Big Slide (4240 FT.), Adirondack Mountains, NY (46er) and Mr. Bear…

The Adirondack Mountains is the biggest park in the continental 48th. Unfortunately, it's not the National Park, but it's definitely worth visiting especially, when you love hikes. It's only a 5h drive from New York. The mountains are challenging, and there are a lot of peaks to hike. There is even a club called 46'er. The members of this club are people who summit the highest 46 peaks. We already did 22 peaks. It was a high time to add something more to the list. The Adirondacks are very often chosen by the backpackers. There are a lot of designated campgrounds, places in the forest where you can camp, and two lodges where you can stay for a night or more.

​We decided to spend two nights in one of the lodges, John Brook Lodge. We used to sleep in the White Mountains huts, some huts in Spain, Morocco, and South Africa, but never had a chance to stay in the Adirondacks' huts. Let's see how they are in comparison to others.

​To spend more time in the mountains, we drove from New York to Albany on Friday (3h drive). Then, on Saturday, we woke up at 4 am and drove straight to the parking lot (2h). The trail to the lodge starts at Garden Parking. This parking lot is pretty small and gets full quite fast. We were there at 7:30 am and didn't have luck getting a spot. You can have more luck around 3pm when people are going back home. When there are no spaces to park, you can drive down to Marcy field, or public parking in the town. The Marcy field is further, but there is a shuttle bus from there. The bus runs every 40 minutes, costs $5 per person, but runs only during the weekend. We parked in the public parking lot near the market on the corner of route 73 and Adirondack Street (right behind the Valley Grocery Store).

​When we were hiking up we saw the bus and got a ride. It definitely saves us a lot of time. So at 8:30 am we put on our big backpacks and began the hike. To the lodge it's 3.5 miles with just a little bit of an elevation gain (maybe 800 ft.). We did that in no more than 2h.

​The weather was beautiful, it was before noon, and we left our heavy backpacks at the lodge. Because of this we decided to hike to the Big Slide (4240 ft.).

From the JB Lodge it's only a 6.3 mile hike with a 2000 ft. elevation gain. It's a loop, so you can do it either way. We first climbed 2.3 miles to the top of Big Slide and got back down the longer way, passing Yard Mountain.

​The trail was steep and we had to cross a stream many times. The trail was Adirondack style. There were a lot of rocks, mud, roots, and sometimes you had to stretch a lot to climb the rocks. But that's kind of a standard in those mountains. That's why we love them so much!

​We reached the top around 12:30 pm. The view was great, the weather was even better, so we spent an hour there just relaxing, and admiring how beautiful the world is.

​After an hour break we hit the trail again and were heading down. The trail was less hiked. You could tell how by the way trees and grass were growing close to the path. We sometimes thought that we are in the jungle!

​We hardly saw other people. Everybody probably took the same way up and down because at the top of Big Slide there were a lot of people. The terrain was still challenging on the way down and sometimes really steep.

​We were at the lodge again around 4pm. The lodge four rooms for 28 people. There were two rooms for 10 people and two family rooms for four people.
The staff is four people, and they do everything from cleaning, cooking, and entertaining us. The lodge has the basic facilities like vault toilets and sinks with running water (cold though). There are only two toilets so sometimes it's too crowded. There are bunk beds with a pillow and blanket. The breakfast is served at 7:30 am, dinner at 6:30 pm, and lunch is packed.

​This lodge is very similar to the White Mountains' huts. It could be organized better especially, the restrooms, because sometimes you have to go through somebody's room to use them. That's really disturbing at night. We have some experience with huts in South Africa, Spain and Morocco. What we are missing here are the showers and alcohol. In Spain, Morocco, or Africa flushing toilets and showers where standard. There also were no problems with getting a glass of wine or beer. In Spain we could buy the bottle of wine. In South Africa there was a full bar. Not that we, or anybody here is hiking just to get drunk. Of course not! However, it's really nice to relax with a glass of wine or beer after a big hike. It's overpriced, of course, in the mountain huts and lodges, but that's how huts are earning extra money.

​The John Brook lodge has a terrace, so before dinner everybody was relaxing and chating. We met a lot of people from Canada, and the US. It was great to share stories and look at passing people who were all in mud and tired after all the challenging hikes.

​The dinner was great. Grilled chicken with pasta salad...it was definitely the best part of the evening. After dinner, we chatted with few more people, but at 10 pm we had to go to bed.
Quiet hours are from 10 pm to 7 am.

​The next day (Sunday) was our big day. We planned to hike Basin and Saddleback mountains. It is a 9.6 mile loop with a 3176 ft. elevation gain, but it's a technical and challenging hike. So we started to hike just after the breakfast. The trail was easy at the beginning. We had a very good time and the weather was perfect. It was beautiful day.

