So there I was….

Just kidding, but that is how every good story starts.  Except if you are in South Carolina, then the preferred story intro is “Hey y’all, watch this!” or the ever popular “Hold my beer….”  Without further ado, here is the grand finale of my winter school experience.

Day 5:

This is it.  The time has come to hike out into the woods for 3 nights of winter camping.  After struggling for much longer than I care to admit to get all of the essentials loaded into (or on the outside of) my pack, we had a weigh-in.  Old Ethel (my newly baptized backpack) tipped the scales at 43 pounds.  An elite few had packs lighter than mine, but by and large most folks were carrying a lot more weight.

Alberta + Ethel = brand new Bestie’s

We hit the trail at the Round Pond parking area, and hiked 4.2 miles to the Boquet River lean-to.  Okay, don’t roll your eyes here, but pretty much every step was total agony.  I have never carried a pack that heavy, and the trail is a pretty steep uphill right from the parking area.  Eventually my legs gave up their whining, and I was able to plod slowly along in relative peace.  My journey was fueled with my homemade trail-mix concoction (crackers, cheese, almonds, beef jerky, and beef sticks – awesome!) and candy.  It’s crazy how you can literally feel your legs losing their steam once you’ve depleted any caloric intake.  I had been getting better about staying on top of layering changes, food, and water so that helped me keeping taking my one slow step at a time.  I heard hooting and hollering up ahead (not an unusual occurrence for our group), and I saw the shape of a lean to with relief.  Setting up the tents was not as bad as I thought it would be in the cold temperatures.  I had a mountain hardware Trango 2 from about 15 years ago that I brought.  It was probably a little heavier than the new models but still is a bomb-proof tent.  And my awesome tent-mate, Michele, worked hard at creating our own little homestead.  I don’t know if a re-hydrated freeze dried meal has ever tasted as good as that first evening.  Every night we would boil a ton of water in order to make Nalgene hot water bottles for the sleeping bags. I’ll tell you what, a toasty Nalgene in my big red sleeping bag was just about as good as it gets. What’s not as good as it gets is having to get out of the tent in the middle of the night to pee.  As my nephew would say, it was “not even good.”

Our crew at the onset of our journey. L to R at trailhead sign: Jeremy, Todd, Jon, Aimee, Amy, David with Michele and Steve up front.

Day 6:

We woke up to the inside of our tent being covered in snow and ice crystals.  And the outside of the tent was piled with about 5 inches of fresh snow.  We enjoyed hot food and beverages for breakfast.  The plan today is to hike to the top of Dial Mountain.  This was to be another bush-whack.  We set a turn-around time of 12:30, and started hiking.  The bush-whack was actually really fun.  There were a lot of places where the snow was up to my waist.  I felt bad for the bigger guys behind me since I wasn’t doing much to break trail for them.  Later one of our group members admitted to slightly hating me as he watched me float on the surface of the snow while he sank down to his armpits with each step.  The group stayed close together during this hike, and there was a lot of joyous belting out of old 90’s rap songs.  I had a blast.  It got really steep and thick with trees as we neared our turn-around time.  The decision was made to turn back shy of reaching the summit.  It turns out after 4 hours of sweating and struggling, we had gone less than a mile.  Oh well.  What was disheartening though was to see several hours of hard work turn into about 25 minutes of sliding down the mountain on your rear-end.  We got to camp in the early afternoon, and started to boil water again.  It was a struggle to stay warm as the temperatures continued to drop.  We hit between -15 and -20 this night.  The group’s spirits stayed high though, and it was a relief to climb into Roxanne, my newly minted sleeping bag.  Throughout our boisterous and off-tune singing, someone let fly the old Sting song, Roxanne.  So that became my big girl’s name.  Although ironically, I did need her to turn on the red light each night.  Or didn’t I?  Whatever, even I don’t know where I am going with this analogy.

