Marooned at home by hip surgery and the pandemic, I yearned for a change of scenery; to get away from the neatly manicured lawns and well-tended flowerbeds of suburbia and into the great outdoors. I was four weeks post surgery, able to walk comfortably and my birthday was coming up, so we started making plans. Our requirements – natural beauty, mountains (or at least hills), hiking trails easy enough for a post op hip, no crowds and a state that was taking the pandemic seriously. For these reasons, we looked east and decided on the Adirondack Mountains of New York and Green Mountains of Vermont.
On a beautiful August morning, we drove to our metro airport, a bit anxious as to what flying would be like during the pandemic. Much to our surprise, check in was easy, safe and much faster than we’d anticipated. There were so few air travelers that employees at the airport actually seemed happy to see us. With so much extra time before boarding our flight and nothing open in the airport, we walked the terminal building. As we left the central atrium towards the outlying gates, the airport was eerily deserted, like a ghost town – everything closed, lights off, not a person to be seen.
We flew to Albany and picked up our rental car. Everyone was masked and what few people we saw seemed to be wandering around cleaning, spraying and sanitisizing every surface in sight. Heading north, we left the city behind and entered the Adirondack Mountain Recreation area, stopping at the area’s visitor’s center for a bio break and to photograph the quintessential I love NY sign.
The Adirondack Mountain recreation area, or what is known as Adirondack Park is comprised of over 6 million acres of pristine waterways, boreal forest and rugged mountains, about a 50/50 split of private and publicly owned land all designated for conservation. There are over 3000 lakes and ponds, 46 mountains over 5000 ft and 2,000 miles of hiking trails with 105 towns and villages interspersed throughout. My husband and I had spent a week here 45 years ago when we were college students – it was late fall then and the weather was cool and cloudy but I vividly remember hiking and never passing another person.
We easily found our bed and breakfast, The Trail’s End, located off a gravel road on the outskirts of the small town of Keene Valley. More like a rustic country inn, the lodge had a rambling front porch and lots of additions jutting off the main building, like unplanned afterthoughts. We greeted a few fellow guests relaxing on the porch, boots off, feet up after a day of hiking, and entered the large meeting room. Our room key was waiting with a note instructing us to ring the bell to summon the proprietor. Within a few minutes, Julie, the owner, entered from the back of the building, welcomed us, did a health check, briefed us on safety protocols, breakfast logistics, property amenities, directions to the nearest grocery store and made a few suggestions for dining venues. It was already late afternoon and the grocery closed at 5pm, so we hustled our gear upstairs. We were in the Allen Room at the top of the main staircase, a generous sized bedroom with a large screened ‘sleeping’ porch and a compact but adequate bathroom complete with a claw foot bathtub. A plate of snickerdoodle cookies, hygienically sealed in plastic wrap, welcomed us on the bedside table. We quickly learned that cookies, home baked daily, were a signature amenity of the inn.
We drove to the small grocery in town for hiking snacks and after hiking beverages. It was an interesting shopping experience and clearly reinforced for us the seriousness with which the state of New York was taking the pandemic, even in its remote, rural regions. We were not allowed to enter the small grocery. Instead, we were handed a list outside, given a ‘clean’ pen and instructed to check off the items we wanted to purchase. An employee entered the store, picked and bagged our items, while we paid the cashier sitting outside at a makeshift checkout. Despite three people ahead of us, we drove away with everything we’d wanted twenty minutes later. Concerned that it might be crowded with only two open restaurants in town, we stopped at the AuSable Inn ‘downtown’ to make a 6pm dinner reservation on the outdoor veranda.
After unpacking and with plenty of time before dinner, we decided to explore as we leisurely walked back towards town. The gravel road from the inn paralleled the Keene Valley High School athletic field on the left and a natural area on the right. We opted to explore the nature area; the trail led to a large pond, the algae on top sparkling as it caught the sun’s rays, its still surface reflecting the images of the surrounding trees. Numerous other trails led off in multiple directions through the woods; we later learned that we could take a shortcut to reach the trailhead of a hike we wanted to do later in the week.
It was a twenty minute walk to town. We arrived at the AuSable Inn a few minutes late – our table was already set on the front patio facing the main street. We had a nice, quiet dinner – quiet being an understatement as we were only one of two sets of patrons in the restaurant. So much for the need for reservations! By the time we left, the streets were deserted. No fears about Covid contagion from crowds in Keene Valley.
The next morning, we breakfasted in the inn’s large wood paneled dining room; tables were socially distanced, breakfast times were staggered every 20 mins so as to only have two occupied tables at a time. We’d made our breakfast choices the evening before, so our juice and muffin were already on the table, wrapped in plastic. There was a self serve coffee and tea station and we were instructed to don disposable gloves to pour our brews. Our proprietor soon emerged carrying steaming plastic wrapped plates with our egg, meat, and bread choices (the kitchen was in another building so plastic wrap was not just a Covid precaution). It was delicious, safe and pleasant and we dined to a soothing selection of Frank Sinatra ballads. We also left with a plastic pack of the cookie of the day – oatmeal cranberry was today’s flavor!
Our destination this morning was the Owl Head Lookout and Giant Mountain trail near Elizabethtown, a 15 min drive from our inn. The morning was misty and overcast and as we found the trailhead parking, it began to pour. We love to hike, but must admit to being fair weather hikers so the idea of sloshing along a muddy trail in a downpour was not appealing. So we consulted our weather app and discovered that the rain would pass within the hour. We sat in the car, answering email and playing games on our phones and soon the rain stopped. By the time we’d donned our boots, organized our backpacks and headed down the trail, the sun was out, already drying the moist landscape.
The brief downpour had energized the many brooks in the area, setting them babbling over their rocky beds. We crossed multiple streams as we hiked, skipping across on small boulders so as to keep our feet dry!
The hike was perfect for my recovering hip, an elevated trail, not too rocky with a steady, but not overly steep incline. We reached the lookout at 3327 feet, a rocky outcrop with an amazing 360 degree view of the surrounding peaks and valleys. The sun was shining; the sky was blue with a scattering of puffy cumulus clouds.
This was a perfect place for a picnic – we’d ordered a pre-made lunch from our b&b that included sandwich, fruit, more cookies, chips, granola and water, so much food that we lunched on this over multiple days. We munched and enjoyed our own private spot a top the world, never seeing another person, forgetting the pandemic, the economic meltdown and all the other day to day worries we’d left behind.
As far as the eye could see, were ridge after ridge of mountains, some with rocky tops, many blanketed with a dense covering of dark green foliage. A hiker’s dream, one could spend a lifetime here climbing peaks and walking trails.
Of course, we built the customary rock tower to mark our arrival, luxuriating in the warm sun and cool breeze. All too soon, it was time to begin our descent.
We shouldered our packs and literally retraced our steps – this was an in and out trail, just under 5 miles in total. Not a bad distance for my first post- surgical hike and a great start to a week of amazing outdoor adventures!
