Super Marcy

A graduate of Hamilton was visiting this weekend, and she told me about a trip she led as a camp counselor this summer in the Adirondacks that reminded me a lot of Wandering Home. She "Super Marcy," which is a hike from Long Pond in Willsboro, NY, to the peak of Marcy. The hike is 76 miles and takes about 5 days. One of the reasons the camp organizes the hike is because it's the way hiking was traditionally done. 

Let me explain. Now, when we want to hike a mountain, we drive up to the bottom, park, get out, and hike it. This was not always the case. One used to have to hike many days before even attempting a mountain. We still see this occur in particularly remote places (think: Everest, the middle of nowhere Alaska, etc.), but, for the most part, you can get A LOT closer to the peak you want to conquer. And this has definitely changed hiking. People do not cover as much land on foot anymore, which is something we saw in Wandering Home.

This trip is an important tradition because it connects the campers to the land in a way they might not feel if they just drove into the High Peaks area. They are given the opportunity that McKibben had to see how the land changes. They saw Marcy grow closer and closer until they were at the top looking down (at where they had come from). It sounded like a really amazing and challenging trip.

Also, fun fact: some of the roads they followed were the same ones Bill McKibben named in his book.