Sep. 20, 2003: I clocked in at 10am, I slogged my way up the interminable trail to Mt. Marcy (New York state's highest point at 5344'), I ate lunch on the top, I hiked down, and then I clocked out at 5:30pm. The hike itself wasn't that bad, it was just, well, interminable. It's a total of 15 miles round trip, and about 3274' of gain. The first two miles go to a dam, and they seem to actually lose elevation, making the last two miles of the hike not so much fun. After the dam, it steepens out a bit, goes flat, steepens a bit, then you walk over some rocks and you're on the top. It's not that bad of a hike, and it goes through pretty terrain, but it is a long plod.

After all that work, it would have been nice to have a quiet, peaceful summit. Unfortunately, I arrived at the same time as a large group of French-Canadians. One of them shouted "je suis Canadian" or some such foreign phrase from the summit; later they joined in a group sing-a-long; throughout they were generally loud and annoying. Other Canadians don't know to yield to uphill hikers, but, of course, that's true of many red-white-and-blue Americans as well. However, I think many more "peace summits" are called for. Either that or we should climb their mountains this coming Molson Day (Oct. 13) and sing God Bless America after chomping down some Big Macs.

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