Illustration by Mark Wilson
My relationship with the Great Range Traverse has from the beginning been characterized by suffering. Not just any type of suffering, but a unique brand of Adirondack mind-body-soul suffering that hints at depths, mysteries, possibilities. Twenty-five miles long, nine peaks, damn near 18,000 feet of up and down, up and down, up and down—the GRT isn’t just some hike. The trail is black mud, balance-beam logs, ladders, ledges, loose footing, exposed slabs and more than the occasional awkward scrambling maneuver. It’s a summer’s worth of hiking packed into a single hike, a summer’s worth of knee pain and lung burn condensed into a single drawn-out wince.
I first heard of the GRT from a Backpacker magazine article that ranked it the third-hardest day hike in the country, referring to the chain of mountains whose heights it traces as a “murderers’ row.” My friends and I were eager 16-year-olds at the time, all for being murdered. But 25 miles in a day? We drove to the Rooster Comb trailhead, in Keene Valley, planning to tick off the first eight peaks on Saturday, camp at Panther Gorge that night, and climb 5,344-foot Marcy—the last murderer in the lineup—on Sunday morning before hiking out.
Rooster Comb, Lower Wolfjaw, Upper Wolfjaw, Armstrong, Gothics, Saddleback, Basin, Haystack—read these not as ink marks on the page but as waves rising one after another, each cresting higher than the last. By the time we reached Panther Gorge at sundown we were dead on our blistered, aching, mashed-up feet. Murdered indeed. We laid a tarp on the ground and passed out, only to be rousted by the dawn after what seemed like 15 minutes.
I remember nothing of the climb up Marcy that morning, nor do I remember how we managed to miss the turnoff for the so-called easy part of the GRT, the nine-mile, mostly rolling trail that would have led us through the Johns Brook Valley and back to the parking lot’s blessedly flat ground. What I do remember is feeling so desperate to get off the ridge that, come afternoon, we decided to attempt a shortcut down the other side of the range. Sweat-soaked, half-dumb with fatigue, crumpling inward on ourselves, we incorrectly figured that nothing could be worse than more of the same.
You’re probably familiar with bushwhacking, but lakewhacking? Yeah, neither were we. And then, just like that, our packs were balanced atop our heads, the dark waters of Lower Ausable Lake creeping up around our necks as the mucky floor sank away. One friend fell and cut his shin against a rock. Blood went everywhere. Having no first-aid kit, we did our best to bandage the wound with a wool sock before continuing on.
And on. And on and on. Miles lengthened. Time slowed. It felt as though I were passing through some invisible barrier, breaking into an altered world. Derangement: “a state of mental disturbance and disorientation.” The trees and stones looked the same but different; the sock became a red thing—crusty, dusty, not a sock at all. That evening, when we reached the car, the range behind us wasn’t the range we’d climbed into the day before, and we were something else too, though what exactly is hard to say.
Which leads me to my most recent GRT outing, an all-at-once-head-down-knock-it-off-in-a-single-day experiment. The idea was simple: If the GRT is going to whup your butt and twist your mind, why not embrace the suffering as a means of achieving some unique perspective on the natural world? Why not become a doe sprinting through the underbrush, branches snapping, cobbles rolling under hoof, a mountain lion hot on your tail? What would the Great Range look like through that doe’s blurry, bloodshot eyes?
We started hiking a little after sunup on one of those July days that’s so long it practically begins in the middle of the night—a stump-tough pal who’d proved his stump-toughness on the original bloody sock adventure, another friend who is best described as stoical and goatish, and me. The pink sky was brightening toward blue, the birds singing so loud it almost hurt. When we made a wrong turn, adding an extra mile to the hike, our response was laughter, ebullience. What’s another mile when you’ve still got two dozen to go?
A brisk trot across the Wolfjaws. A view from Armstrong of things to come: big wild slopes, gleaming off-white slide paths, countless secret nooks where a hermit-sage might set up shop, sip tea and meditate for decades on raw earthly grandeur. We rushed without being in a rush, stopping now and then for a salamander or dewy spider web. Then, as anticipated, the pep in our legs dissolved away, taking with it our delight in details. If the spider webs were still there, we charged through them unknowingly. Mouths open. Sucking air and gossamer.
