and back to me...

The Hudson River reaches far to the north into the Adriondack Park. The source, cartographically, is Henderson Lake. The lake is named for David Henderson who found it when following a Native American in search of iron deposits. Adirondac Village, or Upper Works, was hereby founded.

This, Upper Works, was the parking lot from which we set off for the Flowed Lands. We followed Calamity Brook. This was also named for Henderson, but in this case it was for his unfortunate demise caused by the accidental discharge of his pistol. A monument honoring his memory is found along the way.

At the Flowed Lands, in the dark, we set up in one of the many lean-to's available. Nearby was an opening above the reservior. Once again, the pursuit of iron shaped the land. A dam was made to redirect water toward blast furnaces. As a result, we were standing overlooking the resulting Flowed Lands reservior.

In the background loomed Mount Colden. Up until this point, we hadn't much of a goal beside making it up to Lake Colden (which lies beside the Flowed Lands). A mountain was on the table, and seeing the top of Mount Colden poking in and out from behind the clouds, we decided that was the one.

We departed in the morning. It wasn't long until we arrived at a steep climb of sheer rock, wet but not slick. From the top, we saw where we started both this morning and the day before. In the other direction lie Mount Marcy, the tallest point in New York.

At the turn of the century, in the early 1900s, President McKinley was shot by anarchist Leon Czolgosz. The Vice President at the time was Theodore Roosevelt. After McKinley stabilized, Roosevelt was encouraged to leave the President's side to reassure the public. He traveled to the Tahawus Club located near the Upper Works.

Us, having acheieved the top of Mount Colden in reasonable time, decided to loop around the back via Lake Arnold, bringing us between Mount Marcy and Colden. The water from Lake Arnold flows north to Marcy Brook, continuing until it joins the Ausable River, who feeds into Lake Champlain where the water eventually exits to the ocean via the Saint Lawrence River. We traveled the other direction, south.

Lake Arnold was our brief foray into the Saint Lawrence Watershed. Going south over a notch between Colden and Marcy, we returned to the Hudson River Watershed. The water which falls in this area will join us in our evetual return toward NYC. This was the roughest part of the hike. Tired from the climb, we were met with a poorly maintained plank walk over water pooling from the mountains beside us.

Here came down the Opalescent River, the longest source of the Hudson River. Where the Feldspar Brook and Opalescent join, our path met that of Roosevelt's a century earlier. Roosevelt had set out and climbed Marcy from the Tahawus Club. He was resting at Lake Tear of the Clouds (the highest source of the Hudson river). It was at this small lake that a messenger told Roosevelt that McKinley had turned for the worse.

Roosevelt hiked down Feldspar Brook, to follow the Opalescent River, and then Calamity Brook back to Tahawus. He then took a midnight stagecoach ride to North Creek so that he could board a train to Buffalo and assume the office of the President. We were in no such rush, so we enjoyed a night of rest back at our lean-to.

The next day we packed up, got to the car, and headed home, stopping for a meal in Lake George. But there was something else of note. As I was looking into the sky the second night, I noticed a small light moving. Then another close behind it. And another. And another. There were thirty or so lights traversing the sky very near one another. Very weird.

Turns out it was Starlink satellites. Meh.