cement being poured
(46:12):
into them. So that was truly mile twenty of a
marathon in my opinion. You know, you were You're just
hanging on at that point to say, okay, now, now
the race is really begun and the hard part. So
going down Basin was was tough. It was that that
was one of one of the It wasn't the toughest
(46:33):
part because it was still early on and I had
some more challenges ahead of me, but that was a
tough That was a tough down downward thing. But once
I got down there, I realized well, Haystack isn't that far.
It's just not that far. It looked like it was far,
and you know, to get to those first cliffs of
Haystack from basin it is, it's just not that far,
(46:54):
and you're there in pretty short order. So uh, and
doing Haystack, of course, it's opened pretty much right away,
almost like right mount. You know, you just go up
a few hundred yards in the train and all of
a sudden you're there. You're looking at little Haystack and
you know, it almost feels like you're on a lunar landscape,
whereas some of the other you're in trees on a
(47:16):
lot of the other peaks. So Haystack from that perspective
felt like it felt easier because I could see the
goal line, although you know what I was seeing was
little Haystack.
Speaker 2 (47:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (47:27):
I mean you get up to and you get up
the little Haystack and you're like, okay, there's Haystack. There's
the real Haystack, and you know that's and again your
legs are all you know, you're really starting to get
tired at that point, but you're pushing. You're pushing at
his point too. You said it was around noon when
you got on basis. And yeah, so you're on base
(47:49):
and it was noon, so at that point you'd already
been out there for like, did you say ten hours?
You started at two two am, So at that point
you'd already been out there for ten hours hiking and
a lot of hiking still to go.
Speaker 2 (48:02):
Even so, and then you're going up to haystack.
Speaker 1 (48:04):
Yeah, and you have to get over a little haystack
and then the big climb up to big daddy haystack.
You got a lot and they're still coming all the
way back down, every every inch that you're walking up
there too, knowing like I'm going to come back this
and know the hike's not over at that point. Why
the Great Orange Reverse really is a really is a
mind game for sure because of that. So, Okay, any
(48:27):
joint pain throughout at this point end of the day,
or any like aches and pains anything like that, No.
Speaker 3 (48:33):
No, I mean I had some you know, agile kind
of things and me and stuff like that. So no,
I that that was all good. It was just you
just I was just getting fatigued like I would and
running a marathon, you know, it was just starting to
get fatigued, and so going down Basin was tougher than
it would have been because I was just you know,
legs were starting to get kind of jellowy. But but
(48:54):
going up Haystack again, I was all of a sudden
the word and we have I have started to see
some people at this point along the way, starting on
saddleback and base, and I started to see other hikers
and they were starting to say that the rangers had
just upped the probability of rain from thirty percent to
fifty percent. And I go, oh, great, that's all I need.
(49:18):
So we get up to Haystack and there was some
other there was another gentleman up there, and it started
to get cold and windy, and we looked out and
over Lake Placid it was raining. You know, you could
just see the rain clouds in the distance. And within
fifteen minutes it was pouring on the top of Haystack,
pouring and to the point where it turned into hale
(49:38):
as well too. So that was mentally disheartening. So, as
I told you earlier, I'm a fairweather hiker, and uh,
you know, I needed every advantage I felt that I
could get and to have to deal with rain at
that point, you know, with still having to get down
off the haystack and do Marsy and then you know,
(49:59):
eight half miles out of Marcie. I just said, I
don't know if this is going to rain the whole time.
Well turned out, the rain lasted about fifteen minutes. It
was torrential though, and all of a sudden, bluebird's sky again.
The problem was all the trails down below, they became
just running streams with all the rain that poured off
(50:21):
the mountains.
Speaker 1 (50:22):
So all it rained short enough and hard enough, just
enough to make the conditions crappy. Now it's horrible because
prior to that it was a dry trail, relatively dry trail,
very little mud. I mean, all summer long, it was
really good. So so the trail conditions were great, and
they went from being great to being horrible in fifteen minutes.
(50:44):
And so it was even slick on getting off of
haystack was a little slick. You know, you were that
sort of the mosses on the rocks, you know, that
was they were, you know, slippery, and so all of
a sudden, what was supposed to, you know, what should
have taken me half hour was taking me fifty minutes,
just because you had to be careful, and that was
(51:06):
you know, that was stuff. The other thing that happened
on the bottom of Haystack was you get to the
bottom of the cliffs of Haystack and to go over
to Marcy is a sharp left turn.
Speaker 3 (51:16):
It's a sharp left turn. You can easily miss it
and just keep going straight. I knew I had to
take a left turn. I just didn't think I was there.
Speaker 2 (51:24):
So I go off.
Speaker 3 (51:26):
About a quarter mile and I say, you know, maybe
I better check old trails, and sure enough, I missed
the turn to get over to Marcie and I was
going back to Basin. So that was my second real
mental kind of oh man, I don't need this. I
don't need to make this trip longer. Turn around to
(51:46):
get back on track, and I realized it's uphill, you know,
it's up hill. And so a quarter mile of going
back up hill and the boulders by that point, all
of those boulders that are back down on those trailers,
they were all wet. You know, it was just a mess.
And so I get back up to the trail where
I should have turned, and you know, said, okay, we
(52:08):
got to do this. And in my mind, I'm thinking, okay,
I'll get over to the Phelps Trail. And when you
get to the Phelps Trail, you can take it right
six miles later, or so six and a half miles
later you're going to be in the garden, or you
can take a left and go a mile and a
half and go up Marcy. So if this is really
that crappy, I'm just going to take the right at
(52:31):
Phelps Trail and go out and be done with it
and not go that mile and a half up to Marcie.
And that's where they seek to do more. Kind of
program kicked in a little bit and what you had
said about, you know, mind over matter and mind over
body and that kind of thing. I got finally to
the trail head. It was slow going. You know, that's
a nasty trail back there. It's just, you know, nothing
(52:54):
pretty about it. It's closed in, there's a lot of boulders,
there's just a lot of gnarliness that that is in
that back area of the trail. And so I got
up to the Phelps junction. I saw the sign a
mile and a half by that point, I said, okay,
I could take the right and get out of here,
or you know, I'm only going to be I'm never
going to be in this position again. I don't think
(53:16):
if you don't do this now. You know, that was
where accountability came in. And you know, again there's a
fine line between being stupid, I guess, and pushing yourself
that extra step. I honestly felt I wasn't being stupid.
I was just pushing through. I had trained hard for this,
and I knew a mile and a half I could
(53:38):
do it. I also knew the Marsie trail wasn't that crazy,
you know, getting up to there. So I said, you know,
what what would James think if I told him I
bailed out at Marcie And I knew I could do it.
So I pushed and took the left and said, I'm
sending it up Marcie a mile and a half and
I'm going to be on the top of Marsie and
even though I won't be finished, have achieved all ten
(54:01):
of the peaks. So up I went, and it was
five o'clock though by the time I got to the
top of Marcy.
Speaker 1 (54:08):
Yeah, let's press pause before we get there, because there's
a lot to talk about. What you just talked about,
So you had a choice to abandon ship and go
home having still done an absolutely, massive, crazy, respectable, enormous
day that ninety nine percent of hikers will never be
able to do period at that moment, and had you
(54:29):
started walking down that trail, I'm willing to bet you
would have felt mentally good for about maybe five minutes,
knowing like, because in your brain you're telling yourself the
hike's almost over now, I'm almost getting ready to be done.
And then after five minutes your brain would have said,
(54:49):
oh no, by just like I failed the mission that
I had that I've been training for for all, you know,
almost a year at this point realistically. But on the
flip side, I'm willing to bet the second you decided
to go up, Marcie, and you made that, you said no,
I'm going to go up, and you left the trail
junction and started walking up, I'm willing to bet and
(55:11):
correct me if I'm wrong. You probably got a little
dopamine hit a positivity knowing like, no, it's still on,
I'm still going like I'm here.
Speaker 2 (55:18):
I'm willing to bet right.
Speaker 3 (55:19):
Yeah, definitely I did. I absolutely did. I got motivated
an adrenaline lashery right away. And all of a sudden,
I said, you know what. So what I do sometimes
when I'm in these big things, whether there's a marathon
or I just look ahead to a short term goal
in the middle of this larger goal. So for me,
(55:40):
it was just a mile and a half to get
up Marcie. That's all it was. It wasn't twenty one
min it was a mile and a half. I just
got to get up Marsie. I'm not men think about
getting off of Marsie. I'm just going to get up
to Marsie. And it's a mile and a half. So
I'd walk twenty minutes or so. I'd look at GPS
just to say, okay, how far have I gone. I'd
look at my watch and say how far have I gone?
(56:00):
And all of a sudden, lo in the hold I've gone,
you know, half a mile, and I'm like, wow, now
I'm down to a mile. So I kept breaking it
up into little chunks like that and and helped me
get it up. And then you know, I was a
half a mile from the top of Marcie. I it
was getting to those you know, those planks that go
over the bog there, and I'm like, oh, man, I am.
I am half a mile or so from victory, and
(56:24):
so I was I was pushing my body, got a second,
third win, whatever it was, and I was just pushing
easily up over little marciean up to Marcy. It was
just it was all adrenaline at that point. And so yeah,
I think I texted you do on the top when
I was on the top of Marcie and I was
up there by myself. There was nobody up there. When
(56:44):
I got up there, it was five o'clock in the evening,
and I summoned Marcy beautiful too.
Speaker 2 (56:50):
It's just gorgeous. How did that feel?
Speaker 3 (56:54):
Oh my gosh, I mean it was it was It
was that right. I guess that was the rocky moment,
you know, where you're up at the top of the
stairs and you're lifting your arms up and you're just
jumping up and down because you know, you just I
just felt like I had accomplished this. I did this.
I'm seventy years old and I did this thing that
I didn't think I was going to be able to do, honestly,
and I was not overly confident that I could do this.
(57:18):
I just and like I said, having all those exits plans.
I knew I wasn't going to be in danger if
I got in there and decided to bail. So it was,
it was. It was an incredible feeling of euphoria just
to be able to do that at seventy years old.
For me, it was like I achieved what I wanted
to achieve. Granted it took me a lot longer than
(57:38):
you know, it would have taken somebody forty five years old,
but you know, it didn't matter. That didn't matter to
me at that point. So the adrenaline was going good.
I was, you know, texting you is, texting my wife.
I was, you know, in communication with people. So it
it had a whole level of you know, I even
took a little bit of a rest. You know, I said, Okay,
I'm going to hang out here and just enjoy this
(58:01):
for a while.
Speaker 2 (58:02):
So how long did you stay up there for?
Speaker 3 (58:04):
I'm going to say it was a half an hour. Sorry.
You know, I knew I had to get down because
you know, darkness was going to come. It was five o'clock,
so I knew I had to get down, and the
more I could do that trail in the light, the
better I'd feel. About it, because you know that coming
off of Marsie is that's a tough trail, and it
was wet and slippery and greasy and gnarly, and you know,
(58:28):
it was just it was a long slog out to
get out to the garden. It was just a long
By the time I got out of it was eleven
thirty at night, So it was just it was a
tough slog.
Speaker 1 (58:39):
But yeah, so you're on Marsy and at our fifteen
mind at hour fifteen, you're on Marsy and you still have.
Speaker 2 (58:47):
To get back.
Speaker 1 (58:49):
You know, yeah, the hikes hike is far from over,
but you have that mental pick me up knowing that
the hard work in the sense of like what you
came to accomplish had been accomplished. So now it was,
you know, again the long walk back to the lodge.
But for you was long walk back to the garden.
