Thoughts From an Ice Climbing Trip...

Yesterday, a group of Hamilton Outing Club members went on an adventure to the Central Adirondacks for a day of ice climbing.  While we were climbing, I realized that I had rarely, if ever, seen other climbers at this particular climbing area, even though I climb there just about every weekend.  Although the area boast a short, easy hike in and a decent selection of fun climbs.  This climbing area never seems to attract the same crowds that the areas in Keene Valley and Lake Placid do.
If you read a history of ice climbing in the Adirondacks, you'll learn about Jim Goodwin's early ascents of Gothics, Colden's Trap Dike, and the Chapel Pond Slabs, Yvon Couinard introducing Adirondack climbers (and the rest of the world) to new crampon and ice tool technology that allowed him to climb things previously thought to be impossible, and all of the hard climbs that were done at Chapel Pond, the Cascade Lakes, and Poke-O-Moonshine Mountain in the last few decades.  But there's one thing all these climbs have in common- they are all in or near the High Peaks Region.  Of the 180+ pages in Don Mellor's Adirondack ice climbing guide book, Blue Lines, only 12 are devoted to areas no in either the Keene, Lake Placid, or Lake Champlain regions.  Since the book was published, there have been many developments in climbing areas in the Central and Southern Adirondacks, however, there is still a clear difference between a climbing or hiking trip to the High Peaks and one just about anywhere else, namely the amount of other people you encounter that are also climbing or hiking.
While the Adirondacks aren't nearly as crowded as any national park, it isn't uncommon for the trail of Cascade and Porter Mountains to become a human foot traffic highway in the summer, with a line of cars stretching half a mile down Route 73.  Bill McKibben's comment in Wandering Home about the hundreds of hikers that can routinely be found on the summit of Mount Marcy on a beautiful summer weekend, while not a single person in on a nearby mountain lower than 4000' in elevation, is unfortunately true.  Although I enjoy regularly having a climbing area to myself, the reason I do is because everyone else in up in the High Peaks.  The concentration of outdoor enthusiasts in the High Peaks region likely has implications beyond having to wait in line for a climb, and raises the question of the impact that people have, not only on the land and its ecosystems, but on the surrounding communities and their economies.

Texts:
Blue Lines: An Adirondack Ice Climber's Guide - Don Mellor
Wandering Home - Bill McKibbon