Hike Up Ampersand Mountain

 Hey There, we are still in the Adirondacs.

I guess I missed sharing with you the picture I took during totality.  You can't see the moon covering the sun in the picture, but you can see the darkness, and the light off in the distance like a sunset all around on the horizon.  And you can see ...I think it was Venus.

This morning we took it easy for a while.  I studied Spanish using Duolingo, read the news, and did some of my Physical Therapy exercises.

Steve made us an amazing breakfast.

Then we bundled up to go for a hike up Ampersand Mountain near Saranac Lake.  

Right away we were peeling clothes. It must have been about 50 degrees and the trail started climbing right away.

It was a fun and scenic trail with extremely tall trees, lots of little streams to cross, and stones to step on to avoid the mud puddles and traverse the mucky places.

We climbed 1600 feet and walked 5.5 miles.  We didn't make it to the top,  the trail became a steep sheet of ice with water flowing over it and under it.

We pushed through quite a bit of it but didn't have the right equipment to climb ice.  And I was worried about the decent. 

I slid down much of the way on my ass to avoid slipping and falling.  We tried walking off the trail a while, but each step was a chance our foot would break through brush and we'd break something.  I thought sitting on my bum and sliding (Which was quite fun) was safer.  Though my new gortex pants are muddy now.  They did hold up, no holes!  Yay!

At the bottom of the snow and ice part of the trail, I stopped to take a drink.  I was carrying my thermos in a pocket on the side of my backpack.  All that was in the pocket were chunks of wet snow.  Oh well, guess I will have to buy another thermos.  I seem to go through them quickly, leaving them, losing them, breaking them.

But Steve walked up and grinned.  He had walked down the hill, not slid, like I did.  So I got a bit in front of him.

He had found my thermos in the middle of the trail.

When we got to the car we walked through some clean snow to get the mud off our boots.

Steve suggested we go out to eat for dinner on our last night here.

We just got back from dinner.  We went to Luna in Lake Placid.  We had calory rich pasta and bread.  Steve's treat.  😊 Thank you Steve! It was very yummy.

Tomorrow we will head back to Steve's New York house.  Packing and cleaning up this place in the morning.  We are quite spread out.  

We have plans for the rest of the week.  Dinner with Margaret's brother (Margaret is Steve's deceased wife), Lunch with his Mom to celebrate her 90th Birthday.  (We talked to her on the phone last night.  She got to see the partial eclipse from her front yard.  She asked me to sign the books that I gave her last summer. 🥰), And probably dinner with his two kids again on Sunday.  

This has been a successful mini trip to see the eclipse.  We had three lovely spring days in a row in the Adirondacs!  Steve says that's pretty miraculous.

Enjoy your moments.