About 5 years ago my mom's youngest sister turned 50. She decided for her birthday that she wanted to climb the tallest mountain in NYS - Mt. Marcy. Standing at 5,344 ft. Mt. Marcy is in the High Peak region of the Adirondack Park. It's a strenuous hike from my understanding and not something typically to be done on a whim but on the other hand it isn't technical mountain climbing either.
My mom and their other sister accompanied her as well as various other family and friends, all women, on this hike. (I knew my limits and sat it out! :) My mom at the time was just a couple years shy of 60 and had no intention of hiking to the top. She went out on the trail with the group that day wearing her cheap discount store windpants and some plain walking-type sneakers. She had no trekking poles but having been told by the others that it would be helpful she creatively made one out of a broomstick handle. :) And she set out without a drop of water and only some grapes in a cooler backpack that she had.
She had no intention of going more than a mile or two along the path but one thing led to another and as the story goes, before they knew it my mom was out ahead of some of the more experienced climbers. Eventually one of my cousins did give her a set of trekking poles so she could do the thing properly. As you might guess, she made it to the top (GO MOM!) and the picture here is her on top of the mountain. I cropped the others out since I didn't ask their permission to post this but the full picture tells the story. Everyone else in their hiking boots and gear and my mom looking like she just ran out to go to the corner grocery store and accidentally climbed a mountain.
My aunt said that when they reached to the top my mom looked at her and said "so where is the ride down?" We laughed about that for a while. Not sure now if she really thought there was (similar to Whiteface Mountain) or she was just pulling my aunts leg.
So they all climbed down. My mom outstripped them all again some of the time. She ate her refreshing and trusty grapes along the way (I'm guessing someone took pity and gave her water). And when they got down to the bottom and my 20-something cousin could absolutely walk no more without her legs seizing up, my mother volunteered to go get the car and pick them up.
I love that story because it's so representative of how awesome my mom is. She was 'plucky' and I love a plucky heroine in a good story. Only she could accidentally climb a mountain. That's why I hope to climb Mt. Marcy next summer and eventually climb to Mt. Everest Base Camp. My mom was incredible and it was an honor to be her daughter!
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ReplyDeleteI love thinking about this now. My favorite part was when all of us started to split off a little (due to everyone moving at a different pace) and your mom was ahead of us but she had said she would eventually turn around and go back because she certainly wasn't going all the way up. So on we trekked and looked for Aunt Judy as we went (figuring we would pass her on her way back to the car). We finally all decided that she must have turned around and we missed her because we still hadn't caught up to them about 2 hours later. Sure enough, not long after that we came to a small clearing and there she was ready to go, just taking a smoke break and waiting for us slow folks to catch up! We laughed so hard about that. The one who kept saying she definitely wasn't going to the top making all of us look bad! Such a trooper.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I will admit that it was me who could hardly move at the end... and at the time I was only 20 so yeah, she is both crazy and amazing for doing it (as we all were).