40 | ADIRONDACK PEEKS Almost Cli and Redfield: June 17, 2023 Ron Kirschbaum, #14955 My shoes have been hosed down and sun-dried and now have even greater value having gotten me through another adventure. This was maybe the most miserable, scary, and dangerous of all my ADK hikes since my first ADK peak over 50 years ago. And yet, even though we didn’t accomplish our intended goal of hiking up Mount Redfield and Cli , it was exceptional in terms of exposure to special mountain conditions, lessons learned, and enrichment of an enduring friendship characterized by multiple outdoor misadventures. A week before the trip I felt that I was pretty physically strong and ready for a demanding hike, and the weather forecast was good. Friday morning, I was to drive up to the high peaks to meet up with Doug, an old friend. Unfortunately, when I woke up on Friday morning, I had a wicked sore throat and the weather report for the mountains had changed to a 90 percent chance of rain! If it had been a solo outing, I would have scrapped it for either one of those reasons, but I could not turn down a chance to hike with Doug; our history of epic outings started when we met as freshman at St. Lawrence University in 1975. No way I was going to miss this; I had cold pills and rain gear! We met up at the Mountaineer in Keene Valley. It was raining when we stopped in a county store in Keene and then headed up to ADK Lodge to check into our Canvas Cabin. The giant tent had a wood plank floor and three sets of metal frame bunk beds with 4-inch mattresses. Steps away from a wash house, a snack bar, Heart Lake, and a major trailhead. Beats the Hilton any day! We wandered down to check out serene Heart Lake before settling in to our bunks early. It was raining. A friendly ADK Lodge worker showed up to remind us not to keep food in the tent so as not to invite bears. The weather forecast had been correct if not understated. It rained hard overnight and then kept going. Doug looked it up after the hike and it turned out we were smack in the middle of a 4-plus-inch rain event. 5 a.m. phone alarm. A quick breakfast including essential co ee made using Doug’s propane stove. We got underway by about 6:30. Rain. I started to be a bit cold early on. Another bad sign was a swollen stream crossing which under normal weather conditions would have been just a rock hop. At first sight I was thinking the hike was over, but “impassable” is in the eyes of the beholder. Flash back to 45 years ago on a cold winter run at school. Our planned route, conceived by Doug, was to include a swim across the Little River which still had some open water. We lowered ourselves into the black, freezing, deathly water and immediately our paralyzed breathing led us to abandon the swim and return back to school the long way, wet and cold. No such good sense prevailed today. Doug ventured into the swollen stream and began wading across slowly and cautiously, one step at a time. I followed. The irregular rocky bottom and roiling current seemed intent on dumping us at any moment. I was getting colder. It continued to rain. We forged on and were expecting to reach the small, ponded area near Lake Arnold, which I had crossed a few years ago on the floating log bridge. When we got there, useless remnants were
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