Apollo 15: Damn the flies!
Hiking the Seven Ranges, or Solstice trail, during the height of black fly season... Never Again! A lot more here it was quite the adventure.
What’s That Blue Thing?
On the last few urbex camping trips, we kept noticing something on the side of route 3 that looked huge, abandoned, and very, very blue. After a bit of research, I figured out that it was Benson's Mines, and no one had really bothered to explore it yet, since it's in the absolute middle of North Country nowhere, and no one from the 'establishment' thought it was worth the trip at all. And they were so, so wrong. I left this place with a very profound feeling of 'coming out' as an explorer: this was my first find worth anything…
Beatlemania
Just some non-exploring shots from the Adirondack campout. How not to light paint Cascade Peak Brian, the tetherboat and a bit of fire! You may be wondering by now about the title. Strange things happen when you get enough explorers in a small enough space, and keep them awake all night. At some point we began communicating only in Beatles lyrics, and then only in oblique rewordings of them. I forget if this was before or after taking out a boat on a 100 foot rope, propelled only by a frying pan and a jet of expletives. I'd suggest all…
The Lonesome Crowded West
Frontier Town was one of the first theme parks ever to open in the United States, in 1952, capitalizing on the old west folklore that was then so popular with American children. (There were amusement parks since the turn of the last century, but not themed to one particular canon.) It finally closed long after Westerns fell out of fashion, in 1998, and most of its contents were auctioned off in 2004. This was a particularly strange exploration for me, having been there and vaguely remembering it from a day there in 1996 (I didn't like it much at the…
Apollo 14
Climbing mountains is such a strange affliction. Almost everyone who has tried it enough times, knows that it usually ends in freezing, exhausted misery... then counts the days until they can try again! This trip started innocently enough, warm, sunny and perfect midnight hiking conditions Every mountain has its vengeful side, this one had four! This is no ordinary snow. Under the brittle white crust is a few feet of air space, then a frigid creek. The pouring rain only made the creek run higher and the snow lower. We were just too frozen to take any pictures of the…
Apollo 12
I said I was looking for adventure -- it didn't take me long to find it! I climbed Mt Marcy (5348', highest point in New York State) last weekend with my scout troop. Lesson learned: mountains are big! It was an epic experience, even if it's an experience that a certain someone doesn't believe I could ever do, despite the photo evidence! I should have known from the start that this was a bad sign, that not many people go this way. The beginning of the hike was flat and easy enough, about 5 miles to Calamity Pond, where we…