Day 7:

It was cooooooold this morning.  The thermometer stayed around -15 while we prepared to leave camp.  This day’s objective: Dix Mountain.  It felt good to hike with a significantly lighter pack.  And I was finally starting to get my legs back.  There were a lot of really steep sections, and at some points you would be sliding backwards on your snowshoes more than you were propelling yourself forward.  The views from mid-way up the mountain were absolutely gorgeous.  As we got even higher, we ascended above the level of the clouds.  Which obviously cut off some of the view, but was also incredibly cool in my mind.  As we made the final bit of our climb over exposed granite, the wind was whipping pretty good.  I happened to be the lucky first person to clamber onto the highest point of Dix Mountain.  It felt like a big achievement.  Our whole team assembled for a few quick photos.  Our time management was spot-on as we made the summit just a few minutes before our predetermined turnaround time.  The way down was long and steep.  Most attempts at a graceful glissade turned into a decidedly ungraceful butt slide.  But that was probably more fun anyways.  There were a few spectacular wipe-outs but thankfully no one got hurt (and I didn’t have to work).  Dinner once again tasted amazing, and Roxanne had left the (red) light on.  (I know, not that funny, but I just can’t stop myself. )  I have been really nervous about trying to take down the tents and pack up the gear in sub-zero temperatures.  Putting on my boots is a several step process because of the cold.  After tying one boot, it’s time to do anything possible to warm up my fingers before attempting to fiddle with the next boot.  What will an entire re-pack be like?  By the way, here’s a little known tidbit about trying to stay warm in the cold:  It can actually be too cold for hand warmers to work.  Trust me, I found out the hard way.  How crummy is that???

Day 8:

No rest for the weary – O’dark thirty came early this morning.  Like most things in life, worrying about having to pack up our gear in the cold was much worse than just actually doing it.  It always helps that your motivation is to get back to civilization where simple things like hot showers, food other than Mountain (Out-)House, and not having to strap 40+ pounds to your back actually exist.  In no time, we were on the trail with headlamps to light our way out of the woods.  Sadly, my pack did not really seem that lighter despite eating the majority of my food.  The tent and rainfly had a good amount of ice and frost on them when we packed them which negated any pack weight loss I was hoping to benefit from.  The miles seemed to fly by for me, and I could absolutely not believe it when I began to hear the sounds of cars on the road below.  This was one of the sweetest sounds that I have heard, even better than our group’s terrible singing….  I also could not believe how much uphill hiking we did on the way out.  WTF, I do NOT remember walking downhill on the way in.  I felt weightless after throwing my pack to the ground in the parking lot.  We got back to the Adirondack Loj where I took one of the best showers in recent memory.  And also started a new battle royale with trying to untangle my hair.  After a little graduation ceremony, I was on my way home to Syracuse.  Hard to believe that the trip was already behind me.  All I could think of was “I did it!”  We all did it.  What a great group of people I got to share my experience with.  I am very thankful for everyone’s supportive words and bad jokes. I was also very thankful for the Auntie Anne’s pretzel that I cookie-monstered on my ride home!

To recap…. Winter Mountaineering School 2015: miles and miles of hiking in 2 feet of snow, in -20 degree weather, in snowshoes with heavy packs, up hill both ways.  And I’m not even joking.

Wish I had more photos to share from the backpacking experience but most electronics get a little cranky in the cold weather.  If I get my hands on some of the pics, I will gladly post them.

So I am already in Tennessee on my next adventure – giving lectures for the national WMS elective. But I wanted to regal my blog readers with my adventures in the frozen wilds of the Adirondacks. I will be up front about my experience with the ADK Winter School – it was probably the most physically challenging excursion that I have ever participated in. And to be even more honest, I thought about quitting or going home early about a hundred times throughout the week. I’m super proud that I finished, and the sense of accomplishment that I gained and the bonds that I made with my group were well worth the “suffer-fest” week.  And for any Billy Madison fans out there:

Day 1:

