3.30am, 7 February 2002
Conditions check: Freezing rain, frozen roadway, sleet.
Head check: Yep. Still insane.

Seven hours and 512 miles later I am in Lake Placid, NY at a diner, reading The New York Post and eating "steak" and "eggs." I finally worked my way through to the sports page, where I was confronted by the headline above. I hoped that this was not a bad omen, but knew well that it could be.

Why was I here? Good question.

I was here to once again attempt a winter Great Range Traverse, on which my friend and sometime partner James (aka Wallhack) and I had failed miserably last season. We had tried to ski it. That turned out to be an unthinkably, preposterously, inconceivably bad idea. We had found the terrain, a 13.5-mile traverse over numerous peaks on a continuous ridge, finishing at the apex of the Adirondack High Peaks, Mt. Marcy, nearly impossible to negotiate with skis. We had ended up carrying planks on our backs for all but perhaps a half mile of the route, and had bailed in disgust after getting lost in waist-deep snow at the Armstrong-Gothics col on day two. It was wholly apparent to us on that trip that we were not going to be able to complete the traverse; we had simply wanted to climb Gothics and turn around. We didn't even get that far.

So with this stellar record on which to build, we thought we'd come back and try it again. In good conditions it's a three-day outing. We thought we'd try to do it in two.

On our recent New Hampshire ice climbing trip I had mentioned the trip to Brian, my regular partner in climb. The conversation went something like:

Me: "So. I'm thinking of doing the Great Range Traverse again. Any interest?"
Brian:

Me: "I'm gonna take that as a maybe."

Several days later I sent Brian an email. I knew the traverse wasn't his cup of tea but I thought I'd ask again.

Subj: dumb thing up nawth
From: Mike
To: Brian
well, i'm heading out thursday morning for the traverse.
hoping to do it in two days.
if you're at all interested, speak now.

Subj: Re: dumb thing up nawth
From: Brian
To: Mike
You said you were thinking about doing it,
not that you were going to do it.

Subj: Re: dumb thing up nawth
From: Mike
To: Brian
> You said you were thinking about doing it,
> not that you were going to do it.

ah now. you know me. you know it's the same thing.
thinking about it, going to do it. same thing.

Subj: Re: dumb thing up nawth
From: Brian
To: Mike
What is it w/ you and this thing? You know it's a dumb idea
and you *still* want to do it.

Brian was absolutely right. And I had no defense. I love the Daks. I had summitted Mt. Marcy in 1999 on one of my early "hikeneering" trips. I had returned the year after to try a traverse of Algonquin and Marcy and had quite literally almost died in the process of attempting said objectives. In 2001 James and I tried our silly ski idea out on the Great Range. All the trips had been beautiful (if at times.. er... flawed) in one way or another. But still, I didn't really have any good reason to come back.

Neither did James.

But we weren't going to let that stop us.

Me: Wanna do the traverse again?
James: Okay. Skis or snowshoes?
Me: Helicopter. And no brain.

Back up in the High Peaks, I finished up at the diner and drove to the ADK Loj, where a short-tempered, little red-haired girl checked me in to our room. I got my gear together, then went back into Placid for a quick, spicy dinner (not the best choice, all things considered, but the little red-haired girl had turned me away from a Loj dinner as I had forgotten to specify a meal when I'd called in for reservations, which was slightly inconvenient, but fine, and in the end, justified). James would be coming in late that night. I read a bit, put the earplugs in, dozed, but did not truly sleep. It didn't work out very well. I had one of those "too tired to sleep" nights that I eventually ended up paying for later.

James got in close to midnight. We said hello in the dim light of the doorway, collapsed onto our respective bunks and tried to sleep.

The alarm went off at 3am. We got up and went into the dining hall where we found no trace of the early (okay, really early) continental breakfast we'd requested. The little red-haired girl had struck again. We ate some bananas, some mixed nuts and a bagel each. There was no hot water for coffee, so we packed up, dropped my Jeep off at the High Peaks parking lot, where we intended to walk out, and piled our gear into James' truck and drove up SR 73 to the Sachs trailhead.

Yes. This is where it starts.