Wright

April 7, 2023

Phong, Will, and I drove down to the ADK early morning good Friday. Our intention was to meet Chieko and Arbin for some ice climbing in the Chapel pond area, but unfortunately they were delayed at the border. Our brilliant planning had all four ropes loaded into their car, so we arrived ready to climb some technical ice but lacking a key piece of safety gear. None of us felt like soloing today, so we decided to go for a hike instead.

We pulled into the ADK Loj and dumped out our packs of ice gear and repacked for a hike. The trail from the parking lot was a skating rink over frozen mud, so we spiked along this, and remained in microspikes or crampons over hard bullet proof snow all the way up to 900 meters where the trail became steeper. Here we switched to snowshoes for better traction. A break just before the ice step had us meet our first people of the day. In fact it got really busy while we were stopped including one person who took an impromptu slide down the step, but given there was much more laughter than screaming, we assumed that she was alright. Packing up, we climbed the step easily with our ice axes while a small crowd of onlookers clinging to the bushes on the sides cheered us on. A short bit further up the mountain brought us to the tree line.

Phong, the forest mountaineer

If only we had a rope... or maybe not!

The rock was bare so we ditched the snowshoes and booted it up the slabs while being buffetted by some stiff gusts of wind. At least it was warm, and the views of the Algonquin ridge were fantastic. A quick tag of the summit and then we were heading back down. We tried briefly to find the airplane memorial, but after not locating it immediately nor remembering exactly where it is situated we just returned to the trail rather than trampling around the alpine vegetation looking for it in the wind.

Bare rock above tree line

Algonquin in all her glory

Summit of Wright on a beautiful, but windy day

We had lunch at the junction of the Algonquin trail and then head back to the Loj finishing a five hour hike. The ropes managed to gain entry to the US later in the day, so we got in some great climbing on Pitchoff north on Saturday and finished with a scramble up Catamount on Sunday prior to driving home in time for Easter supper.

At the top of Tendonitis after a great lead by Phong

A Sunday stroll up Catamount

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