Conquering Mount Jo

The day of the family snowshoe outing arrived with warmer temperatures than on our original outing date (See Gearing Up to Snowshoe, March 8), which wasn’t saying much given the frigid conditions in January. But today it was snowing. In February – imagine that. And people wonder why I like staying inside.

Ryan Doyle, outdoor leadership coordinator for the Adirondack Mountain Club, was our guide for the day after apparently having the misfortune of drawing the short straw. My family was the only one signed up for the outing, so he probably figured it would be an easy day. He was wrong.

Ryan suggested we climb Mount Jo on snowshoes. He’d taken a family with little snowshoeing experience on that same hike the week before. Not only had that other family easily completed the hike, they’d had enough time to have lunch then hike around Heart Lake. I guess that’s when my competitive side kicked in, because I wasn’t going to let that “other family” show us up. Or maybe the elastic in my long underwear was too tight and was affecting the amount of oxygen that was making it to my brain – at least to that part of my brain that controls judgment. Because when Ryan asked if we were up for the same hike, I said, “Yes.”

Here’s the thing: Mount Jo is an actual mountain and we were on snowshoes (not to belabor the point about snowshoes, but I want to make it clear that we didn’t have jetpacks strapped to our backs). Outdoorsy types refer to Mount Jo as an easy 710-foot climb. But that’s 710 feet uphill. (And don’t forget – no jetpacks)

We start out by snowshoeing onto Heart Lake. I’m last in line, behind my 6-year-old son. All the fresh snow makes for slow going, so there’s lots of whining and crying. But eventually I calm down and catch up to everyone.

Then we head onto the trail and up the mountain. This is where I begin to wonder when the “easy” part of “easy climb” kicks in – probably back at the Loj when I put on my snowshoes. You’d think that a 710-foot climb would mean Iwould take approximately 710 steps to get to the top. But that would assume that each step propelled me in a forward direction. Unfortunately there were several steep sections where each step forwards sent me sliding several feet backwards. So, after approximately 3,500 steps (give or take a dozen), I made it to the top.

Here are some of the things I learned:

        1)            Black bears in the northeast do not hibernate all winter long, but will wake up during winter         thaws to forage for food. Now they tell me! This provided excellent incentive for me to keep moving and stay with the group.

        2)            The odds that you will meet a snowshoer going in the opposite direction will be directly proportional to the steepness, tightness, and general difficulty of the trail at the point at which you meet them.

        3)            When meeting a snowshoer in above situation, I will fall.

        4)            There’s not much to see at the top of a mountain when it’s snowing.

        5)            When you reach the top of the mountain, you are not done. You still have to get back down.

            Eventually, we did make it back down to the Loj in one piece and without spotting any bears. We’d worked up quite an appetite for our (very) late lunch. And there was no time for a hike around Heart Lake – like that “other family” did – because the sun was getting ready to set at any moment. But my kids had a blast, my husband was a good sport, and I had fodder for my blog. That, and a sore bum.

Here I am, taking a break from looking for bear tracks to pose at the top of Mount Everest, I mean, Mount Jo.