But you stayed up there for a half hour. Body
(59:12):
didn't start to didn't start to like shut down a
little bit.
Speaker 3 (59:17):
A little bit at that point. Yeah, at that point
it did. And again mentally, all of a sudden that
you know that euphoria is starting away off and you
do start thinking about that hike out and uh again
because the trail conditions had changed so dramatically. That was
playing games with my head a little bit. You know.
I was like, you know, this is gonna take me
a lot longer than I had originally thought it was
(59:39):
going to take me, just because I got to go
slow and I actually did slip a few times going out,
and you know, so that's when I realized this is
this There's there's mountains don't care about you. This is perilous,
you know. And you know, you could easily injure yourself
if you trip over a route or hit a rock
or whatever. There's a million things that could go wrong,
and when they can psitions were what they were, it
(01:00:01):
was you know, even more so perilous, but you know
it was it was it was that long slog out forever.
Speaker 1 (01:00:11):
Good thing that you had been training for the last
year to get your body strong period for when you
trip and fall and you slip on this and you
slip on that and your body can handle you know,
the bumps and bruises of that. It's another again benefit
of getting your body strong so that when you're out there,
it can perform better and it's safer because we're gonna trip,
we're gonna fall, we're gonna slip, We're gonna have these moments.
(01:00:33):
But glad to hear that that didn't. That wasn't the
end for you when you had those falls.
Speaker 2 (01:00:37):
So very good.
Speaker 1 (01:00:38):
So talk to me about the you know mentally, where
you at as you're starting to walk out.
Speaker 3 (01:00:44):
Well, one of the problems too, between between the fatigue
and you know, the fact that you got a long
road ahead of it, was darkness was coming. So you know,
my mind was playing games and I was prepared. I
had two headlamps and all of this kind of stuff.
But then I'm starting to think, did I change the
batteries of my head lamp? Are they fresh? Are they not?
And I did, But you know, at this point, I
was like, oh god, that's all I need is you know,
(01:01:06):
I'm a mile away from Johnsbrooke Lodge and my lights
go out and it was dark out there. Dark came around,
you know, but I think it was about seven o'clock.
I was shooting on the headlamp, so and I was
still two miles or so from John Brooke Johnsbrook Lodge.
But you know, the headlamps held up. But that that
played games with you a little bit the darkness at
(01:01:27):
that stage, you know, and I was still had quite
a bit of At seven o'clock when I turned on
the headlamps, I still had a long way to go.
You know. It was slow going. It was just slow going.
So it was it was the darkness and the fatigue
that sort of played a little games with me a
little bit. So I wasn't getting that rush of well
I only got four miles to go, or I only.
Speaker 2 (01:01:49):
Get some it's terrible there.
Speaker 3 (01:01:51):
It was like, yeah, and I was thinking three miles
is still three missessions. Yeah, No, I don't care that
I've already come sixteen or seven, you know, it's three miles.
And it was just, you know, slow going.
Speaker 2 (01:02:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:02:04):
So you walked back to the garden is where you
came out. So you were parked at Rooster Comb or
did you how did that?
Speaker 2 (01:02:12):
How did that?
Speaker 3 (01:02:12):
Yeah? It was parked at Roostercomb. So the plan was
in my mind. I was like, you know what, by
the time I get to the garden, I'll be on
a road and the car. I did the it's just
under two miles to get to the car. But I
figured it was road hiking road walking, which is a
lot different than being on the trail. So the plan
was I was going to walk from the garden to
(01:02:33):
Roostercomb after this was all done, well, I started texting
my wife, you know, on top of Marcy. It was
the last on my tax and she could sense that
I don't know, I don't think when you get done
at the garden that you know, you should be walking
two miles back to the car and they could drive
it home. So she said, I'm picking you up. So
she's yeah, she said, I'm picking you up. So she
(01:02:57):
picked me up at the garden and it was eleven
all then thirty by the time I, you know, meandered
out of the out of the trail, and she had
actually been there an hour because there was no way
we could perfectly tie and you know, the distance between
Marcy and UH and getting back to the garden, you know,
I couldn't tell her exactly what time that was going
to be, and I was going to lose signal when
(01:03:17):
you get down below. So she had been there for
about an hour, but I was I was really relieved
because it was eleven thirty when I when I crawled
out of the woods.
Speaker 1 (01:03:27):
Yeah, eleven thirty pm. So you started in the dark
for many hours, hiked the entire day, and then ended
in the dark for many hours. So two am to
eleven thirty is what is that? Twenty one and a
half hours. Yeah, it's my math correct twenty one and
(01:03:48):
a half hours.
Speaker 2 (01:03:49):
Wow. Yeah, what a day, My god.
Speaker 1 (01:03:51):
So talk to me. Let's just like finish up this
this hike. I just have to know the walk back
from the law or the lodge, the walk back from
John's or Johns Brook Lodge. It's three three miles right
at that point, kind of sent similar to like the
you know, it's more than the walk back from from
Marcy Dan. But talk to me about that stretch because
(01:04:13):
I'm willing to bet. Mentally, when you got to Johnsbrook Lodge,
you probably were like, oh, I'm almost done, but in reality, no,
you're not almost done. You're still room miles miles. Yeah,
it's a long three miles. Fortunately, there were people at
the Johnsbrook Lodge and there was I was able to
get water there and that sort of thing, so it
was a little bit of a mental pick me up.
(01:04:34):
But I knew it was still three miles, but it
was It's a relatively easy three miles from Johns Brooks
to the garden. It's not you know, it's not an
overly gnarly path by any stretch, so that gave me
some comfort, but it was still slow going.
Speaker 3 (01:04:48):
You know. I kept looking at my GPS, kept thinking, oh,
you know, I've probably gotten a mile under my belt,
and I'd look at the GPS and I've only gone
a half a mile. So that was a little It
was like, okay, when am I getting What am I
going to get out of these woods? This is getting ridiculous.
But you know what I thought was I thought was
going to take me maybe an hour and a half
to get out from that point. It might have taken
(01:05:11):
me an extra half an hour on top of that
because of just just how tired and you know, dark
it was. But it at least it was an easier
point of the trail at that point, which gave me
a little bit of a boost. But by then I was,
I was, I was, I was cooked, you know, I was,
(01:05:33):
I was. I was ready to be done.
Speaker 2 (01:05:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:05:36):
You know, I joke with everyone when it comes to hiking,
no matter what you love doing, whatever you love doing
more than anything in the world, nothing's fun for twelve
hours let alone, let alone twenty one and a half hours, so.
Speaker 3 (01:05:50):
True, so true. And you know, I got home and
by the time I went to bed it was two AM,
so I had been up since twelve minutes. So I'd
been up twenty six hours. And I actually had to
go to a meeting the next day. I'm on the
board of a bank and they had a morning meeting,
so I had to be at the nine am, so
I actually made it.
Speaker 2 (01:06:12):
You have trouble going to sleep that night at all,
the body shut down or not.
Speaker 3 (01:06:17):
Yeah, I had trouble. I had trouble getting to sleep.
I was, you know, a little wired by the time
I laid down at two am, and I had to
get up at six, so it was a you know,
but but my adrenaline by that point, you know, I
was high as a kite on just adrenaline. So I
was texting people to go. You you know, I did
the great range blah blah blah and uh. And actually
(01:06:41):
here's where the training really came in. My body did
not feel sore at all the next day. You know,
walking down steps usually, you know, that's where you feel
those kind of things. My body, except for the areas
where I fell on my shoulder and knee. You know,
when the time that I slipped in the woods, my
body was fine. I had no problem recovering. I was
(01:07:02):
out shopping wood two days later, you know, just no
problem with recovery. And that I attest to the training
because the strength training and the endurance training, it just
paid off and my body was ready to go a
few days later. But for the like I said, the
shoulder injury and the knee injury and the feet were
a little bit beat up, but my muscles and my
(01:07:23):
legs were fine.
Speaker 2 (01:07:24):
So glad to hear that.
Speaker 1 (01:07:25):
I'm glad that we were able to get you ready
for this big hike, and glad you were able to
accomplish the goal that you worked your butt off for
eight months to achieve. Congrats to you, Kudos to you
for seeing it through and what a journey it was
mentally physically like it was. It was exciting listening to
that story and how it unfolded out there. You are
(01:07:46):
an absolute inspiration. So as we start to wrap up
this podcast here, there's a couple questions I always ask people,
but I have a question right off the bat for you.
Before we dive into those final questions, is at seventy
years old, you are you are retired.
Speaker 2 (01:08:05):
You know you were you know, you ran a bank,
like you should be living your living your best life,
not putting yourself through these crazy grinds. But here you
are doing that. So clearly these adventures are you living
your best life? So talk to me a little bit
about like what keeps you going back out more and
more and more and putting yourself in these scenarios to
(01:08:29):
experience these adventures when you could just be, you know,
living that easy life at home. You know, longevity is
obviously a big thing for you, So why is that
the case for you?
Speaker 3 (01:08:40):
Well, a couple of things. You know, what they say
is don't let the old man in, and there's a
lot of truth to that. And we live in a
really nice area of the Hetroonics. We love where we
live in Diamond Point, and it's a lot of work.
We have fifteen acres, my wife and I and she's
in great shape as well, she's really in super shape.
So keeping up the property, whether it's snow removal or this,
(01:09:03):
you know, trees coming down all the time, having to
chop down trees and cut them up and split them.
It's a lot you know, it's a lot of work
to maintain a house like we live in, but I
love we love the house, so we want to I
want to live here till I'm at least eighty. And
in order to be able to do that, I've got
to be able to do those things. When trees come down,
(01:09:23):
I got to be able to cut them up. And
when the snow dumps three feet of snow on you,
I got to be able to and we've got to
be able to remove the snow. So I know from
experience now in my sixties, if you start to slip,
you start to slip a little bit on your physical conditioning,
all of a sudden, you can't do the things you thought.
(01:09:44):
Wait a minute, I could do that five years ago.
Now I'm struggling. So I did not want that to happen.
I want ten more years in this house. And the
only way I'm going to do that is if I
stay in you know, good, good shape. And also, once
you accomplish certain things, you don't want to you know,
(01:10:04):
you want to keep that going, you know, for me,
I do anyway, I don't want to. I don't want
to ever give up on these goals that I have
and they keep me motivated, and they keep me focused,
and they do keep me in good shape. So it's
important that I have these goals and I just want
to live the best life obviously that I can through
my eighties, which is going to be a physical life
(01:10:27):
that's fantastic.
Speaker 2 (01:10:28):
So what would you tell thirty years ago, Steve, or
what would you tell someone listening to this podcast. So
let's say they're in their thirties or their forties and
they say, I want to be do I want to
be just like Steve climbing high peaks, climbing mountains, having
these adventures when I'm seventy, Like, what would your wisdom
be for them right.
Speaker 1 (01:10:48):
Now to be doing? To set their lives up to
be able to do that. What you got to do
is you got to set a goal that you want
to do, and then you've got to push yourself to
get off the couch.
Speaker 3 (01:11:01):
It is so easy when you're you've got a family,
as you know, you got kids at home, you got
a career going, you got jobs going, and you want
to sneak in a marathon or something like that. It's
so easy. You come home from a day of work
to sit on the couch and go, you know what,
maybe I can do that run tomorrow, or do that
you know, weight training tomorrow. You just got to push
(01:11:24):
that in the back of your mind, get off the
couch and get at that exercise. I found that if
you do that, you never regret it. You never regret
pushing yourself to do a run or a wait session.
At the end of that you're glad you did it.
