Hiking in the Adirondacks

I had this whole thing planned out the second you told us to go somewhere new. I was planning on going up to a little milkshake place in Jamestown. I had heard it was a great place to make memories, so I was going to bring some friends. However, they were available for a little while and the day we got free to head up there, it was closed. After that, everything had shut down and I was quarantined in my house. So, in light of the situation, I’ve decided to write about my trip to the Adirondacks.

            I was 13, and it was the summer going into 8^th grade. I didn’t have any plans for the summer, so my dad decided to surprise my brother and I and take us on a two-week trip. It was a cloudy day, but still fairly hot, and my mom brought Ryan and I to the local McDonalds so we could meet my dad. I remember being iffy about the whole trip. I just wanted to relax at home until school started again, plus, I’d never been a big fan of hiking.

            It’s around an 8-hour trip and for most of it, I watched every single Harry Potter movie back-to-back. We got into Lake Placid late afternoon and we could see the sun setting, the light illuminated the mountains and honestly it must be one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. My dad pulled off the road into a small field and my brother and I jumped out of the van, taking pictures on our phones and just gaping at the view. I remember the first thing that hit me was how good it smelled. It’s like when you can smell Spring for the first time after Winter. It was amazing, there was a light breeze as the sky got darker and the air was crisp.

We stayed at a motel by the lake and they rented out peddle-boats. Ryan and I took the first chance we had to go out on the water and harass the ducks. We hopped in and went out as far as we could, he then proceeded to try and push me out of the boat but that’s besides the point. We ran over a sunken log and were convinced we broke the boat, so we raced back to shore and watched the sun finish setting. The motel had small cups of ice that we had to get at the front counter, but we had food and drinks that needed to be refrigerated. I remember my dad sending all of us one at a time every couple hours to get more ice, so they wouldn’t question why one person needed so much ice.

            The next morning, we woke up and went over to the base of the mountains. We were going to hike up Algonquin Peak. As the second highest mountain in New York, it stands at 5114’. We made it about halfway before I started complaining about hiking and sat down for a break. My brother, being way more inclined to be outdoors, went on ahead, with his backpack full of all our snacks and water. My dad waited back for me until I decided to get it over with.

            We started hiking again but didn’t see Ryan anywhere. At this point we were both tired, hot, and thirsty, and Ryan had effectively kidnapped all our supplies. Ironically, as my father got more irritated abut the lack of water, I enjoyed the hike more and started scaling rocks and trees if I got too far ahead of my dad. Eventually we made it to the peak and enjoyed the view for a little before asking round if anyone had seen my brother on the way. Everyone said no, they hadn’t seen him, so we started the decent.

            As we got closer to the bottom, we found a really cool waterfall and I drank out of it since I was pretty effectively desperate at that point. We reached the bottom and got back to the van, and we found Ryan drinking water by the back. He felt bad about getting separated from us, but it had turned out he had taken a wrong turn and climbed an entirely different peak than us. Although it wasn’t the perfect summer trip, I like looking back on it for the most part. I’m still not a big hiker but at least now I know if I do go hiking again, I should carry my own water.