New Year's Eve on Crane Mountain

I have a quasi-tradition of camping on top of Crane Mountain every New Year's Eve. I say 'quasi-', because doing it hasn't been plausible every year, and some years the motivation isn't there to accomplish the feat. With 2007 drawing to a close, the weather looked promising, my schedule was open, and I was healthy enough to try the task. I packed up a hefty overnight backpack and left my house a tad before 1pm on the last day of 2007. My dog would follow me if he had half a chance, and since he is getting quite old, I didn't want him suffering through the night. So I drove the old car up Sky High Road as far as it would go - only a quarter mile - and my daughter drove it back home while I loaded up and began traipsing toward the trailhead.

The afternoon was a mix of sun and scudding clouds with occasional whippets of fine snow dashing around me as I trudged up the road. At the trailhead, I met my neighbor's dog, in training as she bounded about looking for snowshoe hare. It was obvious someone else had driven into the parking area, as I walked in their tire tracks. Sure enough, a Bronco sat there with snowshoe prints leading up the mountain. According to the register, two people were heading to the pond, so the trail was broken for the first, steep mile. I didn't stop to put my own snowshoes on as it didn't seem necessary. I wasn't post-holing at all through the firm pack left by last week's icy mix, only scuffing the three inches of fluff on top of it.

I plodded my way up the trail in complete sunshine; enjoying the view frequently - or perhaps just stopping to rest a lot. My pack wasn't the heaviest I've ever carried before, but any encumbrance is accentuated when one is puffing his way up the Crane Mountain trail. Still, it was a beautiful afternoon to be here.

At the slab above the viewpoint, an ice glaze coated all the branches. Below this point, I had noticed a bit of glazing, but from here onward it was unmistakable, and as I approached the summit the coating thickened. I was advancing into a world of crystalline trees and frost-robed boulders. The surroundings became surreal, a polar/boreal version of Lennon's "tangerine trees and marmalade skies". Branches tinkled like chimes in the breeze; the trees crackled and clattered as their ice-clad trunks swayed to each occasional gust of wind.

The final ladder was almost buried in a thick crust of ice and snow. I climbed up to the top, where I had to step left to regain the trail, but an inch of ice coated the ground. With my pack and hiking poles, the maneuver was too dicey. I thought perhaps we should settle on a place to camp below so we wouldn't have to carry loads up, so I left the pack on top of the ladder, stuck the poles in the snow and, carving footholds wherever there was a patch of snow to my left, I made it up to easy ground.

The wind was bitter cold on the summit, and the trees, now weighed down by a solid inch of ice, nodded back and forth like drunken trolls, shaggy-hard ice-armored limbs bent and stiffened by their loads. It was cool…it was also doggone cold. Taking pictures, my right hand was raw biting cold in seconds. I wondered whether I could stand a night out in these conditions! Fortunately, as the sun sank low, the wind diminished, a cloudy haze spread overhead, and the temperature rose a bit. I wandered into the woods and began scrounging firewood for the night's watch fire.

Farther in the woods, the ice glaze was thinner, and only coated the south side of the trunks. Dead saplings were easy enough to gather, but dragging them out past the glass curtain of branches on the verge of open rock was almost impossible at times. Once I managed to get to the open rock, I had to be careful: it was a skating rink with a sixty-foot drop on one side.

After collecting enough wood for a good-sized fire, I went back to sort out sleeping arrangements. Neatly tucked in between the nose and the summit is a sheltered notch with a flat area underneath a balsam tree. It was big enough for my tent and a shelter for George - if he arrived. I laid a log across two trees, cleared the snow beneath it, and laid dead saplings on one side to form a makeshift lean-to. I added branches to the 'roof' and threw snow on it to make a windbreak. This was harder work than I expected and digging snow chilled my hands despite good gloves.

As I wandered deeper into the woods for legal building material, flashes of light caught my attention. Thunderous booms followed: I was indirectly enjoying the Gore Mountain fireworks display far to the north. It must have been quite a sensation for their visitors, as it made an impression on me, over ten miles away.

By now it was dark and I had no idea what time it was or if George was going to manage the icy ladder climb. I was prematurely pessimistic though; true to his word, George clambered up and shouted for me shortly after nightfall forced headlamps into use. We met, discussed the schedule while I cooked dinner; finished the shelter, and then checked the time. It was a tad after eight o'clock; we had almost four hours to kill before the magic moment. We could sleep for three hours - not a bad idea considering we wouldn't get much sleep once we started the fire. But I have a really hard time getting up after a snooze like that; and George doesn't really sleep much at all. We decided to spend the interim collecting more firewood so we could have enough to start the fire early.

It was fun wandering in the dark, dragging saplings around through the dense thickets; but it was also strenuous. An hour into the task, I felt exhausted, and knew I would pay for the decision in the morning. We were committed to this course of action though so we stuck to it; and the activity kept us warm while we awaited midnight.

As the eleventh hour arrived, I wandered one last time to Crane's summit and carefully stood over the survey marker, looking down at the house lights along Garnet Lake Road. The sky had cleared magnificently, the air was almost still. It was a glorious place to end the old year. Turning back toward the Nose, I dug up one last dead sapling and dragged it to our pile.

Starting the fire proved more difficult than we had thought it would be: even the birch bark tinder was so icy it wouldn't ignite. After a prolonged struggle scrounging more birch bark and carefully sorting unglazed twigs, we managed a real fire, just in time for the signals from the valley that midnight had arrived. As the New Year blew in on a cold, stiff breeze, our watch fire sprang to life. We gazed at the lights below: our church, its surrounding neighbors, and past the dark, sparsely-populated hollow where Patterson Brook tumbles down away from the hills, the lights of Warrensburg glittered. Our fire grew and the fitful wind blew its sparks harmlessly outward and down into a crystallized forest. We fed it with dead balsam, spruce, and some explosive contraband for kicks; the latter too weak to draw anyone's notice but our own. Miles and wind scattered the blasts across the night, unheard by anyone else.

As the fire subsided, the wind rose, and we shuffled closer to the flames, wincing when a stray explosive hissed and then banged us out of our reverie. Finally the last stray boom rang out and careful inspection of the waning coals assured us there were no more. We smothered the remaining flames with snow and headed back to our camp, but first I made the short traverse back to the summit rock for a first look at the same scene I had looked at last year, a short hour earlier. It's small bragging rights, but I was the last person on Crane's summit in 2007, and the first person to stand there in 2008.