So my trip started with my foot in a compression sack, trying to stomp my giant -40 degree sleeping bag into submission. I finally gave up, and just threw it into the back of my car. Thus starts the Battle of the Bag… Sleeping bag 1, Amy 0. I had a beautiful drive through the Adirondacks and eventually arrived for the pre-school dinner with the instructors at the Lake Placid Pub and Brewery. Everyone is really friendly and welcoming. I would definitely say that there was a unique culture permeating the group. There were summit patches on clothing and lots of slang and jargon thrown around. And I’m pretty sure that these folks are wholly responsible for any decrease in the sale of cotton clothing. Throughout the week, cotton was villain-ized as an evil garb with malignant intentions to rob its wearer of heat and comfort. This is obviously true – that’s why all outdoor gear and clothing is synthetic nowadays. But I digress…. So I’m already starting to think to myself “what am I doing here????” I’m no expert in winter backpacking, let alone mountaineering. And now I’m supposed to help out as the assistant medical advisor? My fears were soon assuaged though. The entire staff was so kind to me. Everyone helped me get my gear tweaked and welcomed any medical input I had. I slept in a bunk room that first evening with a few other female staff members. Sleep was tough because I was already getting a little nervous, AND I swear that the snoring in that room sounded like it was coming from an obese male truck driver.

Day 2:

After all of the arriving students had their stringent gear check, it was time for Self-Arrest training! We traveled over to the Lake Placid Olympic Training Center Ski Jump for the afternoon. It was so much fun. Imagine everything that your Mom told you not to do, and then you have an instructor encouraging you to do just that. We were launching ourselves down sleep slopes head first, on our backs, with very sharp ice axes in our hands. Awesome! We also played around with cramp-on techniques. After a delicious dinner provided by the ADK Loj, I moved my belongings to a new bunk room. I had my large backpacking pack, my personal clothes in a duffel, and a second duffel with extra camping supplies. I feel like I had way too much stuff – this has become a theme in my wilderness medicine life. Like when I came back from Cambodia, I vowed to travel lighter. Mainly so I don’t have to schlep everything around myself. Tomorrow will be our “shakedown” hike. I.e., let’s hike 8 miles with nearly full packs in snowshoes, just to see how our group handles it. Gooooooooood. This didn’t make for sweet dreams. Before bed, I had to once again try to load up my sleeping bag. I got it into a stuff sack, but not the compression sack. Sleeping bag 2, Amy 0. The Battle Royale continues.

Day 3:

Up early to see how much food I could get into my pie hole in a short amount of time to fuel my journey. We were climbing what everyone called “Little, Little Haystack.” After a short drive, we loaded up at the trailhead. It was beautiful in the woods. There was at least a couple of feet of snow and the temps weren’t too frigid. We hiked in “rolling lead.” The front person would walk 30 paces, and then roll out. And this continued in almost a caterpillar type fashion. I really liked this. I tend to always be the slowest hiker in a group (clearly because of my short legs, not my fitness level….haha), and it helped the whole group stay closer together. We stopped at a lean-to to practice quick changes from snowshoes to cramp-ons. If by quick, you mean 7-10 minutes, then yes. We did a “bush-whack” to the summit. This means that there was a perfectly good trail up the mountain, but we were too cool to use it. Using maps and compasses, we were able to make it all the way up. Everyone was in high spirits, there was beef jerky and other snacks all around, and then we began the arduous task of getting back to the car. And this is where things began to feel unfair. We ended up hiking uphill for roughly 1.5 miles to the junction where we had absconded the traditional marked trail. It definitely sucked, but after a quick candy break (the candy had been baked in the oven at 98.6 degrees for 15 minutes, ie it was inside my jacket), we eventually conquered the long gradual incline. We floated back down to the cars, and rushed back for hot showers and dinner. After a few lectures, we got to choose our summit hike for the next day. Given the fact that my lack of training in snow with a 40 lb pack on my back was already starting to catch up with me, I opted for one of the less hardcore treks.

Goofing around:

Group Photo:

At the top:

Day 4:

Hurricane Mountain. What a pleasant day. It was a 2.6 mile hike up to the peak. I was carrying my Hyperlite cuben fiber pack as my daypack and compared to the day before, it felt like I had nothing on my back. As we got close to the top, we changed into summit gear. This included a balaclava (I still think baklava in my head every time), goggles, down puffy jacket, crampons and ice ax. This may have been a bit overkill but it definitely made me feel pretty legit. The 360 views from the summit were unbelievable, and the winds were actually not that bad. As we were standing up top, a man rolled up with his golden retriever. That made me smile for two reasons: 1. We were all totally geared up and he was in low day hiker shoes, a fleece, and a fanny pack. 2. It also reminded me of the many adventures that I had with my late, beloved dog, Jack. After a few more minutes admiring the view, it was time to go back to the cars. The hike down seemed never-ending. It was hard to believe that we had hiked uphill that far. But just as all bleeding eventually stops, so does any long hike. Now the only barrier between me and our backpacking adventure is the final battle of the sleeping bag war. I should lie and tell you that I finally squeezed that puppy into submission, but in reality one of the other members of our group finally got it into the stuff sack for me. But I am still partially counting that as a victory – part of success is knowing when to outsource. So the final count stands: Sleeping bag 2.5, Amy 0.5.

