People go missing in the Adirondacks – the largest nature preserve in the United States, dwarfing whatever national parks you can namedrop, with a small permanent population, it’s easy to see why.
There’s no mystery to the slow disappearance of EMS, however. Once a regional giant with some of the most cutting-edge gear out there, it’s been ate up and human centipeded by a line of private investment vultures into a husk of what it once was. The post-COVID conditions for the outdoor industry have been rough enough, and I don’t know if EMS’ continued existence is more of a miracle or punishment for them. We found ourselves in one of their remaining living tombs in Lake Placid, filled with clearance tags and occasional gems. A harsh fluorescent light shone a spotlight on how devoid of life the store was. Their loss was our gain – originally we had planned for Alex and Stilly to rent snowshoes, but at fifty bucks a pair for white labels, they ponied up and got a pair each. We ran around like grave robbers. Eclectic pieces of discontinued kit littered their shelves, gathering dust quicker than they gathered serious interest.
My thoughts went to the night before. We were at the bar in Tupper Lake, and had struck up conversation with two guys roughly our age. They were loosely in the outdoor industry as well, doing seasonal guide jobs and the like. We had mentioned we all worked for REI, and Alex specifically was a bike and ski tech. The louder of the two remarked “what did training for that look like, watching a couple of youtube videos?” Stilly was too focused on his beer to notice the remark, but Alex and I both had to self-censor and politely move on. This wasn’t our home, we weren’t going to start shit in it. She’s a damn good tech and was a damn good deal stronger than the guy, I hope he appreciated her restraint. While the nearest REI was a good four hours away, I could tell it struck a certain insecure chord in them. Same thing when we mentioned our employment in EMS – we tried to relate with our own concerns on the state of internal affairs, but instead of lashing out with an insult, they just replied “yeah, our website hasn’t been operational in a year.” Not sure where I’m going with that, but I’m keeping it in. Feels relevant.
We headed towards Mount Arab – a relatively short, albeit steep, hike to a fire tower. It was everyone’s first time snowshoeing, but I thought it would be a good test to see if the gang could take on a 46er later in the week. We didn’t take on a 46er later in the week. As we packed up in what we assumed was the parking lot for the trailhead, my Peak capture clip broke on me, so I threw my camera into the mesh backing of my backpack. Simple twists of fate. We strapped ourselves into snowshoes and I led the initial push. That was, until I found myself continually stopping for them to catch up.
First rule for hiking in a group is to let the slowest lead, and I had already broken that rule. I course-corrected quickly, putting myself in the back. We trudged up slowly, more slowly than I had anticipated. In retrospect, I should’ve absolutely chosen a more kindly graded trail. A trail that steep would be a bit of an ass kicker in normal circumstances, but you factor in snowshoeing for the first time and it being 10 degrees out? I’d been informed a bit by hubris and just thinking about what I could do.
We stopped for water. The silence of the snow had taken a victim – my camera. I went to grab it from my outer pocket, and nothing. I had seated it deeply, and I would’ve felt the weight lighten or it graze the back of my heels if it had fallen out. Strange things afoot. We continued up a bit further, but got to a point where dusk seemed to be more imminent than us summiting, and we decided to descend back towards the car, keeping our eyes peeled for the camera. We got back to the car, empty handed. Stilly encouraged us to ditch some of our gear and go back up a little ways in just microspikes to look for it. I begrudgingly agreed, this time running ahead in the hopes of a quick retrieval. I got out of eyesight from them and stopped. This was stupid.
