Ambivalent One: New boots.

I bought some new hiking boots so I figured that the best way to break them in would be hiking up a mountain in the Adirondacks. As luck would have it some co workers were planning a hike and invited me along... Well... truth is that I bought the boots after having been invited.

I was invited along on a hike up Lower and possibly Upper Wolfjaw in the Adirondacks of New York on the weekend of the twenty fourth of September. We started the hike at nine after we were forced to change to plan B due to lack of parking at the trail head we originally planned to start on. So we started at the base of Roostercomb and would work our way over to Lower Wolfjaw.

About twenty minutes in to the hike my heel hurt. A combination of new boots and not having tied them tightly enough had caused a blister. So Brian breaks out the first aid kit, swabbed it with liquid fire, put on a heel bandaid (TM), tied the boots on tighter and then I ignored it for the next nine and a half hours.

I have a link at the end of this post to the photos of the hike along the way. I'm not going to give you a play by play. Here are some highlights for your eyes.

We got to the peak around one in the afternoon. After all the work getting up there the only thing I could think about was eating lunch. So I had two Jamaican patties, some tropical trail mix and dried apricots washed down with some delicious berry Gatorade. Then I took this photo.

Some people we met at the summit took this one of our group.

Then we headed down.

Heading down was more of a controlled fall really. I also discovered that my new boots still had more tricks to play on me as my big toes pressed in to the front of the boot causing more blisters which I ignored.

We got back to the head of the trail at around seven if I remember correctly. Brian mixed up this vitamin/protein/bull testosterone drink which is supposed to stop the hurting you feel the day after pushing your muscles too far. I must say it helped a lot. The only part of me that ended up sore was where my backpack straps came across my shoulders. Unfortunately the unholy drink had no impact on the healing process of my heel. I present to you the result of ignoring a blister for nine plus hours.

After we got back to the lodge and cleaned ourselves up we went down the road and had one of the best steaks I've had in years with a great red wine. Did we ever deserve it! This weekend was seriously amazing and I'm happy I got to go along and hope to go again if the opportunity arises!

If you click on the mosaic below it will take you to the full Flickr set for all the photos we took that day. The set is a conglomeration of all the photos taken by all of us.