You don't ever say, boy, I wish I didn't do
that workout. You always you never regret it. So but
(01:11:47):
you got to push yourself. It's so easy just to
slip back and go, eh, maybe tomorrow, I can do
this tomorrow. I don't have to do it tonight, So
keep motivated like that. If if I had to do
it all over again and I had the time to
do it, I would incorporate strength training absolutely in my
forties in addition to their cardio running, I would have
incorporated weight training. I always thought, you know, when I retire,
(01:12:11):
i'd be able to, you know, have more time to
do the waight training. The problem is, your body isn't
what it was in the forties, and although it's still doable,
you know you're fighting a little bit of battle with age,
and it's a little bit of an uphill battle. So
I would strongly recommend people to do some strength training
in addition to cardio. But the key is to find
something you want to do and then do it, you know,
(01:12:33):
get off the couch and just get it done. You
can always find the time, you really can. You know,
when I had the kids and I was working and
all of this stuff, sometimes I get up at four
in the morning and do my runs or do my workout,
and you just had to find the time to do it,
or you do it in the evening at night. So
it's just a matter of pushing through and finding the time.
There is the time to do it. You just got
(01:12:54):
to make it a priority.
Speaker 1 (01:12:56):
I love it, massive amount of wisdom in that, so
thank you for that. I appreciate it just hearing it myself,
and then for you know, the listeners listening to the
podcast as well, because you, again, you are an inspiration.
You are a standard to try to achieve, you know,
Greg grangera versus seventy unbelievable. Well, Steve, congratulations on completing
what you came here to complete, putting in the work
(01:13:18):
to get there and pushing through when you easily could
have quit a million different times throughout and nobody would
have batted.
Speaker 2 (01:13:25):
An eye either.
Speaker 1 (01:13:26):
But you knew in your you knew inside I have
to finish what I start. I can finish what I started.
It's just going to be hard, but I can do it.
And man, what an inspiration you are to me and
to anybody who's listening to this podcast, guaranteed.
Speaker 2 (01:13:40):
So thanks for sharing your story. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (01:13:42):
Well, I got to say too, James, I had a
great coach, so thank you as well too, because I
would have not been able to do this were it
not for the coaching you provided and the direction you provided,
and words of wisdom to a seventy year old from
somebody who's in their thirties. You know, you had a
lot of wisdom that you gave and probably wouldn't have
(01:14:05):
been able to I know, I definitely wouldn't have been
able to do that without your your wisdom and your
coaching and your direction. So thank you for that.
Speaker 2 (01:14:13):
I appreciate that.
Speaker 1 (01:14:14):
And with that, I'm going to wrap up this episode
of the podcast. If you're like Steve and you might
want some coaching and a plan created and tailored to
your specific life that meets you where you're at so
that you can have the mountain adventures that you want
to have. Head over to seek to Do More dot com.
Book a call with me and we'll figure out which
coaching program is right for you, whether it's my one
(01:14:36):
on one Seek to Do More program or my Great
Range Athlete program. I'll make sure that you have the
right plan in place so that you can accomplish the
goals that you have. Remember to always leave no trace,
do the rock walk, and if you carry it in,
carry it out.
Speaker 2 (01:14:50):
See you all in the trails
This is the forty six of forty six podcast Summit Sessions,
where we'll talk all things Adirondack back country and beyond,
from high peaks stories and adventures to trail tips and tricks.
We'll dive deep into the heart of these mountains and
the people who passionately climb them. Adirondack maps and spruce
traps to bushwackx and backpacks. It's all here, the forty
(00:22):
six of forty six Summit Sessions. Hello everyone, and welcome
back to the forty six of forty six podcast. Fall.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Well, fall is slowly going away.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
The leaves are gone. Winter is just around the corner.
But that's all right. The outdoor adventures do not have
to stop just because winter is showing itself. But tonight
I'm going to tell an amazing fall slash end of
summer story of a man named Steve von Schenk who
just completed the Great Range Traverse. Except Steve is seventy
(01:10):
years young and absolutely crushing miles in the mountains still
to this very day. We're going to hear Steve's story
on the Great Range Traverse back in September, as well
as what he's been doing to actually keep himself trail
ready to be strong, to keep climbing mountains well into
his retirement and continue enjoying the adventures that he's having,
because I think we can all find inspiration through Steve,
(01:33):
because he is living the life that I think all
of us want, which is to continue to have mountain
adventures long, long, long into our life. So Steve, Welcome
to the forty six to forty six podcast.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
Hello James.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
I really appreciate you coming on here. You have been
an absolute massive supporter of me, so let me on
the podcast say thank you to you for supporting my
endeavors and just being a part of my little, my
little ecosystem here in the world of the forty six
Outdoors Company. I appreciate you a lot, and I am
just so excited to hear about your hike along the
Gray Arange Reverse. September two was the date, so I
(02:07):
remember getting the pictures from you and I didn't.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
I have not heard the story yet, so there's a
lot to go into.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
But before we dive into that, you are a two
time out around I forty.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Six are correct, correct, Yeah, it's very cool.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
So I want to hear from you, like give us
a little background on yourself, where you're from, how'd you
get into hiking the Adirondacks the outdoors, Just kind of
give us a little background on you before we start
talking about the gray Orange reverse.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Yeah. Well, I mean I grew up in the city,
actually in the Bronx, and my wife from Long Island.
But we found our way to the Capitol District in
the early eighties and I was going to grad school,
and ultimately when I get out of grad school, we
decided we like the area and really wanted to stay
in the Capitol District, so we moved to Clifton Park
after we got married and had three boys and spent
(02:54):
the eighties and nineties and early two thousands in Clifton Park,
and somewhere along that time frame, when the kids started
to get a little bit older, you know, we had
heard about the Iaronics. We'd actually visited Lake Placid in
the early eighties and fell in love with it before
the kids came along, and decided that that would be
kind of a good adventure for the kids healthy, get
(03:17):
them outside and do some healthy activities. So we started
hiking in some of the smaller mountains around the Lower Adirondacks,
like Buck Mountain and some of the fire tower things
and Mount Arab I think it was up in Tupper Lake,
and really fell in love with that concept, and we
ended up when my middle boy was eight years old,
(03:38):
we were up in Serac Lake on a little vacation
and we decided we were going to try to do Marcie.
So he and I did Marcy and he was eight
and that was kind of interesting. It was the first
time we had ever experienced a hike like that, and
my wife was getting really interested in doing something like
that as well as a family. So we ended up
(03:59):
doing Phelps not too long after that, and that was tough.
We were in no we were young, but we really
weren't in great shape. The kids handled it well, but
by the time we got back down off of Phelps,
I mean I was gassed and you know, legs were
shot and I was just in no shape. I hadn't
really I didn't expect Phelps to be what it was.
(04:20):
And my wife said to me, and I anticipated she
was going to say I'm done with this, that's the
last time we do. She turned to me and she said,
I want to be a forty sixer. So I looked
at her and I said, are you crazy? You want
to be a forty six er? This is one We've
got to do forty five more. I said this, you know,
and this is a relatively easy one. But that was
the wrong thing to say to her, because she was
(04:41):
determined after that, and ten years later we became forty
six ers. And what was interesting was it took us
a while. The first eight years we were just dabbling
at it, and the last two years we were in
our mid fifties. I was mid fifties, she was young fifties,
and she really wanted to get them done and you know,
stop dabbling and commit ourselves. So we did thirteen in
(05:05):
the ninth summer, and then another thirteen in the next
summer the tenth summer, and finished off to forty six.
But I learned there was what incredible shape you can
really be in if you take the high peak seriously.
You know, you go out every weekend for ten weeks,
twelve weeks. By the time you finish up that summer season,
you are in remarkable shape. And that was the first
(05:27):
time I had really experienced what it was like to
be in really good shape to hike a high peak.
But again we were quite a bit younger than we
are now, but it was. It was a great, great experience.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
That's great. It took you, it took you.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
So it took you eight years to do the first
half of the high peaks, basically in two to do
the second and haunt.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
So would have finished them off. And then we finished
them off, Like I said, those thirteen it just really
you know, I was we were so fit by the
fall that, you know, we just couldn't believe that the
kind of conditioning you can get in from hiking.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
Absolutely, so your kids did, okay, climbing up the high piece,
isn't it? Isn't it so interesting how kids can just
kind of zip their ways up the mountains, but us
as adults sometimes not so simple.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
For sure, not so simple at all. Yeah, kids are
a little mountain goats.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
So for you, I know, you hike, are not hiked.
I know you've you've been quite quite fit throughout your life.
You've done a ton of marathons. How many marathons have
you run at this point?
Speaker 3 (06:27):
Yeah? I did twenty one, and you know it's actually
my first one was the Lake Placid Marathon in nineteen
eighty three and it ran from from Paul Smiths College
to Lake Placid, and they don't run it anymore. I mean,
they have the Lake Placid Marathon, but it's not that
(06:47):
same course. And it was a pouring, pouring day up
in the Adirondecks and I ran it and I was
twenty eight years old and I finished in four hours
and eight minutes. And I had no concept of training.
I just I trained a little bit, but I just
just had no concept of that. But that was my
first experience and over the next couple of you know, decades, actually,
(07:08):
for me, running a marathon was a way of staying
in shape. I always needed a goal, always needed a
goal to keep me fait. I couldn't just every day
work out just to work out. I needed something to
shoot for. So for me, the marathons were something I
could shoot for, you know, six months out, I could
train for a fall marathon and I could start the
process in February, and that kept my weight down and
(07:31):
kept my fitness up. And that's why I ended up
running twenty one of them, just because I kept kept
using them as goals every couple of years to just
keep in shape and keep fit. And that was, you know,
the last one I ran. I was actually sixty six
years old when I ran my last one, but back issues,
neck issues, all of those kind of things finally took
(07:53):
its toll and my running days, at least my marathon days,
were coming to an end. I just couldn't go out
and do the power any more on a pavement, so
I had to stop doing those and actually needed something
else to do to that was goal oriented, that that
I could still do, but that was a big challenge.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
Absolutely, So You've kept yourself nice and fit throughout your
life purposely, and I'm the same exact way. I need
to be shooting for something. I mean, I'm still going
to train regardless, but I always need that next thing
i'm working towards. I just think having that, you know,
that little north star that you're going towards, makes things
a lot easier. I'm always very hesitant about what, what
(08:35):
goal or what task I decide to embark on, because
I know if that's what I set, you know, like
that's what I'm going towards, like I'm going to get it.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
I'm going to get it.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
So yeah, so I've become very cognizant of the fact
that I need that. But I also know that I'm
always going to get it. So I'm just like you
in that regard having something to be aiming for. Is
is just it's a better it's a better workflow, in
my opinion, than just kind of whibbley nibby going through
life a little bit but very good.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
So I want to hear a little bit from you.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
About your you know, your you did the high peaks,
you finished with your wife and your mid fifties, and
then you've already since done a second round. So clearly
it wasn't a one and done thing. So clearly the
Adirondack Mountains have really taken hold of you.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
Yeah, so the second round was I had dabbled in
you know, some I'd done Giant and a couple of times.
I did some of the at Marcia a couple of times,
and so you know, I had a few doubles and
triples under my belt. My son in twenty nineteen went
to grad school and graduated right at the time that
(09:44):
COVID hit. So he had this job lined up in Denver,
but instead of starting in say July or whatever it was,
they told him his start date was January, so he
was out of fumes financially and came to live us
in Diamond Point just that summer because you know, he
had no place else to go and no job, and
(10:05):
we were in the height of COVID. He had about
I would say eleven or so high peaks under his
belt growing up in Clifton Park. So he decided, well,
I might as well become a forty six er myself,
and so I ended up he actually became a forty
six or that summer he did thirty five or so
(10:26):
of them. Are thirty, yeah, thirty five of them that summer.
