Little Panther

little panther

Baker Mt, 6am

Azure Mountain Stevesie Pose

Part 2

The first mountain I climbed was on Sunday afternoon, July 23rd. The following Friday was a sad, sad day.

Casey, in his brilliance, planned a hike. To see the sunrise from Baker (.8). In his stupidity, he woke me up at 430am. I was not pleased. I believe I threatened a number of bodily injuries, and finally settled on throwing him off the summit.

He promised me coffee. There was no coffee to be found.

So the ascent was uneventful, we played rummy at the top, couldn't even see the sunrise because it was cloudy, and started down. We were feeling pretty good about ourselves, until we passed an older guy running up. running. up. AND he could manage to say good morning. crazy.

After that I went to work, and Casey drove home. End of Hike.

HIKE #3

This past Saturday Casey and I decided to hike Azure Mountain (1.0). I wasn't too excited because I hate to exercise, but Saturday turned out so beautiful I just couldn't sit at the camp doing nothing all day. We drove out to the mountain and started the hike, got passed by a family with little children, and made it to the top in an hour. We had some pineapple chunks, some pizza goldfish, and played rummy. On the way down we saw a snake. I am terrified of snakes. Here's Casey walking towards it like "hey there's something in its mouth! I wonder what it is?" and I'm like 20 ft away shaking uncontrollably and telling him to get moving. Not fun. So we keep going and Casey points out a spot that he almost fell at on the way up. No sooner does he say this than he biffs it. Hard. Mud everywhere. I freak out because I hate thinking someone is hurt. But we keep going and get to the car and we hear really louding thumping noises. It turned out to be a squirrel chucking pinecones out of a tree.


That was the end of the hike, I apologize for the lack of entertainment, but when I tried to throw casey over the side he protested. But at least there will always be a record of my displeasure at having to exercise in the log book at the Azure Mt Firetower.

Hiking (is) for Dummies

So I've done it. Finally. After living in the Adirondacks for about 2 1/2 years altogether, I have finally gone hiking. And I have to admit, it imparts a feeling of accomplishment in me. But it also seems pretty pointless. Here's the lowdown:

Casey decided that it would be entertaining if he dragged my lazy ass up a mountain. I found it rude that he felt I should exercise by huffing and puffing my way up a giant pile of rocks and trees and dirt to look at even more piles of said material. But I agreed nonetheless. We decided our first adventure would be Little Panther, a .6 miler down the road from where I'm spending the summer. It took us a good chunk of time to get there because my "shortcut" happened to extend in the opposite direction. Oops. So anyway, we get to the trailhead and put our shoes on and get all ready to attack this thing. We get about 3 feet into the woods and the trail decides it's going to shoot practically straight up. I immediately begin wheezing, and so begins our ascent. We come to the conclusion about a third of the way up that we're not cut out for this whole "hiking" thing. Especially when we pass a couple descending. The woman is pregnant. Not just "look at me I have a little bump you cam barely tell I'm nurturing a life inside me" pregnant. I'm talking full-blown, out-to-there, "I'm 3 weeks late and boy can you tell" pregnant. She smiles at us and says "excuse me". I want to kill her.

For the sake of the unborn child I let her pass and Casey and I keep going. I'm afraid to admit how tired I am until he stops, turns around and says "well that made me feel inadequate, how bout you?" I am relieved.

So we get nearly to the summit and I'm starting to feel good about myself when we hit the clearing and what's the first thing we see? An elderly man WITH A CANE! being helped over to a boulder by an elderly woman. Talk about a kick in the teeth.

That was our first hiking experience. I'll recap the following 2 with the next post. Cheers.

Welcome Welcome Welcome

Welcome to my blog; the new and improved story of my life thus far....written by yours truly. Honestly, who better to record and recount my most embarrassing- but mostly funny- antics...but me? So shall we start from the beginning? I could make it sound like a real story I'm sure...

Once upon a time, there was me. And by "me" I don't just mean some average, normal, run-of-the-mill type girl. I mean a loud, obnoxious, funny, and overall amazing individual. Did I mention modesty is not one of my strong points? Anyway, let's skip the whole "I was born...I spoke, I walked" crap and get to the good part. I went to high school in a normal town, if by normal meaning boring, crumbling and altogether not much fun. But I went to high school, and obviously survived it, to come to the north country to become....what was it...oh right... a "hotel manager."

Apparently in the real world no one actually wastes their time in college to become the manager of a group of people who will probably not respect you anyway...but try telling that to Paul Smith's finest. But anyway, I came to the Adirondacks with a sense of pride in making it to college. And what did I find up here? Trees. And Rocks. And mountains, ponds, lots of water actually, lakes, mud...and snow. My God was there snow. Normal people don't expect 6 inches of snow in October. Up here its a disappointment to have to wait that long. I remember seeing it snow on September 29th freshman year. I was thrilled. Then the cold set in. Come Spring semester, half my class had just not returned. As big of a surprise as that was, I began to understand as temperatures hovered around -20. That's NEGATIVE 20. As in "can't blink outside for fear of my eyelids sticking together and having me flail around aimlessly bumping into random objects until they defrost" -20. But eventually the snow departed and we were left with an Adirondack spring..aka mud season. Mud up to your ankles I tell ya! But that doesn't last very long anyway, so summer eventually made its way to the North Country. Summer up here can range from 30 degree mornings to 100 degree afternoons and right back down again. It can be gorgeous out one minute and freezing rain the next. I drive a Jeep and here it is August and I still have yet to take the top off for fear of drowning on my way to town. Crazy.

But back to that first summer. I spent it at the Hotel Saranac, learning in typical Paul Smith's haphazard fashion that managing a hotel is a lot easier than they make it out to be. Imagine your learning environment being a fixer-upper and having most students be able to run it better than the current GM. Welcome to Hotel Saranac. It's almost like Hotel California...but we don't have a pool. Anyway, I also happened to spend that summer in the hotel dorms. Drinking every night a stones throw from our place of employment...staying up all night and sneaking in the back door of the kitchen at 5am to beg the chef for breakfast. My, those were the good ol' days.

The following year went by too fast, and ended with me hightailing it out of Paul Smith's. I spent the summer at a camp, cooking 3 meals a day for up to 40 people at a time. Surprisingly fun and not as stressful as you might think.

From there I went to Williamsburg VA to do an externship at Kingsmill Resort. I dragged along a "friend" we'll call "Stikki" and moved into a house down there. To make a long story a little shorter she ditched me and my boyfriend Aaron about 3 months later. Still have no word from her.

A few months later, I, being my normal graceful self, tore my ACL for the 3rd time in 3 years. Wonderful.

I then moved home and then migrated back north to the camp for my second consecutive summer. And here I sit. Anyone have any ideas for where I should continue my adventure? I'm getting sick of this mountain-rock-dirt-tree-lake combination.