The Crazy Eight Solstice Hike (aka The Great Range Traverse)

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Marcy's Morning Glow

Markus at sunrise

5:13 AM (km 11.6)

Now that we'd reached treeline at sunrise, we didn't have to kill ourselves so much. We stopped and tooks lots and lots of pictures - it was so neat being so high up on a major Adirondack peak at sunrise. We were on the boundary, weather-wise, between clear skies to the north and some gloomy-looking overcast to the south. And being at the transition point gave us a very interesting and dramatic set of views. Wind was blowing briskly and the temperature was not much over the freezing mark, and we all put on windgear (except for Pu, who had elected not to bring any).

Haystack Mountain

The MacIntyres from Marcy

Lake Placid under cotton

Nearing Marcy's summit

5:41 AM (km 12.4)

We arrived at Marcy's summit at 5:41 am. Not a soul in sight except for us - so nice on a good-weather weekend day, but all owing to the early hour.

I'd only ever been on Marcy once before, in 1994, and then, the weather was completely socked in. So this was actually my first ever summit of Marcy where I could look at the scenery. And Marcy really is quite a nice summit. It's central location in the high peaks gives it excellent views in all directions, especially towards Haystack and the Great Range. Haystack looks awesome from Marcy. A nice, rugged, open-topped alpine peak (the picture with the caption Haystack Mountain).

We were (or at least I was) quite pleased with how fast we'd gotten up here. From trailhead to summit, including all breaks, we took 3 hours and 51 minutes to travel 12.4 kilometres from South Meadows. That's pretty fast, even by the standards of fast hikers! Good job, guys!

We spent a only a few minutes on the summit taking Dare cookie photos and admiring the view, but we had to get moving soon. We had a tough trail ahead of us still and seven! peaks left to climb. So, by 5:50 am, we were on our way back down Marcy, heading for our next stop: Haystack Mountain!