​We took a break at the Slant Rock around 10:30 am. We were so happy that there were only two more miles, 2000 ft to get to the top. But remember...the Adirondacks always have some kind of surprise for you. Our surprise came out of the trees just behind us. He was more than 2 meters high (when standing), weighed a few hundreds pounds, and luckily he was more interested in our backpacks than in us. Yes, we met the bear. This bear crossed all the borders.
He was not afraid of people at all. There were seven of us, and he charged at us. He came to us saying "hey, I am big leave the bags", I mean he growled. So he came towards Darek, and we all freaked out and backed off. The only thing you shouldn't do is to run, but the first thing you want to do is to run. Luckily, we didn't run, just backed off pretty fast. Darek's and Damian's backpacks, were left on the ground. More people joined us, but the bear was still busier with the sandwiches that we had in the backpack. We believed that he was attracted by the tuna sandwiches that we got at the lodge as our lunch.

​So no more sandwiches on the hike! OK, I have to say that.....I freaked out. I was so scarred that I was praying to survive. We were a huge group and the bear was still there.

​Unfortunately, the leader of the group decided to go around and continue his trail. So we were left by ourselves, three of us and the bear....

​We would give up the backpacks, but there were our documents, car keys, and some other expensive equipment. So it wasn't the best idea to left everything behind us. I think this was the scariest part of this situation. We didn't have pepper spray, we were alone, and had to get our backpacks back. Finally, the bear ate everything and walked away. It took him around 20 minutes to get all our food. The guys got their backpacks back and back off to the stream. We checked the damage, and of course there was no food left. We cursed the sandwiches and fact that they were not in zip-locks. We were still shaking.

​The problem was that the bear also destroyed our camelbags and water bottles. We had no water or food, and our backpacks were torn. At this point, we decided to turn back. There was no point in hiking further. There was still a long way ahead of us, and without water on this hot summer day it was stupid to hike further.

​So we got back to the lodge....not so happy, still shaking, but with the great story to tell. We told the whole story to the girl that works in the lodge. Her reaction was "you are the first person that ran to the lodge and screamed there is a bear.". She was so kind and made new sandwiches for us. She called the ranger who came to interview us.

​He asked us very detailed questions, took pictures of the backpacks, and told us that this is the first time that in this area, this season a bear approached a human. It happens more often around Marcy Dam where there are more people.and you can locate bear by the screams coming from different camping. He also told us the story that few years ago there were a sow bear (female) with cubs who used to surround people to scare them and get their food. Some people think that the bear we met was one of the cubs. The ranger also told us that they will probably first shoot that bear with the rubber bullets to tech him that people means pain. If this doesn't work he will be shot during hunting season. Anyway, they have to kill the poor bear because he is too smart.
We also heard that once cubs where so smart that they bit off the tags from their mom's ears. Everybody evolves. Now bears become smarter and smarter, and finally they realize that people are afraid of them, not the other way.

​At the lodge there was also a huge group of people (around 15). They were hiking Marcy (the highest peak in the Adirondacks). Most of them finished the hike pretty fast. There was one person that stayed behind. The problem was that he was pretty slow. He was 70 years old and unfortunately the main person of the group left him behind. Rick, luckily had a lot of survival training, and didn't want to slow anybody down. That's why he said go on to everyone, that he will be fine. We were super worried around 8 pm. Nobody coming down saw him. We already knew about the bear and it was getting dark.
We called the ranger again, and around 9 pm he decided to go and check the trail. The ranger was hoping to meet Rick pretty fast and bring him down. After more than an hour he called the lodge saying that he had a stand off with the bear. The bear basically "told him" - that's my land and go away! He decided to back off. After consultation with his boss he decided to get back to the lodge and start the searching first thing in the morning.

​What could we do? We were worried and were up till midnight. Finally, we gave up hoping that Rick found some shelter, and he will be back the next day. I couldn't sleep, still hoping that he would come back...and he did. Around 1 am he got back to the lodge. He missed the trail and had to walk extra miles to get to the lodge. All's well that ends well.

​The next morning (Monday) we were sitting on the porch, drinking coffee, and listening Rick's story. We all were so happy that he was back with us. After breakfast it was time to pack and leave the place. I had to be in the cell phone reach around 12 pm for a meeting so, the plan was to get to Lake Placid. Keene Valley where we parked our car is a very small town with a church and a store, but there is no cell phone service. It looks like those people want to run away from civilization.

​After breakfast, we headed to the Garden parking lot from where we had to go further to get our car. The whole hike was about 5 miles, but luckily this time it was mainly down hill. This time we didn't take any lunch sandwiches from the lodge. I am really curious if today anybody will see the bear again. It took us no more than 2h to get back to the car. We got there just in time to hide from the rain. I know some people from the lodge took a longer way down and wanted to hike Big Slide on the way back. It wasn't an easy hike for them, wet rocks, and big backpacks – I hope that everybody is fine and there are no more adventures.

​We drove to Lake Placid where the guys went to a brewery, and I was chilling outside with my laptop and headphones in my ears. It was a beautiful day and one more time I thought how great it would be to have a house in Lake Placid, with a nice porch, and Adirondack's chairs. That would be my dream office. For now we have to get back to New York, to reality where unfortunately there is more violence than in the bear country.