New hardcore Amy:

Old carefree Amy with her most favorite hiking companion:

The obligatory gear photo because I want companies to give me free stuff (!):

Stay tuned for the backpacking portion…

Working within a Wilderness Medicine fellowship affords all kinds of unique, fun, interesting, and educational opportunities.  A lot of the events that I will be participating in over the next year are pre-planned or are part of the curriculum.  But I also get asked to do all sorts of random things, like interviews for local TV regarding how to avoid frostbite, or the chance to lecture to medical students participating in a wilderness medicine elective.  But over this past weekend, I got asked to go ice climbing!?!

I’ve always wanted to try ice climbing.  I was an avid rock climber for years but unfortunately residency and work kind of put the kibosh to that.  It was always so impressive to me watching people ice climb.  To scale a vertical wall of frozen water with only ice axes and crampons – awesome!  In a way, I had thought that it looked easy compared to rock climbing since you could essentially use your tools to gain a hold anywhere on the vertical ice.  Not true!  What they don’t show you is that it can take several whacks with your ax to get any kind of purchase on the ice, and that sometimes the whole shebang can crack and crumble right out from under you.  Trust me, this was the bulk of my climbing experience.

We arrived at Tinker Falls, part of the Labrador Hollow Unique Area in Cortland County, around 8am.  One of the other climbers was gracious enough to have gotten there extra early to set a top rope.  I strapped into my brand new crampons for the first time.  I’m glad I attempted this before arriving at my upcoming winter mountaineering school – I would have definitely lost some street cred…  After a crash course in basic ice ax and crampon use, I was roped in and ready to climb.  I struggled a bit on my first try, but really enjoyed it.  My forearms were on fire, and my hands were so cold that they felt like they were about to fall off, but I couldn’t stop hooting and hollering.  I’m not sure if my behavior fell into proper ice climbing etiquette…  My second climb was surprisingly smooth.  I finally got the rhythm of kick, kick, ax, ax, repeat ad nauseam.  Of course this unexpected stroke of brilliance was doomed to end quickly.  My third climb was a lot of me sitting halfway up the wall and creating epic ice showers to those below.

Overall, this was such a great experience!  I can’t wait to go again.  I love learning new skills.  And for whatever reason, I absolutely love being out in winter weather.  Hopefully this little taste of being out on the ice will help me during my winter mountaineering course.  I leave in just two days!

I swear I didn’t plan this Johnny Cash-esque ice climbing outfit:

Eric Shaw, our fearless leader, getting ready to “on belay”

Tinker Falls

I think I have finally purchased all required gear listed for my winter mountaineering experience!  I’m sure that my building manager is starting to hate me given the number of packages that he has been dragging over to my apartment on a daily basis.  I found out that the nearest hardcore mountaineering store is about three and a half hours away, so the Internet has been my main mode of shopping.  See, and everyone thought that my years of Internet shopping was only a drain on my credit card.  I am now a finely tuned Amazon shopping machine.  As I like to say: if Amazon doesn’t have it, you really don’t need it.  Case in point, check these bad boys out:

I ended up purchasing the Koflach Degre boots.  Mainly because they were the only plastic shell boot that I could find in stock that came in Toddler size (I wear a women’s size 6).  The backpack is a Cuben fiber bag made by Hyperlite Mountain Gear.  I had not even heard of this fancy fabric until talking to Josh Mularella, the previous SUNY Wilderness fellow.  But it’s insanely light, stronger than Kevlar, and even waterproof.  I plan on using it as my medical bag on my many upcoming adventures.  I took both of these purchases for a spin on a snowy hike and was totally thrilled with both of their performances.  I was expecting to be doing that awkward cowboy walk that usually accompanies the wearing of plastic ski boots, but they were actually quite comfortable to walk in, and very warm.  I loaded the pack up with my tent and a few other items, and it literally felt like I had nothing on.  Unfortunately, I wasn’t so lucky with my hands.  My combo of gloves and mittens did not work at all.  My hands were freezing!  And it was a balmy 17 degrees out.  So I’m on the look-out for a warmer mitten shell system.  Meh, what’s another couple hundred dollars of merchandise at this point….

