Renegade adventure: Crane Mountain

SummarySaturday 'climbing' trip during FLG '09
OwnerPetek Saracoglu
Creation Date2009-10-01 02:21:37 UTC-0400
DescriptionRenegade fluggers (or FLGers?): Andriana, Rachel, Deborah, Eric Gilbertson, Petek

It took us a while to get started Saturday morning, after having canoed up to the island at ~2 am the night before. People started gathering around 9-10 in the morning to figure out what they wanted to do that day. About 9 of us had brought various amounts of climbing gear and wanted to go climbing that day, especially since it was supposed to start raining that night and keep raining the next day. So we set off in 3 canoes to cross from the island to the shore of the lake, ready to conquer Crane Mountain (about a 45 min. drive from Lake George).

After about 40-45 minutes of paddling on what should have been a 30 minute trip to the landing, we became skeptical. We paddled up to shore and had a quick consultation with an old man on a golf course. We were indeed off track by about 1/2 a mile and would need to turn back. Hmm. Bollocks. Christine and I, who'd been serving as dead weights in our canoes, jumped off to walk to the landing, reducing the load of the paddlers. We took our packs and Eric Munsing's climbing gear, which was neatly packed into a deceivingly light-looking duffel bag. I strapped the bag onto my pack for ease of carrying, transferring some gear -some new draws and Eric's climbing shoes- from the duffel bag into my pack so the bag would fit on the outside.

Once regrouped at the landing, we reassessed the situation. As it turned out, not all of us were in fact ready to conquer Crane Mountain. Eric M., Bennett, Maia, and Christine decided to head to Buck Mountain instead of Crane in pursuit of harder climbs. The remaining group decided to keep to the original plan. 4 out of 5 of us had less climbing experience and were counting on Eric G. to set up top rope and lead, etc.

By now it was past 11 am, and we still needed to drive 45 minutes to the Crane trailhead, hike up about 1.5 miles, and find the crag. We were happy to be finally on the way, and everything seemed to be going according to plan when Rachel asked an important question:
"Umm..soo..shouldn't we have helmets for this climb?"
Right, we all agreed that might be good. We proceeded to take a detour to a town that was completely out of our way in search of extra helmets (we already had a couple). Having secured the future of our craniums, we got back on the road and followed the sketchy directions given by a climbing website to the trailhead. The guy who wrote the directions must have made up at least 2 of the roads, which threw us for a loop. We finally arrived at the crowded trailhead around 2 pm, and actually took the parking spot of some people who were done with their day. Nothing like an Alpine start.

As we were getting ready to haul ass up the mountain, I opened my pack to throw some food in and nearly had a heart attack. Shite. I'd forgotten to take out Eric M.'s climbing gear. I imagined him at Buck Mountain, trying to climb barefoot, trying to hack together some makeshift draws. I imagined him punching me in the face when I saw him back on the island that night. Trying not to imagine anything else, I got ready and we were finally off.

The hike up was enjoyable and we summited soon enough. It did take us a while to find a suitable crag - our original site looked hard to get to and we wanted to start climbing as soon as possible. Between the late morning start, canoe overshoot, split up of the two groups, helmet detour, getting lost on the way to the trailhead, hiking up Crane, and finding the crag...we'd lost some time. We started climbing at around 5:30 pm, which gave us about an hour of daylight. Deborah, Rachel, and Andriana were on TR doing a 5.7, while Eric G. lead a 5.8 (he lead a 5.8, I cheated and followed the 5.7 version). It got dark and windy about halfway up my climb, and I was cursing myself for leaving my headlamp in my pack. We quickly finished, cleaned out the gear, and sped back down the trail to the car. We got back to the trailhead at ~9:45 pm, beating the rain by about 5 minutes.

Here you might be thinking: phew, happy ending. maybe this trip report will end now.
Not yet..
Back in the car we turned on our phones to contact people on the island, fully aware that by now we must have missed the 6 pm bbq dinner (we had started climbing at 5:30) and the long anticipated square dance. We had numerous messages that had been sent over the last several hours in hopes of contacting us. The messages warned us not to canoe back to the island because the water was too choppy with the rain and wind. Michelle told us that they'd try to stall the last powerboat and try to have it wait for us at the landing (the boat was making one last trip to the landing to drop off the square dance band). Unfortunately, there was no sign of a powerboat when we got back to the landing a little past 10:30 pm. Apparently it had returned to the island a while before we got back. So the five of us were sitting in Rachel's car, contemplating our options. It was pouring rain outside, and we couldn't have canoed to the island (where our tents were) even if we wanted to. The lights set up to guide canoers to the island were turned off. Trying to find the island would have been like stepping into a dark room and trying to get a bulls eye on a dartboard that you know is in the room somewhere but you don't know where. Even then, I'm guessing Eric G. secretly wanted to try, but there was luckily a much better option. We decided to spend the night at my house, which is about 40 miles from Lake George. That suited me just fine, since I got to stay dry and warm, while significantly reducing my chances of getting strangled in the night by Eric M. for taking his climbing gear. To be fair, the first thing he did when he saw me the next day was give me a hug and let me know he wasn't mad. At least, on the outside.

And that's that. We met up with everyone at the landing the next morning, after having a delectable breakfast cooked by my mom. There's the happy ending you've been anticipating...for the last...hour...or..zzz..

-Petek