Frankie has been wanting to climb Mount Marcy since he was tiny, but was always somewhat discouraged by the length of the approach. Then in 2018, he picked up an activity book at a National Trust Property in Northern Ireland that inspired him in terms of timing for his goal. See, the booklet was focused on fun things for kids to do outside, and included a checklist of things to do before you are 11 and 3/4 years old, really great things like dam a stream, go camping, catch a falling leaf, roll down a big hill, play Pooh Sticks, go swimming in the sea, forage for wild food -- and "climb a huge hill." Frankie has always loved activity books and he was taking this one very seriously, marking off things he'd already done and working on some of the new ideas. We climbed some pretty big hills on that trip (Slieve Binnian is the third tallest peak in Northern Ireland and Slieve Bearnagh the fourth). However, Frankie refused to count them, as he had already decided: Marcy would be the huge hill that he would climb before he was 11 and 3/4. He was only 7 then, and 11 and 3/4 seemed a long way off. But he never forgot. Last summer he talked about it a lot, how we had to make sure to get up Marcy soon because his "deadline" was approaching.
Since he enjoyed his previous stay at Johns Brook Lodge (JBL) so much, I booked a stay there for the Marcy hike. And although Erwin had not come with us when we hiked Saddleback, he had always wanted to climb Marcy, too, so he was onboard for this adventure. We drove up to Keene Valley on our chosen Wednesday. Luck was on our side and we secured one of the last spots in the tiny Garden lot; always a bit nerve-wracking, especially when the shuttle isn't running. The attendant happened to be there and he said it was unusually crowded for a Wednesday, but that's part of the gamble -- you never know what awaits. We set out along the familiar trail between the Garden and JBL, a route we've all taken multiple times on previous adventures.
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| the purple track is the route from the Garden to JBL |
Thursday morning dawned fair, although storms were predicted for the afternoon. We pretty much knew we'd get rained on at some point, but headed up with hopes we could summit before any thunderstorms moved in. The grades are easy for the first 1.5 miles of the Phelps Trail, with the trail following Johns Brook.
When we got to the intersection pictured above, we turned right onto the Hopkins Trail. This joins with the Van Hoevenberg Trail on a plateau somewhere around 4,400 feet -- a shoulder of Marcy. We planned to ascend this way, then descend on the Phelps Trail, making a loop that would return us to this same spot near the end of our hike. Loops are always appealing because of the variety.
Some mellow climbing, some steep climbing, up we went. Eventually we started getting glimpses of Marcy through various openings. The cloud cover was building, but there was still plenty of blue -- at times.
This is a particularly exciting part of the hike: the summit is so close! Not quite there yet, but close. And there are views from here on out...
I confess I was dragging a bit here. Nothing serious, but of course I hadn't slept well, and we'd been busting to try to beat the storm -- not paying adequate attention to hydration and nutrition. I was a bit sluggish and my feet felt like bricks. I've done this before and knew I'd be fine as soon as I gave my body some fuel, but I didn't want to make the eager kid take a snack break with the summit in sight. Frankie was fine, of course, and kind enough to wait for his slow old mom.
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| waiting for me |
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| summit plaque |
And then we were there, on top New York State, the 5th state highpoint we visited this summer (and the best!) Cloud cover was very low at this point, so the views weren't as wide open as they could have been. But any day on Marcy is a good day. And it was fairly quiet, just two other parties and the summit steward when we arrived.
The high winds and ominous skies soon drove the other parties off the summit. Then the summit steward approached and told us she'd had been informed that a high intensity storm cell was moving directly toward Marcy. She'd been instructed to get below treeline by 1 pm and wanted to make sure we had the same warning -- then she left. And we had the summit entirely to ourselves. What an incredible experience! Completely unexpected.
Erwin was getting very anxious about the weather situation and eager to descend. Frankie had been open to moving on because he was hoping to add Haystack onto the hike, but once we explained that we couldn't do that in a storm, he was in no hurry -- and neither was I. As long as we got below treeline by 1 pm, we'd be fine and we had plenty of time before then. Frankie and I kept finding more pictures we wanted to take.
Finally, we agreed to start our retreat. We had to pause repeatedly to shed layers, even before treeline, as the massif of the summit cone blocked much of the wind one we lost a little elevation.
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| looking back up to the summit |
We got safely down into the trees well before 1 pm, chatted again with the summit steward who was waiting in the shelter of the forest, then began the long descent down the Phelps Trail. It did rain, as expected, so there were no photos for several miles. The wet trail slowed us down a bit but we were in no hurry, with plenty of time to get back to JBL before dinner would be served.
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| obligatory Slant Rock photo |
Erwin went on ahead and ran part of the way back, beating Frankie and I by an hour or so. No matter: we made it back in time to wash up in Johns Brook and change into fresh dry clothes before dinner, and that's all that matters. ADK stats for this loop are 11 miles with 3,121 feet elevation gain. I was really happy with our route selection. The Hopkins Trail apparently sees little use and had a more remote feel; we saw no other hikers on the entire 2.8 miles of the Hopkins Trail.
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| the yellow track shows our route up Marcy |
After dinner we retreated to our bunkroom to relax. Frankie got a little punchy, taking photos on his little camera and playing with weird effects, laughing himself silly. He also read two complete books from the JBL community shelves during our stay, plus part of the one from home I'd hauled in for him.
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| silly camera fun in the bunk after dinner |
Friday morning after breakfast, we hiked back out to the Garden via the same route we'd taken in. Much easier on the way back out, since it's almost all downhill. We had two mandatory stops before driving home: the Mountaineer, for a new patch for Frankie's collection, and Stewart's, for milkshakes and various junk food. Another fantastic adventure in the books, and Frankie finally climbed his huge hill. Good job, kid!
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| Friday stop at the Mountaineer for a new patch |
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