I don’t have any crazy world adventures to report today, but I am preparing to enter parts unknown.  At the end of this month, I will be attending the ADK Winter Mountaineering School.  This is a non-profit group sponsored by the Adirondack Mountain Club.  The school helps individuals gain knowledge of winter camping and mountaineering through the common medical approach – see one, do one, teach one.  Except in this case, we will be bypassing “seeing one” completely and starting right off with the second step.  This opportunity was graciously offered to me by Eric Shaw, one of the faculty at SUNY Upstate.  Being from Wisconsin, the cold weather aspects of this trip don’t scare me.  But what so far has been frightening is the amount of extremely expensive items on the required gear list.  After obsessively looking at expedition sleeping bags for weeks, I finally pulled the trigger last night and purchased a -40 degree bag. 

Yes, you read that correctly – $899!!! Ouchies!  Don’t worry, I will definitely include my thoughts regarding this beast’s performance after my winter adventure.  I’m scheduled to take a trip to the Arctic with my brother this spring as well, so at least it will get a little more use.  Let’s see, if I use it for 12 nights total, that’s only roughly $75 per night…  That’s about the same price as a Super 8 along a congested expressway at 2am when every other hotel is booked.

So I was pretty proud of myself for making the commitment to this venture, and for starting to get the gear early.  Usually I am buying items and then packing them mere hours before a big trip.  But then it dawned on me that maybe I’m missing a very important piece of this puzzle.  Um, like getting in shape.  So I bundled up yesterday and hit the road for a quick 3 mile run, in 20 degree weather, in freezing rain.  I think I may have worked off at least half of one the almond cookies that I made with my Mom while I was home.  Oh well, as Lao Tzu is credited with saying: “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”

Well I have done it!  I have officially embarked on my new career as a Wilderness and Expedition Medicine physician.  And maybe even more remarkably, I have created my own domain and started a blog.  For a gal who is not even on Facebook, this is no small feat.

Let’s back track a little here, and get to the “about me” section.  So I’m a small town Midwest girl who recently became a board certified Emergency Medicine physician.  I love all things outdoor and have an insatiable appetite for seeing the world.  After less than a year at an inner city ER, I decided that this was not the big life that I had envisioned for myself.  So I applied to Wilderness Medicine fellowships and was luckily enough to snag one in Upstate New York. First order of business as a fellow — acting as part of the medical team for a multi-staged foot race in Cambodia.

It was overwhelming to get all of my equipment and supplies together, but next thing I knew, I was flying to Cambodia via China. I figured that if I could get through China on my own okay, I should be fine the rest of the trip. After 35 hours of travel, I finally arrived in Phnom Penh. The next few days were a blur a checking racers in, and getting brief medical histories of all 43 racers. The race started at the gateway of a Buddhist Monastery. The race was 220km over the course of 6 staging days. I could not have been more impressed with the mental and physical toughness of the racers. The first night, 14 runners got sick with food poisoning. It was 90 degrees and humid, even at night. There were no toilet facilities, let alone a comfortable place to lie down and get cool. I was starting to get worried that we were going to have to get some of the participants out of the Jungle. But everyone toughed it out with the help of copious amounts of zofran and finished the 29 km stage the next day! After that rough first night, it was smooth sailing. It was mostly some continued nausea in the heat and lots and lots of blisters. I’ve never popped and taped so many blisters in my life! It was emotional to watch the group cross the finish line at the historic and iconic Angkor Watt the final day. I really got to know everyone on the staff as well as all 43 runners. The travel, the camaraderie, along with amazing and exotic new experiences definitely made me confident that I have made the right career choice.