I wanted to write up a quick post to give some credit to Hadley Mountain. Don't get your hopes up. I said quick post, not short post. I'm incapable of writing any short. Hadley is not a big mountain. Heck, it's barely even part of the Southern Adirondacks. It takes a mere 30 minutes to get there from our Clifton Park home. For Katie and I, though, this represented our first 'real hike'. Most of our hikes to that point were short and flat. Hadley is a fairly short hike, only 2 miles to the summit and 2 miles back. In that short span, though, one must ascend around 1600 feet. The grade is very steep at times and on solid bedrock. Other times you must climb rocks 1-3 feet tall like a giant rock staircase with very tall steps. So here's our story.
Katie and I had a quick breakfast and headed for the town of Hadley. Hadley Mountain was out a winding dirt backroad that seemed to go on and on. When we arrived, several other vehicles were parked in the parking area. We hit the register and began our climb. It was immediately very steep. We were walking a very brisk pace at the beginning. The first 10-15 minutes I assumed that it would level out a little, maybe wind around the mountain a bit so the ascent would be a bit easier. Not only did it not level out, it intensified.
Our early pace quickly slowed and I found myself needing to stop to breathe several times, leaning up against large boulders on the side of the path, or sitting right on them. Katie didn't want to rest at all because, as she explained, it would make her want to stay resting. Most of the early part of this hike is on solid bedrock, not grass or dirt. Some parts of the rock have water flowing down them and can be slippery if one is not careful. This was no deterrent as we trekked onward.
After what seemed like hours but was probably only 20 minutes, we both needed to stop for a break. We found a nice spot with two large boulders for sitting, where another small group was already taking a break. An older gentleman and what must have been his two young grandkids. The kids were walking around and climbing on things as the old man rested. I silently wished that I was still the age where my 'break' consisted of walking around with seemingly endless energy. The young boy informed us that we were about halfway up(this was untrue, it was probably closer to 1/3 of the way).
We started up again before this group and so got a head start towards the top. Eventually the trail leveled out for a short distance and I was certain that we were at the top, or near it, but this was a very bad guess, this was probably between halfway and 2/3rds of the way up. The grade quickly intensified again and became possibly more grueling than the lower half. While I remained ahead of Katie, I would often sit down for a minute to rest while she caught up to me. At one point, my heart was beating so hard I was sure that I was either about to have a heart attack or that my lungs were going to collapse. Neither happened. We continued upward.
Long before we reached the summit, my legs long since turned to Jell-O, I declared that I had lost the will to live. This turned out to be an exaggeration. We finally reached the summit(a good 10 minutes ahead of 2 spry children that always seemed to be gaining on us and their breathless grandfather) and sat down for an extended rest. I gobbled down M&Ms and we completely depleted our water in no time. It was very hot(90 degrees-ish), not nearly windy enough at the summit, and the fire tower was closed above the third level. We snapped a bunch of pictures and took in the views, then got some backup water from the same very kind grandfather, and headed back down.
I assumed the descent would be a breeze compared to the ascent, but I hadn't really considered how bad my thighs and calves were destroyed. With Jell-O legs, it's hard to walk down stairs. Imagine that those stairs are 2 foot tall rock steps and a 45 degree grade and it gets much worse. While we made it down the hill considerably faster than up, it was still a battle. I was immediately jealous of all the seemingly very casual not-sweaty hikers I saw descending the hill as we climbed. How could they all be so nonchalant? So full of breath? I complained my way all the way to the parking lot and was grateful to be sitting all the way home.
This short 4 mile hike changed my perspective of hiking. To that point, we hadn't really climbed anything, just walked around in the woods. Now we were freaking mountaineers! Hadley Mountain inspired me to take on bigger and more difficult challenges. I'm in better shape now and I imagine that Hadley would be much easier on me a second time around, but I've got bigger and badder mountains in my sights. Thanks to Hadley, I feel invincible.
We will test that theory tomorrow on a MUCH bigger(almost twice as tall) and much more difficult hike(more than twice as long over difficult terrain). I'm sure I'll spend the day complaining my way up and down the mountain, maybe or probably even regretting my decision to conquer something so difficult so early in our hiking career. But the reason I want to go so big so fast is that I know that if we can do Big Slide, we can do any of the High Peaks. The confidence I gained from Hadley encouraged me to go big, and the confidence I'll get from Big Slide will set the bar very high indeed. Who knows what's next.... Everest maybe?
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