When we reached the summit of bald, beefy Haystack, 13-some-odd miles in, all three of us were well into the déjà vu of peak after peak after peak. A quick glance into the depths of Panther Gorge made the decision easy: it was time for lunch. Salami, chocolate bars, hummus sandwiches, cookies, sliced turkey, fruit, brownies, cheddar cheese, mixed nuts—the meal was another mountain to climb. Thirty minutes later, doubly spent, I tried to stand. Nope.
With considerable effort I was able to get on my feet and I was able to pick my way down the ratty, eroded, dizzyingly steep trail and I was able to drag myself back up the other side of the gorge to the top of Marcy, roof of New York. That final climb pained me badly, but not in the way I’d hoped. Where was my weirdo-vision, my special view of nature, my hard-earned brokenness and transcendent communion? The thought crossed my mind that maybe I was stronger than I’d been in the past, that maybe I needed to push a little more forcefully these days to break through that invisible wall. And then the more obvious thought came to me: You, sir, are a fool. Invisible wall? I’d gotten carried away. A long hike is just a long hike. Load it with all the fancy ecophilosophical thoughts you like, the GRT remains the GRT.
We took catnaps on Marcy’s summit, cloud shadows moving across us like cooling blankets. No dreams. No revelations. As we descended into the Johns Brook Valley, a light shower fell across rays of sun, and for a moment I felt wholly renewed and happy, grateful for a sweet day in the hills, deranged or not. The shower passed but the gratitude stuck with me as we meandered in a daze through the late afternoon hours and the rain-freshened forest. The brook was in my ears, the drumming rhythm of my steps centered in my mind. We spread out along the trail, each man receding into his own private and not entirely unpleasant inner world, with me, the weakest of the three, in the back.
Then farther back. Then even farther back. Then far enough back as to be totally alone in the graying, dimming dusk. We’d been on the move for 15 hours and darkness was on its way. I still felt fine, though, didn’t I? Yes, I said to myself, you still feel fine. But with less than a mile left it became officially undeniable: I didn’t feel fine. I didn’t feel even remotely close to fine. The rolling easy exit, as I should have known, was doing me in.
Hunched over with a knotted gut, my hands on my hips, I staggered a zigzag, that awful metallic pre-heave tang on the back of my tongue. It was like all the earth I’d touched since dawn—the rotten logs and stale puddles, the ferns and pine needles, the buggy dirt and upthrust chunks of rock, the mountains—like it all had been sucked through my feet and legs and was now mixing in my belly alongside that smorgasbord lunch.
Was it really happening? Was I about to be thrown headfirst through the invisible wall—the wall that I once again wholeheartedly believed to exist—by my churning stomach?
I was no more than three-tenths of a mile from the parking lot when at last I couldn’t take it anymore and lowered myself to the ground.
Whether it was derangement or not is hard to say. Just know that it happened, that I lay there for a long while, murdered once again by the Great Range and its famous traverse. And this too: That on the interminably long drive home, between spells of contorted unconsciousness, we pulled over three times so I could stumble out into the roadside weeds to let the GRT roar through me.
If You Go
A Great Range Traverse typically starts at the Rooster Comb trailhead (about a half-mile south of Keene Valley on Route 73) and ends at the Garden (1.6 miles west of Keene Valley on Adirondack Road). You’re welcome to reverse the hike, but be warned: starting at the Garden means facing the bulk of the hard climbing/descending during the second half of the day, when your legs are already beat.
Note that this isn’t a proper loop but really more of a horseshoe. I recommend dropping your car at the Garden in the morning (it costs $7 between late April and the end of October), then arranging a shuttle or riding a bicycle the approximately two miles back to the Rooster Comb trailhead. Believe me: It’s nice to have that car waiting for you when all is said and done.
Water can be hard to find on the crest of the Great Range, so bring plenty. And be prepared for severe weather, as much of the route lies above tree line. F
inally, do yourself a favor and consider breaking the GRT into a multi-day backpacking trip. Or better yet, use the Johns Brook Lodge (518-523-3441, www.adk.org), 3.5 miles in from the Garden, as a base camp from which to launch day hikes. The mountains aren’t going anywhere. What’s the hurry?
