Haystack

August 13, 2022

I met my friends Dave and Dominique down at Keene Farm on Friday evening. Dave and I go back a long way... done tons of biking, music making, and drinking together, but never much hiking. Dave also had never done a high peak, but requested a big one. Dominique has done quite a few and was also game for a long hike. I threw out a few options and in the end we consensed that Haystack would be the goal.

I suggested that we get going at 05:00 due to parking concerns, but was told that that time would be a non-starter. Dave volunteered to be the car runner if we could not park at the Loj, so we decided to sleep in a bit, arriving at 06:00 to a small line-up of cars at the pay station. We managed to get one of the last spots in the lot, the gate attendent starting to turn people away just after we squeezed through. This was good news, no car running for Dave this morning... we had enough miles to hike as it was.

I initially set the pace down the Van-Ho, moving quickly (I thought) as the trail here is fairly easy. At some point Dave took over and I struggled to catch keep up. I then suggested that maybe Dominique should set the pace and she took off like a bat out of hell too... ok, teach me to go hiking with trail runners! Anyway, we moved fast, passing lots of people on their way to Marcy or elsewhere. One thing I noticed was the diversity of people on the trail. Maybe the attempts by the outdoor industry to recruit folks from different cultures and backgrounds is actually working and this was a pleasant thing to see. The diversity did not restrict itself to skin colour either! We met a woman dressed in a business-casual mini-skirt toting a giant designer handbag instead of a backpack, and later we met a fellow with an ironing board strapped to his backpack. Presumably he was heading to the summit of Marcy to offer services to the business-casual mountaineering crowd.

Fog over Colden

After climbing over Marcy's shoulder, we left the crowds and descended down towards our goal. We lost quite a bit of elevation here on a very rough trail, which slowed the two jack-rabbits down to my pace. This trail in fact descended so far that I began to worry that we had somehow missed a turn-off and I finally pulled out the map to check what was going on. A quick study showed that we should reach the trail junction at any second from our current position. I put the map away, walked another 10 meters and sure enough there we were, at the expected junction. Another short segment of trail followed and we arrived at the bottom of Haystack.

Beautiful Haystack

Haystack is effin metal

The climb up Haystack is one of my favorites. D&D enjoyed it thouroughly too. After four and a half hours of hiking we arrived on top, took a few photos and then attempted to hunker down for lunch in a spot sheltered from the cold wind. Lunch was short as it was quite cold and blustery up here, but at least the views were phenomenal.

These two are haveing too much fun on the ridge

Horns on the summit

Lunch with a view

The descent went at a more relaxed pace, though this is relative as we still continued hammering. The climb up Marcy's shoulder again was brutal. Finally we crested this, and began the drop down the main route as a drone buzzed overhead making an incredible racket. This went on for quite a long time and it got to the point that we were hoping it would come close enough that we could remove it from the electronic gene pool with perhaps an accidentaly flailed hiking pole. Fortunately for its owner, the annoying device left the scene shortly after these thoughts crossed our minds. We began to slow down further as the endless rock pounding of this trail began to get to our joints. Handbag woman came up behind us and sailed on by, as we were now too slow for her, teaching us to never judge people by their hiking attire! A brief nap was taken at Indian Falls and then the final slog out to the parking lot had us back at the car at just over ten hours. Good food and lots of beer (ok, maybe a bit too much) was consumed back at the farm and we crawled into our sleeping bags after some enjoyable conversation with a few others around the fire.

Heading home

Nap at Indian Falls

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