I ended up going on twenty three of them with them.
So when I did the math at the end of
that summer, I go, you know, I'm about eleven shy
of a double. So that became my new goal, if
you will. I said, you know what, I'm going to
become a double. Not that that really means much, but
you know, I said, I'm going to become a double,
(10:46):
just to become a double. So I ended up hiking
the next eleven over the next year or so and
became a double from that, but largely because he was
home for COVID and just wanted to do them as well.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
So yeah, great, must have and some nice, nice adventures
I'm sure, or nice memories of the adventures I'm sure
that you guys have from that summer.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
Yeah. I mean one time we were up that we
were doing sant Nni and Panther and Gucca, and we
were up at Times Square and it was the height
of the mosquito season, and he was much faster than me,
so we were in Times Square. He went off to
do Cooch and I went off to do Coach. He
was way ahead of me. By the time he got
back to Times Square, it was probably he was a
(11:26):
good half an hour ahead of me, and I stuck
to talk to people along the way, not really thinking much.
By the time I got this Times Square to hook
up with him, he had been so eaten up by mosquitos.
He was actually going going insane. They were that bad.
So that was one one adventure we had together that
he'd like to forget. And I felt bad for him
(11:47):
because we didn't have any but I had the book
Spray in my backpack. He did not have any, so
he got totally eaten up.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
Yeah, No one, nobody likes to experience the bugs out
in the high peaks, and there's a noogle, lady.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
Gone, just had to wait for wait for dad.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
That's it very good.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
So, so, Steve, you're a you're a two time Adirondack
forty six or you've experienced these.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
Mountains and you've done them.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
I mean you have maybe haven't done all of them
more than twice, but I know you've been You've done
many more than twice. What has you continuing to go
out there? Why do you still want to be able
to go out and run around in these mountains Because
a lot of people could be like, I been there,
done that. I've you know, you're seventy years old. You
could easily say I don't need to anymore. But what
(12:32):
like keeps you coming back? Well, it's that It's.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
That goal thing. It's that's what it is. So you know,
if if I could still run, it would probably be
another marathon. I mean this marathon in Albany, the Mohawk
cuts in marathon. I've run that six or seven times.
So it's not about necessarily one and done. You know.
It was just always a goal. So uh, absent being
able to do that, I just needed a new goal,
(12:55):
something to shoot for, and so uh the Addiran next
became that thing that I knew if I could do
I could do a high peak and if I kept
in shape and that cardio from a cardio point of
view and just a strength point of view, it just
kept me in great shape. So it was really more
for that as much as anything. It was to just
(13:16):
go up and they were an hour away from my house,
so it was something I could easily do and I'd
knock them off, you know. I'd go up and do
giant numerous times just to get the cardio in and
the strength training in on the legs. So it was
it was as much for that as anything else. The
other thing is I always do these things solo. I
know that's not always the smartest thing in the world,
(13:37):
but there is a you know, aspect of being out
there in what's called the dismal wilderness by yourself. It's
a bit of an adrenaline rush, and obviously you got
to be real careful about that and be well prepared.
But there's a certain rush you get from that that
you don't get it you don't get running a marathon,
because there's nothing perilous about running a marathon, but there
(14:00):
is a little bit of peril when you're in the adironics.
As you know, the mountains don't care about you, as
you often say, and there's such truth to that.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
Yeah, absolutely, I can completely relate.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
There are so many times I've been out in the
high peaks and you know, especially solo, but like you're
looking around and you just realize, you just have that
moment where you just realize, I am in the sick
of just wilderness, right, Yes, I am so far from
anything right now that it becomes not just humbling, but
(14:32):
you know there like you talk about like the adrenaline,
like you get a little dopamine from it as well,
because you're just so far from civilization. You you know,
when you see these pictures of the High Peace and
I'm looking at one literally right above my computer, shout
out to Jonathan'sheric for this awesome picture. You're just like
right there in the middle of those mountains and you
(14:52):
know there's no road anywhere near you. The only way
out is on my feet. I am, you know, so
many miles away. Like it does have that really magic
quality too, and I think that's really what keeps people
drawn to the Adirondacks and keep coming keeps keeps them
coming back here is because it's hard to find that
anywhere else. Like you said, like with a marathon, it
(15:12):
doesn't quite doesn't quite scratch that itch, like the dismal
wilderness seems to despite the bugs, despite the mud.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
Yeah, I mean, and you go through those trails, as
you know, it's it's both you're experiencing heaven and Hell
in one afternoon, you know, I mean, there's nothing more
gnarly and in some ways ugly than being down in
one of those calls, with all the blowdown, the you know,
the narrowness of the trails, the slippery rocks, the mud
(15:40):
and all of that. It's it's not overly beautiful. But
then Alsten, you summit, and you know, it's the opposite experience.
You've got, like I said, Heaven and Hell in one afternoon.
So there's something sort of magical about that as well too.
So it's hard to really put my finger on what
it is, but it's a combination of so many things,
and you know, largely wanting to be fit, wanting something
(16:00):
big to shoot for, and still being able to do that, thankfully,
you know, with the right training.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
Yeah, absolutely, So let's talk about training. So you came,
you came to me because you wanted to get stronger
so that you could keep doing this stuff and then
you know, eventually like this was what the goal was,
was a twenty twenty five great range traverse. So it happened.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
But let's talk about the Let's talk about leading up
to that hike before we get into the hike itself.
Talk to me about your experience preparing for this hike.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
Well, So I had obviously, like a lot of people
heard about you on the podcast, and I was such
a big fan of the Adirondecks from the early eighties
and all of the things we just talked about. So
I really loved your podcast, and I started to learn that,
you know, you were also into fitness and coaching and strength,
strength training, and I started to realize that strength training
(16:53):
was a very very important aspect of one's overall health,
especially as we get older. And it was something I
had never ever done before. You know, it was always
cardio and running and those kind of things. So I
knew I wanted to do a strength training program, and
I you know, I didn't want to just go and
start lifting weights because I you know, it sounds easy,
(17:14):
but like anything else, there's a complex science behind all that,
and I wanted to do it the right way. So
I went on one of those pikes that you do.
That winter, we did the Mackenzie Range with a group
of people, and I tagged onto that and learn more
about your programs of the Seat to Do More and
the Great Range Athlete and all that stuff, and I
(17:35):
started thinking, boy, this Seek to Do More program that
might be just what I need. I really need somebody
to coach me through this stuff. And so I contacted
you in July of last year and we talked about it.
But I told you, if you remember, I said, James,
I've got next surgery coming up in September. And this
was in July, where I'm going to have a fusion
(17:57):
of some vertebrae in the neck and that's going to
leave me kind of dilapidated for a couple of months.
So I thought, well, maybe we should start the Seek
to Do More in January or something like that. And
you said to me, well, Steve, you still got about
eight weeks before surgery. Why don't you get into shape
before your surgery? And I thought about that. I said, yeah,
(18:19):
maybe that does make a lot of sense. Why put
off this kind of stuff when you can start right now.
So I embarked on the Seat to Do More program
that July, and by the time I had the surgery
in mid September, I was as fit as you know
i'd been in many, many years, and ultimately not what
(18:39):
I was going to become, but I was really fit
for surgery. After surgery, we still had the Seek to
Do More program left a few weeks left, and I
couldn't do much, but I could walk twenty thousand steps
a day, or yeah, twenty thousand steps a day that
I could do. So that became part of my program,
was to commit myself to doing twenty thousand walking steps
(19:01):
and to keep up with all of the other aspects
of the Seek to Do More program as well too.
So by the time January rolled around, I was you know,
I had kept my weight down. I was really fit.
By the time I went to surgery. I was a
little worried about getting overweight, but I had kept my
weight down through the program, even though I couldn't lift
or run, but I could walk. And by then I said,
(19:24):
you know what, I said, I need another goal. And
it was January. I know it wasn't going to do
a marathon in the fall, But I said, what about
the Great Range. I know I've done I did a few.
I did a hike right before surgery, and I actually
went up Giant maybe a month after surgery, against doctor's orders.
But I felt fine, and uh it worked out well.
(19:47):
But I said, maybe I need another goal, and maybe
that goal is the Great Range. And so you and
I embarked on you know, private training app after the
seek to do more, and that is what those sick months.
When I started in January to one actually eight months
in August, when I was prepared for the Great Range,
(20:08):
I got an even better shape than I had been
prior to surgery. My strength levels went way up because
I could lift. I could really start lifting. You know.
The trap bar was just an amazing thing. I started
on the trap bar. I had twenty pounds on the
trap the trap bar, so that's what sixty five pounds total.
Within four months, I was doing one hundred and twenty
(20:31):
pounds on this trap bar, and so one hundred and
sixty five pounds or whatever it was total. So the
improvements that I made were dramatic.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
And for someone who has already has a nice base,
nice physical fitness base, obviously from just hiking mountains. In
the fact that you've run eight thousand marathons throughout your life,
adding strength training in it sounds like really boosted your
your ability out in the mountains.
Speaker 3 (20:55):
Yeah, no question about it. I had no real concept
of how important body strength was, but it made the
hikes so much easier because you know, I was using poles,
and the poles helped a lot. And with that upper
body strength against the with the poles, I mean I was,
you know, maybe twenty five percent less effort went into
(21:17):
moving with the upper body, being able to use my
upper body, plus pulling myself up some of those rocks,
scrambles and getting over some of those rocks where you know,
I needed every bit of body strength I could muster,
and so that paid dividends. I don't think I could
have done I know I couldn't have done it without
that upper body strength that I had achieved.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
Yeah. Sure, So what made you?
Speaker 1 (21:40):
You know, I know you said you wanted you wanted
this new goal to go after. So why of all goals,
why the big one, why the Great Range Traverse?
Speaker 3 (21:51):
What?
Speaker 2 (21:51):
There must have been some sort of draw for that
massive hike for you to make that your goal for
the year.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
Well, my son and I had you know, I had
heard about the Great Range Traverse maybe fifteen years ago,
and I talked to one of my sons about it
and we were all gung ho about it, and yeah,
that sounds great. And I said, you know, if the
goal is to do it within twenty four hours, not
over several days, but just to get it done. And
so it just became one of those things, those big
(22:18):
things that you know, like climbing Everest. It was a
mini Everest, if you want to think of it that way.
That just drew me, compelled me to say, you know,
this is something big. It's bigger than going up Marcie.
It's bigger than going up Haystack. It's bigger than a
lot of that. And it's a thing, it's an established
thing that you can shoot for. So that's when I
(22:42):
just said I'm going to do it. And I looked
at all of the you know, it's twenty one miles,
ten thousand feet of elevation, it's daunting by all means,
but I said, you know what I can do that.
I know I can do that. So it became the
thing I just wanted to shoot and I knew I
had the ability, I just needed the right training. Was
(23:05):
I was skeptical a little bit because I am seventy
and there's a difference between being seventy and being sixty
by a lot, and so I was a little bit
apprehensive about it. And in my mind, there were several
off ramps that I could have taken had things not
gone well. So I always knew, you know, okay, Steve,
if you end up doing the lower grade range, still
(23:28):
that's not bad. So I was. I was copping out
a little bit along the way, but I still was
with your help. I mean, you're a good motivator, and
you taught a lot You taught us and me a
lot of things about about your body and what it's
capable of doing, even when the mind wants to quit.
