Hike up Mount Marcy challenging yet enjoyable

By Bond Brungard
For the Poughkeepsie Journal

''I don't hate a ball enough to chase it around and beat it to death,'' said Fish, a retired New York state Department of Environmental Conservation park ranger.

Fish likes to walk. In fact, he takes his hiking very seriously. When he retired in 1998 after about 29 years with the DEC, Fish had spent the last 23 years of his service patrolling the Adirondack High Peaks area, 200,000 acres within the 6 million-acre Adirondack Park, the forever-wild sanctuary that includes the state's highest points, 5,344-foot Mount Marcy and 5,114-foot Algonquin Peak.

Fish has made nearly 525 treks up Mount Marcy, where Lake Tear of the Clouds, the diminutive source of the Hudson River, is nestled on the mountain's south side. Fish made his first trek up Marcy in 1959, at the age of 23.

There are about 46 peaks 4,000 feet and higher and Fish has climbed them all -- but continues to pursue his regular hikes up Marcy, about a 15-mile round trip from the parking lot of the Adirondack Loj, which is operated by the Adirondack Mountain Club.

''If you do the biggest one, you kind of think you've whipped them all,'' said Fish.

The High Peaks area became a very popular patch of wilderness in the 1990s, attracting about 70,000 visitors a year. Neil Woodworth, deputy executive director and counsel for the Adirondack Mountain Club, attributes some the popularity to Montreal and Ottawa, major Canadian metropolitan areas about two-and-a-half hours away -- about the same distance as Albany.

''We've been discovered by the Canadians,'' said Woodworth.

Glorious peaks

The popularity of the High Peaks area is not without reason. About two miles from the Adirondack Loj, campers and hikers can find themselves at Marcy Dam, entirely surrounded by some of the most beautiful peaks on the East Coast.

To the right of the spillway, Algonquin Peak towers to the southwest and straight ahead, due south, the 4,714-foot Mount Colden envelops the viewscape as a distant mountainous grotto. But getting to and over these peaks can be somewhat time-consuming.

Exposed roots and erosion along the trails present potential perils, such as twisted ankles, but the trails are maintained by both volunteers and paid staff who try and protect the immediate environment as well as provide impact-free passage.

Crews and volunteers work throughout the summer months to build stone and boulder pathways and lay dry-tread, plank walkways which are found trailing through muddy, flat area along the trails.

''People try to keep their feet dry and will go off to the right and the left,'' said Woodworth, ''and the trail gets wider.''

On the final ascent to Algonquin Peak, as the tree line starts to disappear, yellow markers are painted across the rock face to prevent hikers from wandering into the fragile alpine vegetation. From the accent beyond MacIntyre Brook, hikers are treated to an arduous mile hike up the western slope Algonquin after the trail-split to Wright Peak, an approximately 4,000-foot peak to the north.

The hike continues to grow steeper and, during the rest periods, which seem to get more frequent toward the top, one can turn around and see Lake Placid, the Olympic ski jumps and 4,867-foot Whiteface Mountain in the distant northern skyline. Nearby Wright Peak incrementally disappears from the skyline, until you reach the top of Algonquin.

Wright Peak lies below to the west, but to the immediate east Mount Colden and its sheer, rocky slopes sit beneath the towering Mount Marcy. Below, to the right of Algonquin, Lake Tear of the Clouds and the Opalescent River feed ponds and streams that become the driving force of the Hudson River.

''I think Algonquin is the premier peak,'' said Fish, who estimates he's climbed New York state's second-highest peak more than 150 times.

During his time as a ranger, Fish said some of the most frequent problems were packs of hikers who wandered too far away from their original group, prompting some worry and waiting. Hikers who spent a chilly night in the woods because of poor planning were another problem.

''They'd assume an autumn Saturday has the same amount of daylight as a day in June,'' said Fish.

But hiking here can be more dangerous than a twisted ankle or unplanned night in the woods. In March 1999, avalanches that poured into a valley between Wright Peak and Mount Colden produced the first fatality of its kind in the area.

''It basically sheared the soil off and everything with it,'' said Woodworth, who's an experienced winter hiker in the High Peaks.

Remnants of that avalanche will exist for generations to come. About a mile north of Avalanche Pass, on the trail to Marcy Dam, the path winds its way through piles of broken, once-towering birch trees, which were sheared off with the avalanche.

Protection of the Adirondacks began around 1900 after loggers decimated the forests and left enough unneeded timber that fires were a constant danger. In 1901, while hiking near Mount Marcy, Theodore Roosevelt, who was vice president at the time, had to cut his trip short because President William McKinley had been assassinated. Stories abound in the region of the various relatives who supposedly reached Roosevelt with the news he had become the next president.

''They did have to recover him,'' said Woodworth. ''It's a very interesting part of our history.''

Fish may have put his uniform away, but he has not left the woods. He continues to educate hikers about the High Peaks and can be found pruning in the woods, cutting back branches that obstruct a hiker's way.

''I feel I have to earn that retirement check once a month,'' he said.