And so it begins…

Every November for the past few years, Ray has joined the Alpine Club on a weekend climbing trip in the Adirondacks. Last year, they had miserable weather and had to turn back after a full day of climbing without making it to any peaks. Ray was chastising himself for going on a hike in November when he’s retired and should be able to time his hikes based on the forecast. Then he signed up for this year’s hike and even volunteered to lead one of the groups.

A huge storm passed through New York on Friday leaving downed trees and floods in its wake. On Saturday, the day of the main climb, I came across this:

The Department of Environmental Conservation has been advising the public to avoid backcountry trails and summits throughout the Adirondack region. An announcement from the agency said that they anticipate that damage in the backcountry will be extensive and that these areas are unstable and dangerous to visitors. Water levels are currently high, some bridges are washed out, and all stream crossings will be impassable. In addition, trails are flooded and summits pose danger of potential rock slides and falling debris.  Several landslides have been reported in the High Peaks. High winds caused a large amount of downed trees and debris at trailheads and on trails, as well as downed trees and power lines across roadways.

I knew Ray would be cautious and that they were all very experienced climbers so I wasn’t particularly worried, and expected to hear from him by about 5 pm. Five o’clock came and went with no word. As the hours ticked by, I started to get concerned, but at 8:30 he let me know they’d just returned after more than 12 hours of climbing and hiking, several of those in the dark. I’d meant to be annoyed with him, but even via email his excitement was palpable. They’d climbed three peaks, two of them ’46ers’ (over 4000 feet) and they all felt great. One group returned just before them and the third returned shortly afterwards. And on Sunday, some of them went out and hiked some more. And then they sent emails around saying how much they enjoyed the weekend. I don’t get it. Sometimes I think we’re not even the same species.

This weekend’s activities were more my speed. A dinner party / jam session with friends and an afternoon hot tub catch-up the following day.

Winter arrived with a bang and Ray went from raking leaves to shovelling snow, literally overnight. In possibly related news, he’s been talking a lot about moving into a condo lately.

I was anticipating the joy of watching Juno discover her first snow – you know, the way they lift up each foot as it hits the snow and prance around trying to figure out what it is and then zoom around in it – but she just sniffed it, looked up at me as if to say, “should I be concerned about this?” and then squatted down and peed on it. And that was it. A few days later when we had a major snowfall (about 10 cms), it was a different story, “now this I can work with”.

We had our first two agility classes and Juno loved them. She particularly liked the tunnels…so much so that she flew through the tunnel, grabbed a toy, then ran backwards through a couple of other tunnels that people were attempting to coax their dogs into. Fortunately the tunnels were empty at the time, because it’s not as though she checked first. She much prefers agility classes to the slower-paced obedience classes. “What’s with all this sitting and staying stuff? Let’s DO something!”

Speaking of doing something, I decided to keep running outdoors through November and December, since I rather despise treadmill running. The Running Room coaches gave a talk before our first snow run about how much they love winter running and assured us that we’ll all grow to love it too. They used words like ‘magical’ and ‘peaceful’. I was skeptical. Then we went for our run. It was -12. I did not feel the magic.