The body's more than capable of doing more than you
(23:49):
think it is. Also being accountable, and you know, those
kind of things that were just motivational for me. So
I knew, I knew I could push myself more than
I thought I could, and that's what I ended up
doing on that hike.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
Absolutely, and we're going to get into it shortly here.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
But there was one hike that you did right before
the Great Range Traverse that didn't quite go how you
wanted it, and I know that must have shaken your
confidence a little bit.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
Oh well, yeah, so there was, yes, so there was.
The bad experience I had was is one of the
I was training by using Roostercombe, Hedgehog and Lower Wolf
and then coming back to the car. That was sort
of my one of my training routes. It was kind
of boring, but it was one of my training routes.
And the week before I had done in that one
(24:39):
hundred degree day, I had done Roostercombe and Hedgehog and
then come back, and so I wanted to go out.
It was a week later it was actually cooler, and
I wanted to go out and tag on Lower Wolf
as well. I mean, if you do those three and
come back, you're talking about almost eleven miles and forty
five hundred feet at elevations. It's a great training hike.
(25:02):
But I got halfway up Roostercomb and I was like,
I don't know, I'm just not I just do not
want to be here, do not want to be here.
So I ended up abandoning the hike, going back, feeling
miserable in a sense, like you know who your kid
and Steve, you can't even make halfway up Roostercomb and
(25:23):
you know two months from now you're going to be
two in the great Range. You know, you got to
be kidding yourself to you and I had a chat
and that's when you know, you said, you told me
that many times the mind can want to quit before
the body really needs to. And that was clearly what
was going on in my mind because my body was
was capable of that that journey and the next week boom,
(25:46):
I did it. You know, I did Roostercombe, Hedgehog and
then Laurel and then came back. So it was just
a matter of pushing through it.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
You know.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
I I tell people all the time, your brain is
going to quit far before your legs do. That's always
going to be the case. If you are one of
those freaks of nature athletes who can push and push
and push so far where your body is what fails
your brain unbelievable. You are a top point oh one
percent type of athlete. You are a freak of nature.
(26:18):
Kudos to you for winning the world. But for the
rest of us mortals, yes, our brain will quit before
our legs will. So when we remember that all of
a sudden we're able to go further, able to do more.
We can keep climbing, we can take a little break
and then keep going, you know.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
And these are and these are just things we need
to remember.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
And of course this doesn't this doesn't mean like if
it's time to call a hike, you shouldn't go turn around. No,
that we're not talking about that. We're talking about the
ability to keep going. And you showcase that obviously with
the next hike. So let's get into the actual Great
Range traverse September second, why that day, and then take
us through the hike.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
Let's start it.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
Let's start at the beginning, take us through it. I'd
love to hear the story because I haven't heard the
story yet.
Speaker 3 (26:58):
Well, I'm a fairweather hikeer, so to me, you know,
I need every advantage I can possibly have when I'm
doing something like that. I had no interest in, you know,
hiking in the rain, and I wanted the trails to
be dry. I just wanted every advantage I could possibly have.
And so I was very being retired, I'm somewhat flexible
(27:18):
in when I can do things. So I had a
window of like three weeks or two weeks where I
was going to look ahead and go, there's the day,
that's the day I want to do it. So a
few of the days that were open, you know, something
else came up, or you know, it rained or something.
So it was that day that I looked and I
finally said, you know, I got to pull a trigger
on this because now we're into September and I don't
(27:40):
want to go too far out into the you know,
with the daylight and all of that stuff. It was
important to get this thing done somewhat in the summer months.
So I picked a day where I thought it was bluebird,
but it turned out not to be blue bird. It
was the day before I went on the hike all
of a sudden changed to a thirty percent you know, chance
(28:02):
of rain in the afternoon up in the high peaks.
But by then I was like, I cannot delay this anymore.
I've just got to do it. And thirty percent isn't
one hundred percent. So I said, you know, uh, let's
let's let's launch this thing and let's go. So that's
that's why that I kind of ran out of time
(28:23):
to choose too many more days. It's really what why
September two was picked. Okay, great, so let's take us through.
You get to the trailhead, you start, you start, and
like take us through it, take us through the hike. Yeah. So,
you know, I went to bed at eight o'clock that
night because I had to get up at midnight and
leave the house at one so I could get to
(28:44):
the trailhead at two. So I got to the trailhead
at two a m. And Edlan Amson you know, and
all of that stuff, and decided to push forward and
do it. And it's quite an experience. And I'm sure
you know, hiking in the Aronde at night is even
more of a you know, an element of adrenaline rush
(29:06):
then during the day. I mean there's just something dark
and mysterious about it that's a little eerie at times, definitely,
especially if you're by yourself. And so, but I knew
that I had done a few trial runs of going
up Hedgehog and Rooster Coom at night just to get
you know, adapted to night hiking, and so I was
(29:27):
pretty comfortable with using the headlamp. And in some ways
it's easier because your lamp is focused right on the
trail and you can certainly see the trail markers were
flicking back at you one hundred feet away, where you
don't see that necessarily in the daytime. That's, of course
if there's trail markers. But you know, so in some
ways going by headlamp could be easier than during it
(29:47):
during the day. But I also knew by the time
I got past Lower Wolfshaw it would start to brighten
up and that would lift my spirits. So I only
had three four actually four hours. It was six thirty
by the time I could shoot off my headlamp, So
by then I was over Lower wolf Jaw. I had
(30:09):
done the three Roostercombe, Hedgehog and Lower wolf Do and
I was heading down to the call between Lower wolf
Jaw and Upper wolf Shaw, and that's when the sun
started to peek out, and you know, spirits were.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
Lifted all of a sudden. It feels like a different
day once the sun comes up.
Speaker 3 (30:27):
You know.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
That's why I say miles in the dark don't count. Yeah,
I thought of that.
Speaker 3 (30:31):
I thought of that as well, too, James. I heard
you say that. I was thinking those exact words. James
would say, the moles and the dark don't count. So I, uh,
the sun came out, spirits are lifting, I'm real And
then I realized, Wow, I've got a good twelve thirteen
hours of just daylight here and I'm already three mountains
deep into this thing, so this is going to be
(30:52):
kind of a piece of cake. And I was really
elevated in my spirits, so I get I'm going up.
Oh the other thing about all of these mountains, And
I'm sure a lot of your listeners know, and you know,
for well, every one of these mountains seemed to have
baby brothers or sisters associated with them, So you know,
there's supposedly ten mountains in this traverse, but I swear
(31:14):
there's a lot more than that when you count the
little ones that don't have any names to them. There's
a lot of up and downs. But I was going
up Lower Wolf Upper Wolf Jaw and it was light
out and I got off trail. There was a sharp
right turn that I didn't quite see, and I just
kept going straight and alson. I realized, well, I'm off trail,
(31:36):
and I went to look at my first I had
pulled out all trails because I really didn't think I
needed it, and I just had it for backup, and
I saw that Yeah, I was off the trail, but
I could bushwhack a little ways and get back on
the trail, and you know, bushwagging in the Adirondecks, it
(31:56):
sounds kind of easy. But boy, that was a bad call.
That was a bad call. I should have just gone
back to twenty yards, got back on the regular trail,
and done it from there. But I was stubborn and said, no,
I'm just going to bushwhack. So it was so thick
you just could you had to close your eyes to bushwhack,
you know. And so you're pushing through this gnarly stuff
(32:17):
and you're not really seeing where you're going. And then
I go for twenty yards or whatever it was, and
I look on all trails and I'm further away from
the trail that you know. I'm like, this is, this
is a little it was a little maddening. It was
I never packed, but I was like, you know, this
is I'm not going back, and I'm going to get
on this trail. And then I got to another point
where all of a sudden, there's a rock slab in
(32:38):
front of me, and I'm like, okay, I didn't know
this was going to be there, but it was. Eventually
I got back on the trail, but it cost me
about twenty minutes, and mentally it was a little bit
you know, I said, I don't need this stuff. This
is hard enough traverse without throwing this kind of stuff
in the mix. But you know, it was still early
(32:59):
on in the morning. It was not even seven o'clock yet,
and I found the trail was twenty minutes. But it
was just a little bit disheartening. But I pushed on
and soon got right back on track. Hit Upper Wolf Jaw,
took some pictures, moved on quickly to Armstrong, got to
Armstrong really easily, got down to the call of Armstrong
(33:23):
and Gothics, and feeling really good at that point, and
just kept pushing.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
Sorry, my daughter's just popped in shed quarters and had
to show me their Halloween costume. S awesome, all right,
So you're on your You just lost some energy mentally, physically,
et cetera, bush whacking your way back onto the trail
to Upper Wolf Jaw. So at that point, like when
you finally got to Upper Wolf Jaw, you know, you're
a couple of mountains in but on this hike, there
(33:56):
are so many more mountains to go. How are you
feeling mentally and physically when you were on Upper Wolf Jawn, I.
Speaker 3 (34:01):
Felt pretty good. I felt good mentally, and I felt
good physically. I was I was just ready, and it
was kind of almost like that scene in Rocky where
you know, on the top of the stairwell raising his hands,
and you know, I felt like that, I was just ready.
I was ready to go, and I was. I was
in good shape. I was, I was, And I knew
(34:22):
Armstrong wasn't that So I was now four deep into them,
and that wasn't one deep or too deep. It was
four deep. And I knew Armstrong wasn't going to be
that much of a challenge compared to what some of
the other ones were going to be. So I knew
I could knock off my fifth relatively easily. My son
and I did Gothics a few years ago in the winter,
(34:44):
and I knew once you were in that call between
Armstrong and Gothics, you could see Gothics, it really isn't
as far as it looks. And I knew, you know,
so psychologically, I said, I'm going to knock off my
fifth one Armstrong in relatively order. And it's that's exactly
what happened. I hit Armstrong, and uh, I was. I
(35:07):
was in pretty good shape. But you know, but before
going back to the lower wolf Jaw, right before you
get to Lower wolf Jaw, there is a steep cliff
that takes you up to get to the summit a
lower wolf Jaw on that side, and doing that in
the dark was kind of interesting as well too. Fortunately,
through a lot of those trial runs that I had
done for training, you know, I knew that cliff pretty good,
(35:30):
and it wasn't as daunting as it as I knew it,
you know, as it looked, because I had done it before.
So so I got through that pretty good and felt
pretty good about that. So by the time I was
on Armstrong, I was I was again.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
In good spirits, all right, very good Armstrong.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
I also think, I always say it's the I think
it has the best view in the adironic high peaks
for a mountain that nobody ever talks about.
Speaker 3 (35:55):
Yes, you're absolutely right.
Speaker 1 (35:57):
No one ever talks about Armstrong in conversation. There's never
a story about let me tell you about that this
time on Armstrong or climbing up Armstrong, because it's just
this little little blip in the hike, and it gets
overshadowed by both the wolf jaws and Gothics of course, right,
But man, the view on Armstrong it is just so
(36:17):
it is just so underappreciated. It's a mound that is underappreciated.
But yeah, and it is.
Speaker 3 (36:23):
It is, as you say, And almost all of them
in that range are really quite remarkable. And by that
at that point in the day it was quite quite nice.
It was bluebird and I hadn't seen anybody at that point.
