Heads in the clouds

The Man and I were up unusually early for a Sunday morning, and were out on the road as dawn was breaking.  With my parents on hand to take care of the kids, we were heading off for a major hike.

Three hours later, we were on the trail up to Big Slide Mountain, one of the 46 Adirondack High Peaks.  A 9.4 mile round trip, which promised magnificent views on the way up (and would have delivered them, too, had it not been so cloudy).

The trail was steep and challenging at times, and hard to find at others, and the ascent was pretty strenuous.  I was glad of a tough pair of boots (especially when I stumbled into some wet mud up to my ankles, yet managed to keep my feet miraculously dry). 

It was hard to be sure that we'd reached the summit (the Man eventually found a trig point hidden behind a bush), but the weather cooperated for the few minutes we were there, allowing the mountain peaks across the way briefly to show themselves through the clouds.

 

 

We followed a circular route, so most of the descent took us a different, mostly gentler way, through forest and criss-crossing a stream.  But I did get caught out by a steep, slippery sheet of rock (the eponymous Big Slide?) - I fell hard on my backside (as I've done before now, skating, fainting etc - no big deal). 

The whole hike took us over seven hours, so (according to the website we'd studied) that officially ranks us as "out of shape hikers".  But a group of much younger, fitter-looking French Canadians we met en route (doing the whole loop in the opposite direction) took just as long, so I reckon we did OK.