I’d read the horror stories of disappearances under easier circumstances. I knew better. Was I being dramatic, am I being dramatic? Sure, but a voice untethered to mine entered my mind. “This isn’t worth it. Just go back.” That voice wrangled with my own selfish thought that maybe, just a few feet ahead of me, was my camera sitting beautifully gift wrapped and unharmed waiting for me. Maybe it was. All I knew was we hadn’t seen any trace of it coming down, the light was only getting worse, I couldn’t see them anymore, I had insurance, and the circumstances of my camera going missing didn’t feel totally natural. It couldn’t have just jumped out of my pack. While realistically I could’ve gotten away with a few minutes more of searching, why? I headed back down, just saying “this isn’t worth it.” Alex would later tell me I shouldn’t feel guilty that we went back up, but I couldn’t help it. I can’t help it, even if I get her point. She’s right – they wanted to help, and nothing bad happened. Still, it was getting dark and I’m bad at accepting help. Ultimately, it was my fault for being careless and I’m happy to be the only one affected by my own dumbassery. As I write this, I have my replacement camera in my pack anyway, it’s why it’s good to buy secondhand, smartly, and to have insurance I suppose. I can’t shake the feeling, though, under normal circumstances that camera would have never jumped out of my pack in the first place.
In the first installment of this North Country series, I talked about John’s story of how one of his friends had gone missing. He told us this story the night after this had happened, and I felt somewhat vindicated at being upset with myself for my risk assessment. At the same time, they made their own decisions, I didn’t make it for them, and we all ended up fine, and probably would have been fine. Things to ponder on.
One of our favorite nightly activities was going out to stand on the lake our cabin faced. For three tidewater originals, the idea of standing in the middle of a frozen lake was worth the price of admission. On our last night, Alex had gone back in already but Stilly and I stayed out when a moving light caught our eyes. It was too fast and erratic to be a person, too restrained and low to be a drone, certainly wasn’t a car or a light swaying in the wind. It changed hues slowly, and we were transfixed on the sight for a good ten to twenty minutes. We both felt the independent urge to walk across the lake towards it, a siren call to our senses of curiosity. Cooler heads prevailed, and went back in, trying to make sense of what we had seen. Our only, very logical, explanation was that it was a will o’ wisp. A spirit commonly seen in boggy areas, like where we were at, that lures folks to a treacherous fate. I tend to be the more skeptical one, but I don’t have a good explanation other than that.
This is all to say, a certain shroud of mystery hangs heavy over the North Country. Appalachia has its own mystery and supernatural elements we were accustomed to, but this felt different, more active in a way. The ancient nature of Appalachia makes it so there’s a knowledge of what’s going on, an unspoken code of what to do and not do. In the North Country, you have ancient rock creating juvenile mountains. A different flavor.
Anybody who’s spent a good time in the backcountry of the United States I think has experienced things they quite can’t explain and don’t care to figure out an explanation. Maybe it’s all just private equity. Ever ghoul, goblin, ghost, just a Scooby Dooby scheme. Wouldn’t that be easy? But it’s not all bad.
I think of George Harrison’s My Sweet Lord. I think about it a lot. Not all supernatural elements are bad. Just as I was tempted forward, alone into the darkening cold, I was also called back. Just as the will o’ wisp or trick of the light or whatever tempted us across the precariously iced over lake, we also found ourselves drawn back inside, away from potential icy depths.
Everywhere we went in the North Country, we experienced kindness. From rambling conspiracy theorists, to strippers (more on that later), to yuppie NYCers, to ourselves, there was a selfless kindness. As upset with myself as I was that we even whiffed going up that mountain again, I’m deeply appreciative to have friends who I know would’ve done that one hundred times over without me ever asking, just to help me fix a stupid mistake. I’ve spent a long time wanting to see the Lord, whomever and whatever that may be. Venturing out is venturing for God. I’m not religious, nominally at least, but remove the artifice of normality and look out at the world around you with fresh eyes and tell me there isn’t something more. Something better we strive for in our own ways. We can all bring the Lord to others. We can all be kind, think outside of ourselves.
This has been… incoherent, but it’s my blog. I’d like to think this all makes sense in its own odd way though I’m doubtlessly wrong. There’s a lot of weirdness out there, face it. There’s a lot of kindness out there, embrace it, embody it. Love, kindness, joy is a supernatural occurrence. The trip to the North Country was filled with the supernatural. Appearances and disappearances, for better and for stranger.