Despite fighting off a nasty cold, Steve and I drove down to the Adirondacks for the Thanksgiving long weekend. We stayed at a state campground just outside of Lake Placid, NY at the base of Whiteface Mountain. Saturday I was still feeling a bit weak from the cold, so I decided to forgo the mountain biking. Instead, Steve and I took Gary and Drew to Chapel Pond to climb the 700′ 5.5 slab route called the Empress. It had been about 8 years since Steve or I had climbed here, it was Gary’s first time multi-pitch climbing and Drew’s first time ever!

It took us most of the day to climb the route and then make our way down. Gary and Drew did amazing and I would happily take either of them up big routes again. We had a late dinner at a pizza joint in Lake Placid and then retired to beer around the campfire.

Sunday I was still a bit weak, but I wasn’t going to miss out on the biking again. We drove into Lake Placid and rode out from the bike shop to Cobble Hill. The biking quickly turned into climbing with our bikes over our shoulders as we scrambled to the summit. We then raced down the switch-back trails on the back side dodging rocks and drop-offs. Across the highway we found some winding, rooty, rocky, technical trails and the others proceeded to kick the crap out of me. Luckily we all had beer on the brain and before long we were sitting on the patio of the local brew pub in Lake Placid sampling their finest brews by the pitcher.

As the sun set, we headed back to camp for showers, a few more beer and a rest before dinner. Then at 8:30, we returned to the brew pub to make sure we didn’t miss any of their beers and to feast on their racks of ribs. Eventually we found ourselves back around the campfire and drinking until we fell asleep in our chairs or crawled off to our tents, but not before making beer bottle art for Juliette.

I wasn’t in much of a picture taking mood this weekend, but I did manage to snap off a couple of dozen which I have uploaded to the photo albums. Cam also took digital pictures, so hopefully I can add his to the albums once he forwards them.