Warm weather, 72 Fahrenheit at our house, was followed by a couple inches of rain. Then it cooled. The unseasonable weather created a veneer of hard crust and depleted the snowpack by roughly two feet. The conditions were ideal for a visit to the gorge. Veteran Alan Wechsler was on board to go hunt some ice. We watched the forecast during the week preceding March 10; predicted temperatures for the weekend dropped daily and, with wind-chill, settled at about -40 at the elevation where the climbs are located. We moved the climb to Friday so we’d be racing the oncoming cold weather. There always seems to be a caveat. At least we wouldn’t find the route melting out from under us from the heat like several weeks before when we were on Mt. Marcy’s slabs! Alan spent the night at my house. We awoke at 3:15 a.m. and were walking an hour later. I contemplated crossing Johns Brook at Bushnell Falls while my body plodded on; something I was concerned about much of the week. Had it refrozen after being open earlier in the week? I didn’t feel on top of my game for various reasons preceding the hike, but that’s how it rolls sometimes—you push through and pray for the best. Alan began fighting a large blister about 20 minutes’ walk from the trailhead. Would we even make it as far as the crossing? So many things were amiss that I wondered if the day wasn’t meant to be. Alan tried a variety of blister remedies before a 3 inch square of mole-skin did the trick. We later found the crossing at the falls was well frozen—I’d worried about nothing again. Persistence and a rock-hard trail eventually got us to the jump-off point for the bushwhack. The snowpack was two feet lower than in February and a bullet crust enabled us to walk down the center of the drainage without snowshoes, a narrow sloped glen that descended into an arena of possibilities. It was time to explore. READ MORE: Text/Video/Photos here - http://www.adkhighpeaks.com/forums/forum/adirondack-slides/slide-climbi…