I was still you know, up to Armstrong, I still
hadn't come across anybody, So it was really solo and
by myself. But again feeling like I had boom another one,
(36:45):
knock off another one. And it's like running miles in
a marathon, you know, once you hit you know, five
miles in, and then ten miles in and then fifteen
miles and you start do you start to get elevated
when you start getting some of these miles behind you. Well,
you've run a few half marathon and so you know
that feeling as well too. Yeah, I've run three of them,
three of them three years in a row. Half marathon yep,
(37:07):
all in Lake Placid. YEP. I've done that one and
that those are that's a grueling half.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
Yeah, all in Lake Placid.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
So yeah, I know, I know you're talking about you know,
these mile after mile after mile, but very good. Okay,
So we're on Armstrong. You're picking off these high peaks
as we go. You're almost done Gothics, and at that point,
like Gothics is the you know, it's like that, I'd
say for you, it's the like second checkpoint. The first
checkpoint is getting to Lower Wolf Job, getting on Lower
(37:36):
Wolf Job, because that's okay, we're on the we're on
the the Lower Great Range. Now I think Gothics is
the end of the Lower Great Range. So as you
got up to Gothics, which is kind of a hop
skip in the jont from Armstrong, how are you feeling
at that point?
Speaker 3 (37:48):
I was starting to feel a little you know, uh,
it's getting later in the day. I was starting to feel,
uh less elated because I was starting to get a
little bit tired. My legs were definitely feeling it. I
was getting a little bit not guess so to speak yet,
but I was starting to feel it, and I knew
(38:09):
I had a basin that's settled back in basin in
front of me. So that was a little daunting. It's
kind of almost like getting to the twenty mile mark
in a marathon, but or maybe even the fifteen mile
mark in a marathon. You achieved a lot, you feel good,
but then you look out at what you still got
to do, and it was like, and you're starting to
get tired of when you start to get fatigued, there's
(38:30):
nothing more humbling than that first notch a fatigue that sets.
Speaker 2 (38:35):
In absolutely one.
Speaker 1 (38:38):
Okay, so you know, and that's part of the hike, right, Like,
that's part of why this journey is such a a's
why it's such a big hike. There's all these moments too.
And the thing about the Great Range diverse that there's
so many moments that you can quit, you can go
home at so many different bail jerks. You don't have
to keep going, and that makes it harder sometimes.
Speaker 3 (38:59):
Yeah, the or Bend trail to take you out, You've
got the one beyond base and there's a whole bunch
of exit points along the way where you can just say, Okay,
I've had enough, and you know in your mind you're
going you're playing games with yourself, you're going, well, I'm
seventy years old. I just did four eye peaks. You know,
that's pretty darn good. Nobody's gonna you know, but you know,
(39:20):
I just again, I kept thinking about what you said about,
you know, mind and body and the difference between the two,
and I knew that although I was starting to get fatigued,
I knew I knew my body well enough to know
that from running those marathons that I could still push
forward and I was going to be fine. And I
always did have in mind that there were future exit
(39:43):
ramps ahead of me as well too.
Speaker 2 (39:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (39:46):
No, it's a good thing that there's all these exit ramps.
It just becomes one of those things where you know,
it's a double edged sword, like it can hit you mentally,
it could hit you physically. You can quit at any time,
which is good in some situations in you know, harder
in other situations for sure. Okay, So take us through
heading down to the ore bed trail down the So
(40:08):
you went down the cable route and then you you know,
you're heading heading towards the upper the upper Great Range next,
So take us through it.
Speaker 3 (40:15):
Yeah, so I'm down the cable route, and again I'm
feeling I'm starting to feel fatigued, and I knew I
had saddle back next, and I got to the bottom
of the cables, and saddle back wasn't that hard. I
remember getting up there. It just seemed like, you know,
before I knew it, I was up there. And but
but in my mind, what was playing games with my
(40:37):
mind was I knew I had the saddleback cliffs, and
I had done those before, and I just there's just
never easy. And you know, the older you get, I
guess you worry about that kind of stuff a little
bit more. It's kind of a young man's game in
some ways to scramble down those those cliffs. And so
I was a little worried about that because once you
(40:58):
commit to that, there is no gate. Right. You're either
going up the saddleback cliffs to get out or you're
going up basin to get out. There's no side trail
that takes you out of that call. Between saddle back
and basin.
Speaker 1 (41:11):
You're committed, and they're both hard no matter which way
you decide to turn around. It's hard no matter what
you are, So in no man's land at that point
for sure. Yeah, it actually brings me my next question
I meant to ask this before. Was there a reason
you chose to go this direction versus starting on Marcy
and going down you know, was there a reason for
(41:33):
going this.
Speaker 2 (41:34):
Direction or was it just the way you chose.
Speaker 3 (41:36):
It's just the way I chose when I looked at
the fastest nome times not in any means what, you know,
because I'm trying to look for the official way of
doing it, and there really isn't any official way. And
you know, either or is fine. Some people like to
start out at the lodge and do Marci first and
or you know, the highest to lowest. I rather, I
wanted to do it the other way around and knock
(41:59):
off the easier ones first, just clip them off, clip
them off, clip them off, and then get to the
two big ones at the end. And so it's just
the way that I had. I had chosen to do that,
for sure.
Speaker 2 (42:11):
Very very good.
Speaker 1 (42:12):
All right, continue, So you got down the saddle back
cliffs and now, yeah, I got down those, you know.
Speaker 3 (42:17):
I swear, you know, you're like, if I was an
inch shorter, I don't think I could do this. So
it's just amazing when you're going down some of those
scrambles that you go, Thank God, im you know my
the height that I am, because I don't think another
inch I could do this, but you never know. I
guess everybody's different. But you know, I got down those things,
(42:37):
and you know, just.
Speaker 2 (42:41):
It was hard.
Speaker 3 (42:41):
I've gone up them and I've gone down them, and
I think going down them is the harder part. But
it's just it's just my head was was was really
nervous about that whole thing. But I ended up down there,
and I knew that Basin was no joke either. Basin
you can do the settle the back cliffs, and that's
(43:02):
an accomplishment, but Basin on its own is a bad boy.
I don't care which way you're coming from, whether you
go up the other way or you're going you come
down Basin over to settle back. That is one tough
downward climb and going up and yeah, it's And then
talk about the little brothers and little sisters that the
mountains have. Basin I think has two in front of
(43:24):
it before you finally get to the real summit. So
it's it. It's gnarly, and it's steep and it's dangerous. So, uh,
you know, I got up that. I was a little
apprehensive about that because I knew that that was that
was a tough part. That was a tough mile, and
a half of the of the whole traverse was between
Saddleback and Basin.
Speaker 2 (43:44):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (43:44):
There's also the point too, where you know we were
talking about Armstrong, is that like has the best of
you that no one ever talks about because it just
gets sandwiched between these other more popular mountains to discuss.
Basin is what I you. I like how you said,
you said it's the bad boy of the range. Basin
is the thing that no one talks about that mountain,
(44:04):
and I think that mountain start to finish no matter
which direction you go is what I would determine one
of the quote harder mountains to climb that again, nobody
talks about because there's so many of these slabs that
you got to find your way up or find your
way down, and you're sitting there looking at it for
five minutes trying to figure out how do people go
up this or how do people go down this? So
(44:27):
I can I feel like that is usually a good
indicator that mountain of how do you feel after in
terms of in terms of like actually finishing the hike.
By getting up that and getting off of it is
a good determiner of if this is going to happen
or not because of the fact that it really takes
a lot out of you.
Speaker 3 (44:48):
Yeah, agreed, I mean it is. I would say it's
the toughest. If I had to pick a toughest one,
that's the one. And also because it's so far in right,
I mean, you don't just pull off the highway and
start going up at You've got to You've got a
long journey no matter which way you attempt to take it,
and by the time you get to it, you know
you've been hiking a long time. So it's it's it's
(45:09):
I think it's the toughest. Yeah, absolutely, So I made
it up Basin and that's a you know, that's a
stunning view in and of itself. I mean, because you're
looking right at Haystack and then you're looking at Marcy.
But part of that is it's beautiful. But then you realize,
my god, Haystack looks forever away, and Marcy even looks
(45:30):
forever beyond that a way, so you're like this, I've
still got a long way to go, And so yeah,
I hit Basin I might have hit it around noon.
I think it was about noon by the time I
got up to Basin, and so I still had a
good piece of chunk of the day left. But I
knew I had to go down Basin. As I said,
if we said that, that is so hard, and what
(45:51):
makes it harder was you know, by then you are
legitimately fatigued, or at least I was. You know, my
legs were definitely starting to get jelly like, and so
that makes everything that much more perilous because you know,
it's so easy to misstep when when your legs are
feeling a little bit like there's some cement being poured
(46:12):
into them. So that was truly mile twenty of a
marathon in my opinion. You know, you were You're just
hanging on at that point to say, okay, now, now
the race is really begun and the hard part. So
going down Basin was was tough. It was that that
was one of one of the It wasn't the toughest
(46:33):
part because it was still early on and I had
some more challenges ahead of me, but that was a
tough That was a tough down downward thing. But once
I got down there, I realized well, Haystack isn't that far.
It's just not that far. It looked like it was far,
and you know, to get to those first cliffs of
Haystack from basin it is, it's just not that far,
(46:54):
and you're there in pretty short order. So uh, and
doing Haystack, of course, it's opened pretty much right away,
almost like right mount. You know, you just go up
a few hundred yards in the train and all of
a sudden you're there. You're looking at little Haystack and
you know, it almost feels like you're on a lunar landscape,
whereas some of the other you're in trees on a
(47:16):
lot of the other peaks. So Haystack from that perspective
felt like it felt easier because I could see the
goal line, although you know what I was seeing was
little Haystack.
Speaker 2 (47:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (47:27):
I mean you get up to and you get up
the little Haystack and you're like, okay, there's Haystack. There's
the real Haystack, and you know that's and again your
legs are all you know, you're really starting to get
tired at that point, but you're pushing. You're pushing at
his point too. You said it was around noon when
you got on basis. And yeah, so you're on base
(47:49):
and it was noon, so at that point you'd already
been out there for like, did you say ten hours?
You started at two two am, So at that point
you'd already been out there for ten hours hiking and
a lot of hiking still to go.
Speaker 2 (48:02):
Even so, and then you're going up to haystack.
Speaker 1 (48:04):
Yeah, and you have to get over a little haystack
and then the big climb up to big daddy haystack.
You got a lot and they're still coming all the
way back down, every every inch that you're walking up
there too, knowing like I'm going to come back this
and know the hike's not over at that point. Why
the Great Orange Reverse really is a really is a
mind game for sure because of that. So, Okay, any
(48:27):
joint pain throughout at this point end of the day,
or any like aches and pains anything like that, No.
Speaker 3 (48:33):
No, I mean I had some you know, agile kind
of things and me and stuff like that. So no,
I that that was all good. It was just you
just I was just getting fatigued like I would and
running a marathon, you know, it was just starting to
get fatigued, and so going down Basin was tougher than
it would have been because I was just you know,
legs were starting to get kind of jellowy. But but
(48:54):
going up Haystack again, I was all of a sudden
the word and we have I have started to see
some people at this point along the way, starting on
saddleback and base, and I started to see other hikers
and they were starting to say that the rangers had
just upped the probability of rain from thirty percent to
fifty percent. And I go, oh, great, that's all I need.
(49:18):
So we get up to Haystack and there was some
other there was another gentleman up there, and it started
to get cold and windy, and we looked out and
over Lake Placid it was raining. You know, you could
just see the rain clouds in the distance. And within
fifteen minutes it was pouring on the top of Haystack,
pouring and to the point where it turned into hale
(49:38):
as well too. So that was mentally disheartening. So, as
I told you earlier, I'm a fairweather hiker, and uh,
you know, I needed every advantage I felt that I
could get and to have to deal with rain at
that point, you know, with still having to get down
off the haystack and do Marsy and then you know,
(49:59):
eight half miles out of Marcie. I just said, I
don't know if this is going to rain the whole time.
