Monday: Woke and loaded everything into the car. The group was quite odd. Myself, my mother (…), her 50 year old friend, her other friend with her husband and 20 year old daughter, their 71 year old friend and a priest (…….)The actual “road trip” part of the journey is often my favorite. I greatly enjoy just listening to full albums, one after the other, on my iPod. We arrived at the ADK campground on Heart Lake around 2:30 and set up camp. We made dinner (Soy dogs! And then the father and I had one of the many arguments of vegetarianism.) After we settled 6 of us decided to hike Mt. Jo and assembled our hiking packs. I love hiking this mountain, it is short but challenging. Regardless of the instructions that are yearly stapled into my mind of how to tie Hiking Boots, I, yet again, did so incorrectly; which then lead to blisters. Oddly enough there is a good deal of cell service on top of the mountain (there is not any in the park) so I called my dad to tell him where we were. After about an hour on the summit we decended off of the mountain. We took the long trail back because it is less rigourous of a decent, though the first of the other group’s mistakes occured here; they took a wrong trail and after falling into a few muddy patches (IT’S A QUAGMIRE) they decided to listen to me and turn back onto the marked trail. During this part of the hike I could feel my flesh on my heels tearing off. When we returned, tired from our hike we all climbed into bed.
Tuesday: Everyone except for myself woke early (7?) to have mass (….) I slept. I got out of the tent after they finished their…. worship. We all had a quick breakfast together before the hiking day commenced. I made the exectutive decision to not climb Algonquin Peak due to the condition of my blisters. My mom, classic to her copying me, stayed behind as well. The others left at 8 to start their hike, we stayed at the site until around 9:30, then left deciding to hike through to Marcy Dam. Though the hike both mine and my mother’s blisters were irritated. She wrapped her’s wrong which created more friction. Not believing me, we called my dad again (again, amazing cell service timing). He confirmed that my way of medical care was correct. We immediately re-wrapped our heels and continued on the way to the Dam. Upon arriving there we hiked in to the interior outpost to see the cabin, ate some trail mix and took a few pictures of the Dam scenery. We recieved a text from one of our fellow travelers, telling us they were going to hike up Iroquois Peak as well. After we decided to discard our boots and walk the truck trail in our flip-flops. We returned back at the camp, completing our 7 mile hike near 1:30. It was then my naptime. Waking around 3 we went to the lake to kayak, which was not satisfying, as the lake is tiny. I stayed down by the beach for awhile. Some strange lady started to talk to me about her husbands head wound, because she heard my mom and I talking and found that I was a lifeguard and trained in first aid. I went back to the site around 4 to find that the rest of the group was not back yet. After 2 hours of reading they still were not. My mom started to freak and went to tell the people at the Loj that she had friends who were missing. The woman there decided that it was too early to call the DEC and to wait another few hours. By 7 mom had freaked out even more and was driving around the site and close locations for cell service and trying to spot them. At 9 we went to the Loj again informing the woman our group was still missing. She thought this strange; we informed her that we were going to call some people who may know better what to make of the situation. We drove 15 miles out of the campgound to obtain the best cell sevice that was not ontop of a mountain. We called my dad again*, he said that truthfully they should not be back right now. The hike they took was long and difficult especially with older and inexperienced people. Informing him that it was dark and they had no flashlights and little food or water he told us to call Phil Johnstone (a dear friend of ours and the previous Head Ranger and Manager of that area). Phil gave us the number for dispach and said we should call right away. My mother being herself, waited 10 minutes and then called. It seems that someone had called already and a ranger had been sent out. About an hour later they arrived back at the campsite frightened and crying.
Wednesday: We went to breakfast in the morning, it was awful. Throughout the day all that the others talked about were the events of the night before. They wanted to relax all day. However, we did go down to the lake to swim a bit, but not for very long; it started to rain. When we came back to the site we helped set up tarps over the picnic table and some surrounding area so it would be dry. It poured all night long. Alllll night long.
Thursday: We woke up in the morning to a very damp campsite and preceded to pack up. All of the tents were horribly damp, it was awful. When we were all packed we loaded in seperate cars and drove home.
After this trip I have come to the realization that I DO NOT like camping with ineperienced campers. Also, follow the rules of hiking.
*The reason for calling my dad so often is that he had previously been the ranger for the Interior Outpost at Marcy Dam.
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