1mlost: to Mount Marcy part one

It's good to have maps laying around your house. Taking up space. Getting in the way. Go to your local AAA and tell them you're a member. Help yourself to a free roadmap of every state in the US. Thank them on the way out the door. You just robbed a bank. That's how this trip started: An old restless AAA map of New York hanging around the garage with nowhere to be. Open that thing up. Pick somewhere to go. Make sure it's not too important or significant, and it has to be at least 300 miles from where you live. I'm going to the top of Mount Marcy. The mountain has been nagging me ever since I learned there is a place called "The Eastern High Peaks Region." The folks I usually hike with, the razzly ones, shy away from high peaks. I'd have to go alone, and it's alright. The nerve for solo backcountry travel is easily gained with a drink or two of rye whisky. The recipe for this particular taste will be 700 miles on the bike, 2 nights in the backcountry, a healthy hike up a mountain, and hopefully a brookie or two.

I love packing for this kind of trip and it starts a few days out. I need time to remember all the things I'm forgetting. Backpacking and motorcycle touring don't have a lot of gear overlap. The lightweight gear of backpacking is quickly shredded by pavement at speed. Likewise, you can't get very far wearing a heavy 1000D Cordura, gore-tex suit in the backcountry. I'll need two sets of boots, rain-gear, and gloves. It's ok. Buying new gear is almost as fun as wrecking it. A quick call to the local ranger informs me that I'll need to purchase a "bear-proof canister” for this area. Anyone who tells you that camping is free and cheap has never spent $80 plus shipping on a plastic bear proof canister.

Motorcycle travel is a funny proposition and it provides stupid satisfaction. After my 350 mile ride, I'll need to make sure all my riding gear fits in my panniers when I walk away from the bike. Motorcycle gear is the most expensive kind and you can't get very far without it. Should your helmet take a walk while you are bounding up a mountain, it'll be a windy ride home. Hiking boots will come out of side cases, motorcycle boots will go in. Backpack comes off. One piece armored suit is rolled and stored in the top case.

It all just barely fits.

Find a route to travel. Modern convenience can really throw a twist in route planning. The prospect of having every single map of the world in your pocket is attractive. The main shortcoming of an electronic map is the lack of "long view." What you really want is a map that allows you to see all the necessary details of a day's travel at the same time. A paper map can do that and requires no higher level thinking or imagination. I here. Me go there. Pick a state route with a good number and see how long you can follow it. Looks like I can take Rt. 30 for a good 270 miles. It begins in the northern Catskills and goes the whole way up to the Eastern High Peaks.

Be sure to kiss your wife and baby the night before. If you really want to have a good start, you need to be whistling down a backroad when first light breaks. These things are earned. You've got to have the gumption to program your coffee maker so it turns on before you tip-toe out of bed. On comes the gear until you have the feeling you're getting your teeth x-rayed. Inertia can sometimes mean standing still so RIDE. Go now.

In the dark, on my home roads, I go downhill. A sweeping left into the woods. A quick flick right, left, right, then up and over a hill into a blind right hander. Tires warming up. Two miles north and I'm already out of the county and into a place called Forestburgh. This section of NY 42 must have been designed by someone with a fast car. The curves and banking only make sense above 80 MPH. I'm grateful. Suddenly sunrise, so short and fleeting. The world glows for just a few brief moments.

I hop on the highway. I have it to myself. Highway, undeservedly unromaticized among motoheads. The majesty of these huge, perfect slabs of concrete, marvels of modern construction, tearing through the landscape with visiblity for two miles. The canyon of the Beaverkill quickly rises around me. I gas up in Roscoe, NY, Trout Town, U.S.A. Point north up 206 and find my Rt. 30 in a place called Cat Hollow. She's ready to go. Route 30 on the south side of Pepacton Reservoir flows like no other road I know. Quartermile sweeping turns on perfect asphalt through beautiful scenery observed only if you dare look away from the edge of a blind corner.

Heading ever North, I pass a sign for the memorial of "nature philosopher" John Burroughs. I know nothing of Burroughs, other than he used to sleep under a rock on top of Mount Wittenberg in the Catskills. There is a plaque at this location to commemorate where he took his rest. If you've been to the top of Wittenberg on a clear day, then you can understand the man, and you too might stop at his hilltop memorial. The place looks like a natural wonder but was planned and executed in John Burroughs lifetime and was even funded by the Henry Ford. A rock overlooks a beautiful pasture surrounded by the north Catskill mountains. A simple garden marked with sticks and wild plants sits a top the grave of John Burroughs. Sitting on his boyhood rock, I'm treated to a bucolic scene. Having paid my respects, I had nothing more to fear on this trip. I would be taken care of.

"The lure of the distant and the difficult is deceptive."
-John Burroughs