Savich Trek: SADDLEBACK & BASIN PEAKS-THE WET HIKE!

My friends and I were far over due for a hike together so we decided to take a two-day trip in May 2009. The hikers were: Andrey M., Andrey T., and Andy L. It was the beginning of May to be more accurate and there was plenty of spring rain in the forecast. However, the forecast for the weekend was fairly good with only a 30% chance of rain in the high peaks. We drove into the town of Keene Valley at around 8 am. After a good breakfast of some homemade scrambled eggs, hash browns, and muffin, washed down with a couple cups of coffee, we were ready to hike. In retrospect, it was a pretty heavy meal to have before a hike.

We stopped by the Keene Valley Outpost to rent some bear canisters for store our food. It's mandatory in the high peaks region to store all food in canisters to prevent the bears from breaking into the hikers food bags that were suspended in trees.

We parked in the Garden Parking Lot off John Brooks Lane. Our destination was the Ore Bed Brook lean-to, a little over 4 miles from the parking lot. The recent rains, made the trail muddy and slippery and the hike in was at a slower pace then anticipated. The gradient had plenty of small hills and it began to take a toll on my knees and quads. About 2 hrs into the hike I began to cramp up and short breaks were necessary to relieve the pain. After a 3 hr hike, we made it to the lean-to.

Since the start of the hike, we were rain-free but the sky was heavily overcast. After a quick lunch at the lean-to we decided to continue hiking to Saddleback Mountain. The trail winded along for 1.8 miles with a moderate gradient to the col between Gothics and Saddleback. From the col, there was a steep gradient of 0.5 miles to the summit of Saddleback. Sometime during this portion of the hike, the weather became unfavorable with a gently drizzle. At the summit we had no visibility due to heavy cloud cover. We attempted a few summit pictures but it was fairly windy with a pretty constant rain drizzle. Even with the summit photos, it would be difficult to prove that it was the Saddleback Summit.

Although we were getting cold we were still dry, so we decided to continue hiking to Basin. It was only one mile between the two summits, but little did we know what awaited us. The col between the peaks is very steep. At certain points it was a nervous decent because it was steep and slippery. The ascent wasn't any better. At one point we had to use a rope to help each other get up the steep trail. At this point we were getting wet because there was more climbing on the wet rock then actually hiking. After a painfully slow ascent we made it to the summit.

After a couple summit photos we began the descent back to our lean-to via the Slant Rock Trail. The distance was 5.5 miles. The drizzle had turned into a steady rain and there was not sign of it getting better. After a short while it turned into a heavy downpour. It was a very long, wet, and cold trek back to the lean-to. We tested all of our waterproof outwear and shoes and everything miserably failed. Andrey T. and Andy L. were leading the hike with Andrey M. and myself trailing behind. After 3 hours of walking in the rain both of us began to feel colder and colder. In retrospect we probably had some early signs of hypothermia. At this point we were very exhausted and experienced what it means to be so tired that your feet are dragging and you literally don't care where you step as long as you put one foot in front of the other.

We made it back to the lean-to after hiking roughly 4.5 hrs in the rain. It was pitch black in the heart of the ADK high peaks and all we cared for was dry clothing and warm food. We kept our Bunsen burner portable hiking stoves burning all night to dry our hiking boots. It was also inevitable that we should head home the next day due to the unfavorable weather. We also didn't have enough clothing to stay dry should we get wet again the following day.