Well turned out, the rain lasted about fifteen minutes. It
was torrential though, and all of a sudden, bluebird's sky again.
The problem was all the trails down below, they became
just running streams with all the rain that poured off
(50:21):
the mountains.
Speaker 1 (50:22):
So all it rained short enough and hard enough, just
enough to make the conditions crappy. Now it's horrible because
prior to that it was a dry trail, relatively dry trail,
very little mud. I mean, all summer long, it was
really good. So so the trail conditions were great, and
they went from being great to being horrible in fifteen minutes.
(50:44):
And so it was even slick on getting off of
haystack was a little slick. You know, you were that
sort of the mosses on the rocks, you know, that
was they were, you know, slippery, and so all of
a sudden, what was supposed to, you know, what should
have taken me half hour was taking me fifty minutes,
just because you had to be careful, and that was
(51:06):
you know, that was stuff. The other thing that happened
on the bottom of Haystack was you get to the
bottom of the cliffs of Haystack and to go over
to Marcy is a sharp left turn.
Speaker 3 (51:16):
It's a sharp left turn. You can easily miss it
and just keep going straight. I knew I had to
take a left turn. I just didn't think I was there.
Speaker 2 (51:24):
So I go off.
Speaker 3 (51:26):
About a quarter mile and I say, you know, maybe
I better check old trails, and sure enough, I missed
the turn to get over to Marcie and I was
going back to Basin. So that was my second real
mental kind of oh man, I don't need this. I
don't need to make this trip longer. Turn around to
(51:46):
get back on track, and I realized it's uphill, you know,
it's up hill. And so a quarter mile of going
back up hill and the boulders by that point, all
of those boulders that are back down on those trailers,
they were all wet. You know, it was just a mess.
And so I get back up to the trail where
I should have turned, and you know, said, okay, we
(52:08):
got to do this. And in my mind, I'm thinking, okay,
I'll get over to the Phelps Trail. And when you
get to the Phelps Trail, you can take it right
six miles later, or so six and a half miles
later you're going to be in the garden, or you
can take a left and go a mile and a
half and go up Marcy. So if this is really
that crappy, I'm just going to take the right at
(52:31):
Phelps Trail and go out and be done with it
and not go that mile and a half up to Marcie.
And that's where they seek to do more. Kind of
program kicked in a little bit and what you had
said about, you know, mind over matter and mind over
body and that kind of thing. I got finally to
the trail head. It was slow going. You know, that's
a nasty trail back there. It's just, you know, nothing
(52:54):
pretty about it. It's closed in, there's a lot of boulders,
there's just a lot of gnarliness that that is in
that back area of the trail. And so I got
up to the Phelps junction. I saw the sign a
mile and a half by that point, I said, okay,
I could take the right and get out of here,
or you know, I'm only going to be I'm never
going to be in this position again. I don't think
(53:16):
if you don't do this now. You know, that was
where accountability came in. And you know, again there's a
fine line between being stupid, I guess, and pushing yourself
that extra step. I honestly felt I wasn't being stupid.
I was just pushing through. I had trained hard for this,
and I knew a mile and a half I could
(53:38):
do it. I also knew the Marsie trail wasn't that crazy,
you know, getting up to there. So I said, you know,
what what would James think if I told him I
bailed out at Marcie And I knew I could do it.
So I pushed and took the left and said, I'm
sending it up Marcie a mile and a half and
I'm going to be on the top of Marsie and
even though I won't be finished, have achieved all ten
(54:01):
of the peaks. So up I went, and it was
five o'clock though by the time I got to the
top of Marcy.
Speaker 1 (54:08):
Yeah, let's press pause before we get there, because there's
a lot to talk about. What you just talked about,
So you had a choice to abandon ship and go
home having still done an absolutely, massive, crazy, respectable, enormous
day that ninety nine percent of hikers will never be
able to do period at that moment, and had you
(54:29):
started walking down that trail, I'm willing to bet you
would have felt mentally good for about maybe five minutes,
knowing like, because in your brain you're telling yourself the
hike's almost over now, I'm almost getting ready to be done.
And then after five minutes your brain would have said,
(54:49):
oh no, by just like I failed the mission that
I had that I've been training for for all, you know,
almost a year at this point realistically. But on the
flip side, I'm willing to bet the second you decided
to go up, Marcie, and you made that, you said no,
I'm going to go up, and you left the trail
junction and started walking up, I'm willing to bet and
(55:11):
correct me if I'm wrong. You probably got a little
dopamine hit a positivity knowing like, no, it's still on,
I'm still going like I'm here.
Speaker 2 (55:18):
I'm willing to bet right.
Speaker 3 (55:19):
Yeah, definitely I did. I absolutely did. I got motivated
an adrenaline lashery right away. And all of a sudden,
I said, you know what. So what I do sometimes
when I'm in these big things, whether there's a marathon
or I just look ahead to a short term goal
in the middle of this larger goal. So for me,
(55:40):
it was just a mile and a half to get
up Marcie. That's all it was. It wasn't twenty one
min it was a mile and a half. I just
got to get up Marsie. I'm not men think about
getting off of Marsie. I'm just going to get up
to Marsie. And it's a mile and a half. So
I'd walk twenty minutes or so. I'd look at GPS
just to say, okay, how far have I gone. I'd
look at my watch and say how far have I gone?
(56:00):
And all of a sudden, lo in the hold I've gone,
you know, half a mile, and I'm like, wow, now
I'm down to a mile. So I kept breaking it
up into little chunks like that and and helped me
get it up. And then you know, I was a
half a mile from the top of Marcie. I it
was getting to those you know, those planks that go
over the bog there, and I'm like, oh, man, I am.
I am half a mile or so from victory, and
(56:24):
so I was I was pushing my body, got a second,
third win, whatever it was, and I was just pushing
easily up over little marciean up to Marcy. It was
just it was all adrenaline at that point. And so yeah,
I think I texted you do on the top when
I was on the top of Marcie and I was
up there by myself. There was nobody up there. When
(56:44):
I got up there, it was five o'clock in the evening,
and I summoned Marcy beautiful too.
Speaker 2 (56:50):
It's just gorgeous. How did that feel?
Speaker 3 (56:54):
Oh my gosh, I mean it was it was It
was that right. I guess that was the rocky moment,
you know, where you're up at the top of the
stairs and you're lifting your arms up and you're just
jumping up and down because you know, you just I
just felt like I had accomplished this. I did this.
I'm seventy years old and I did this thing that
I didn't think I was going to be able to do, honestly,
and I was not overly confident that I could do this.
(57:18):
I just and like I said, having all those exits plans.
I knew I wasn't going to be in danger if
I got in there and decided to bail. So it was,
it was. It was an incredible feeling of euphoria just
to be able to do that at seventy years old.
For me, it was like I achieved what I wanted
to achieve. Granted it took me a lot longer than
(57:38):
you know, it would have taken somebody forty five years old,
but you know, it didn't matter. That didn't matter to
me at that point. So the adrenaline was going good.
I was, you know, texting you is, texting my wife.
I was, you know, in communication with people. So it
it had a whole level of you know, I even
took a little bit of a rest. You know, I said, Okay,
I'm going to hang out here and just enjoy this
(58:01):
for a while.
Speaker 2 (58:02):
So how long did you stay up there for?
Speaker 3 (58:04):
I'm going to say it was a half an hour. Sorry.
You know, I knew I had to get down because
you know, darkness was going to come. It was five o'clock,
so I knew I had to get down, and the
more I could do that trail in the light, the
better I'd feel. About it, because you know that coming
off of Marsie is that's a tough trail, and it
was wet and slippery and greasy and gnarly, and you know,
(58:28):
it was just it was a long slog out to
get out to the garden. It was just a long
By the time I got out of it was eleven
thirty at night, So it was just it was a
tough slog.
Speaker 1 (58:39):
But yeah, so you're on Marsy and at our fifteen
mind at hour fifteen, you're on Marsy and you still have.
Speaker 2 (58:47):
To get back.
Speaker 1 (58:49):
You know, yeah, the hikes hike is far from over,
but you have that mental pick me up knowing that
the hard work in the sense of like what you
came to accomplish had been accomplished. So now it was,
you know, again the long walk back to the lodge.
But for you was long walk back to the garden.
But you stayed up there for a half hour. Body
(59:12):
didn't start to didn't start to like shut down a
little bit.
Speaker 3 (59:17):
A little bit at that point. Yeah, at that point
it did. And again mentally, all of a sudden that
you know that euphoria is starting away off and you
do start thinking about that hike out and uh again
because the trail conditions had changed so dramatically. That was
playing games with my head a little bit. You know.
I was like, you know, this is gonna take me
a lot longer than I had originally thought it was
(59:39):
going to take me, just because I got to go
slow and I actually did slip a few times going out,
and you know, so that's when I realized this is
this There's there's mountains don't care about you. This is perilous,
you know. And you know, you could easily injure yourself
if you trip over a route or hit a rock
or whatever. There's a million things that could go wrong,
and when they can psitions were what they were, it
(01:00:01):
was you know, even more so perilous, but you know
it was it was it was that long slog out forever.
Speaker 1 (01:00:11):
Good thing that you had been training for the last
year to get your body strong period for when you
trip and fall and you slip on this and you
slip on that and your body can handle you know,
the bumps and bruises of that. It's another again benefit
of getting your body strong so that when you're out there,
it can perform better and it's safer because we're gonna trip,
we're gonna fall, we're gonna slip, We're gonna have these moments.
(01:00:33):
But glad to hear that that didn't. That wasn't the
end for you when you had those falls.
Speaker 2 (01:00:37):
So very good.
Speaker 1 (01:00:38):
So talk to me about the you know mentally, where
you at as you're starting to walk out.
Speaker 3 (01:00:44):
Well, one of the problems too, between between the fatigue
and you know, the fact that you got a long
road ahead of it, was darkness was coming. So you know,
my mind was playing games and I was prepared. I
had two headlamps and all of this kind of stuff.
But then I'm starting to think, did I change the
batteries of my head lamp? Are they fresh? Are they not?
And I did, But you know, at this point, I
was like, oh god, that's all I need is you know,
(01:01:06):
I'm a mile away from Johnsbrooke Lodge and my lights
go out and it was dark out there. Dark came around,
you know, but I think it was about seven o'clock.
I was shooting on the headlamp, so and I was
still two miles or so from John Brooke Johnsbrook Lodge.
But you know, the headlamps held up. But that that
played games with you a little bit the darkness at
(01:01:27):
that stage, you know, and I was still had quite
a bit of At seven o'clock when I turned on
the headlamps, I still had a long way to go.
You know. It was slow going. It was just slow going.
So it was it was the darkness and the fatigue
that sort of played a little games with me a
little bit. So I wasn't getting that rush of well
I only got four miles to go, or I only.
Speaker 2 (01:01:49):
Get some it's terrible there.
Speaker 3 (01:01:51):
It was like, yeah, and I was thinking three miles
is still three missessions. Yeah, No, I don't care that
I've already come sixteen or seven, you know, it's three miles.
And it was just, you know, slow going.
Speaker 2 (01:02:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:02:04):
So you walked back to the garden is where you
came out. So you were parked at Rooster Comb or
did you how did that?
Speaker 2 (01:02:12):
How did that?
Speaker 3 (01:02:12):
Yeah? It was parked at Roostercomb. So the plan was
in my mind. I was like, you know what, by
the time I get to the garden, I'll be on
a road and the car. I did the it's just
under two miles to get to the car. But I
figured it was road hiking road walking, which is a
lot different than being on the trail. So the plan
was I was going to walk from the garden to
(01:02:33):
Roostercomb after this was all done, well, I started texting
my wife, you know, on top of Marcy. It was
the last on my tax and she could sense that
I don't know, I don't think when you get done
at the garden that you know, you should be walking
two miles back to the car and they could drive
it home. So she said, I'm picking you up. So
she's yeah, she said, I'm picking you up. So she
(01:02:57):
picked me up at the garden and it was eleven
all then thirty by the time I, you know, meandered
out of the out of the trail, and she had
actually been there an hour because there was no way
we could perfectly tie and you know, the distance between
Marcy and UH and getting back to the garden, you know,
I couldn't tell her exactly what time that was going
to be, and I was going to lose signal when
(01:03:17):
you get down below. So she had been there for
about an hour, but I was I was really relieved
because it was eleven thirty when I when I crawled
out of the woods.
Speaker 1 (01:03:27):
Yeah, eleven thirty pm. So you started in the dark
for many hours, hiked the entire day, and then ended
in the dark for many hours. So two am to
eleven thirty is what is that? Twenty one and a
half hours. Yeah, it's my math correct twenty one and
(01:03:48):
a half hours.
Speaker 2 (01:03:49):
Wow. Yeah, what a day, My god.
Speaker 1 (01:03:51):
So talk to me. Let's just like finish up this
this hike. I just have to know the walk back
from the law or the lodge, the walk back from
John's or Johns Brook Lodge. It's three three miles right
at that point, kind of sent similar to like the
you know, it's more than the walk back from from
Marcy Dan. But talk to me about that stretch because
(01:04:13):
I'm willing to bet. Mentally, when you got to Johnsbrook Lodge,
you probably were like, oh, I'm almost done, but in reality, no,
you're not almost done. You're still room miles miles. Yeah,
it's a long three miles. Fortunately, there were people at
the Johnsbrook Lodge and there was I was able to
get water there and that sort of thing, so it
was a little bit of a mental pick me up.
(01:04:34):
But I knew it was still three miles, but it
was It's a relatively easy three miles from Johns Brooks
to the garden. It's not you know, it's not an
overly gnarly path by any stretch, so that gave me
some comfort, but it was still slow going.
Speaker 3 (01:04:48):
You know. I kept looking at my GPS, kept thinking, oh,
you know, I've probably gotten a mile under my belt,
and I'd look at the GPS and I've only gone
a half a mile. So that was a little It
was like, okay, when am I getting What am I
going to get out of these woods? This is getting ridiculous.
But you know what I thought was I thought was
going to take me maybe an hour and a half
to get out from that point. It might have taken
(01:05:11):
me an extra half an hour on top of that
because of just just how tired and you know, dark
it was. But it at least it was an easier
point of the trail at that point, which gave me
a little bit of a boost. But by then I was,
I was, I was, I was cooked, you know, I was,
(01:05:33):
I was. I was ready to be done.
Speaker 2 (01:05:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:05:36):
You know, I joke with everyone when it comes to hiking,
no matter what you love doing, whatever you love doing
more than anything in the world, nothing's fun for twelve
hours let alone, let alone twenty one and a half hours, so.
Speaker 3 (01:05:50):
True, so true. And you know, I got home and
by the time I went to bed it was two AM,
so I had been up since twelve minutes. So I'd
been up twenty six hours. And I actually had to
go to a meeting the next day. I'm on the
board of a bank and they had a morning meeting,
so I had to be at the nine am, so
I actually made it.
Speaker 2 (01:06:12):
You have trouble going to sleep that night at all,
the body shut down or not.
Speaker 3 (01:06:17):
Yeah, I had trouble. I had trouble getting to sleep.
I was, you know, a little wired by the time
I laid down at two am, and I had to
get up at six, so it was a you know,
but but my adrenaline by that point, you know, I
was high as a kite on just adrenaline. So I
was texting people to go. You you know, I did
the great range blah blah blah and uh. And actually
(01:06:41):
here's where the training really came in. My body did
not feel sore at all the next day. You know,
walking down steps usually, you know, that's where you feel
those kind of things. My body, except for the areas
where I fell on my shoulder and knee. You know,
when the time that I slipped in the woods, my
body was fine. I had no problem recovering. I was
(01:07:02):
out shopping wood two days later, you know, just no
problem with recovery. And that I attest to the training
because the strength training and the endurance training, it just
paid off and my body was ready to go a
few days later. But for the like I said, the
shoulder injury and the knee injury and the feet were
a little bit beat up, but my muscles and my
(01:07:23):
legs were fine.
Speaker 2 (01:07:24):
So glad to hear that.
Speaker 1 (01:07:25):
I'm glad that we were able to get you ready
for this big hike, and glad you were able to
accomplish the goal that you worked your butt off for
eight months to achieve. Congrats to you, Kudos to you
for seeing it through and what a journey it was
mentally physically like it was. It was exciting listening to
that story and how it unfolded out there. You are
(01:07:46):
an absolute inspiration. So as we start to wrap up
this podcast here, there's a couple questions I always ask people,
but I have a question right off the bat for you.
Before we dive into those final questions, is at seventy
years old, you are you are retired.
Speaker 2 (01:08:05):
You know you were you know, you ran a bank,
like you should be living your living your best life,
not putting yourself through these crazy grinds. But here you
are doing that. So clearly these adventures are you living
your best life? So talk to me a little bit
about like what keeps you going back out more and
more and more and putting yourself in these scenarios to
(01:08:29):
experience these adventures when you could just be, you know,
living that easy life at home. You know, longevity is
obviously a big thing for you, So why is that
the case for you?
Speaker 3 (01:08:40):
Well, a couple of things. You know, what they say
is don't let the old man in, and there's a
lot of truth to that. And we live in a
really nice area of the Hetroonics. We love where we
live in Diamond Point, and it's a lot of work.
We have fifteen acres, my wife and I and she's
in great shape as well, she's really in super shape.
So keeping up the property, whether it's snow removal or this,
(01:09:03):
you know, trees coming down all the time, having to
chop down trees and cut them up and split them.
It's a lot you know, it's a lot of work
to maintain a house like we live in, but I
love we love the house, so we want to I
want to live here till I'm at least eighty. And
in order to be able to do that, I've got
to be able to do those things. When trees come down,
(01:09:23):
I got to be able to cut them up. And
when the snow dumps three feet of snow on you,
I got to be able to and we've got to
be able to remove the snow. So I know from
experience now in my sixties, if you start to slip,
you start to slip a little bit on your physical conditioning,
all of a sudden, you can't do the things you thought.
(01:09:44):
Wait a minute, I could do that five years ago.
Now I'm struggling. So I did not want that to happen.
I want ten more years in this house. And the
only way I'm going to do that is if I
stay in you know, good, good shape. And also, once
you accomplish certain things, you don't want to you know,
(01:10:04):
you want to keep that going, you know, for me,
I do anyway, I don't want to. I don't want
to ever give up on these goals that I have
and they keep me motivated, and they keep me focused,
and they do keep me in good shape. So it's
important that I have these goals and I just want
to live the best life obviously that I can through
my eighties, which is going to be a physical life
(01:10:27):
that's fantastic.
Speaker 2 (01:10:28):
So what would you tell thirty years ago, Steve, or
what would you tell someone listening to this podcast. So
let's say they're in their thirties or their forties and
they say, I want to be do I want to
be just like Steve climbing high peaks, climbing mountains, having
these adventures when I'm seventy, Like, what would your wisdom
be for them right.
Speaker 1 (01:10:48):
Now to be doing? To set their lives up to
be able to do that. What you got to do
is you got to set a goal that you want
to do, and then you've got to push yourself to
get off the couch.
Speaker 3 (01:11:01):
It is so easy when you're you've got a family,
as you know, you got kids at home, you got
a career going, you got jobs going, and you want
to sneak in a marathon or something like that. It's
so easy. You come home from a day of work
to sit on the couch and go, you know what,
maybe I can do that run tomorrow, or do that
you know, weight training tomorrow. You just got to push
(01:11:24):
that in the back of your mind, get off the
couch and get at that exercise. I found that if
you do that, you never regret it. You never regret
pushing yourself to do a run or a wait session.
At the end of that you're glad you did it.
You don't ever say, boy, I wish I didn't do
that workout. You always you never regret it. So but
(01:11:47):
you got to push yourself. It's so easy just to
slip back and go, eh, maybe tomorrow, I can do
this tomorrow. I don't have to do it tonight, So
keep motivated like that. If if I had to do
it all over again and I had the time to
do it, I would incorporate strength training absolutely in my
forties in addition to their cardio running, I would have
incorporated weight training. I always thought, you know, when I retire,
(01:12:11):
i'd be able to, you know, have more time to
do the waight training. The problem is, your body isn't
what it was in the forties, and although it's still doable,
you know you're fighting a little bit of battle with age,
and it's a little bit of an uphill battle. So
I would strongly recommend people to do some strength training
in addition to cardio. But the key is to find
something you want to do and then do it, you know,
(01:12:33):
get off the couch and just get it done. You
can always find the time, you really can. You know,
when I had the kids and I was working and
all of this stuff, sometimes I get up at four
in the morning and do my runs or do my workout,
and you just had to find the time to do it,
or you do it in the evening at night. So
it's just a matter of pushing through and finding the time.
There is the time to do it. You just got
(01:12:54):
to make it a priority.
Speaker 1 (01:12:56):
I love it, massive amount of wisdom in that, so
thank you for that. I appreciate it just hearing it myself,
and then for you know, the listeners listening to the
podcast as well, because you, again, you are an inspiration.
You are a standard to try to achieve, you know,
Greg grangera versus seventy unbelievable. Well, Steve, congratulations on completing
what you came here to complete, putting in the work
(01:13:18):
to get there and pushing through when you easily could
have quit a million different times throughout and nobody would
have batted.
Speaker 2 (01:13:25):
An eye either.
Speaker 1 (01:13:26):
But you knew in your you knew inside I have
to finish what I start. I can finish what I started.
It's just going to be hard, but I can do it.
And man, what an inspiration you are to me and
to anybody who's listening to this podcast, guaranteed.
Speaker 2 (01:13:40):
So thanks for sharing your story. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (01:13:42):
Well, I got to say too, James, I had a
great coach, so thank you as well too, because I
would have not been able to do this were it
not for the coaching you provided and the direction you provided,
and words of wisdom to a seventy year old from
somebody who's in their thirties. You know, you had a
lot of wisdom that you gave and probably wouldn't have
(01:14:05):
been able to I know, I definitely wouldn't have been
able to do that without your your wisdom and your
coaching and your direction. So thank you for that.
Speaker 2 (01:14:13):
I appreciate that.
Speaker 1 (01:14:14):
And with that, I'm going to wrap up this episode
of the podcast. If you're like Steve and you might
want some coaching and a plan created and tailored to
your specific life that meets you where you're at so
that you can have the mountain adventures that you want
to have. Head over to seek to Do More dot com.
Book a call with me and we'll figure out which
coaching program is right for you, whether it's my one
(01:14:36):
on one Seek to Do More program or my Great
Range Athlete program. I'll make sure that you have the
right plan in place so that you can accomplish the
goals that you have. Remember to always leave no trace,
do the rock walk, and if you carry it in,
carry it out.
Speaker 2 (01:14:50):
See you all in the trails
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