The high peaks range of the Adirondacks in New York feels like the big country of the western Rockies. Yeah they are not as high, but they start at a much lower altitude, get above the tree line, and get that rugged, unpredictable weather of the big mountain ranges. The park is the largest in the contiguous United States. There are high mountains, lakes, marsh lands for boating, skiing, hiking, biking, ice and rock climbing, and snowmobiling. I have an even better appreciation of New York.
It was just a five hour drive north of the city. Our first night was in the small town of Keene Valley. The Inn owner told us to let ourselves in and grab some beers. We stoked the fire, sat around at midnight and reconnected with some old Peace Corps stories. The Mountaineer--an idyllic mountaineering shop--was our staging ground to get some of the gear we needed.
There was two feet of snow at the trail head and 7 plus feet at the peaks. We strapped on snow shoes and set up camp about an hour in. At a stop some well-trained bird found our snack to be as tasty as we thought. We explored the area and the next morning hiked over a pass down onto Avalanche Lake. Two hundred foot rock walls lined the entrance to the lake. The Mt. Colden trail entrance was tucked in amongst the trees on the left side of the second lake in the valley. The trail goes up and up through dense pine forest. At some points the snow was level with the trail markers.
The peak was socked in a cloud but the sparse alpine view was spectacular. The trees gave way to tough shrubs covered in icicles. For a few moments, we lost the trail and stared down some slick rock leading to the edge of the rock walls we were looking up at from the lake. At the top, we found a bare rock and chomp on some gorp and buttered French bread.
It always takes me a night to slow my internal clock to the time of nature. The first night I am restless, needing some sort of distraction--music, the computer, a movie. After a good first night's sleep in the back-country, buried in my sleeping bag, the morning is always refreshingly perfect. Throw in a little coffee and laugh at the man in black and life is good again.
This was the only break in the clouds on the day of the ascent.
We arrived late from NYC, DC, and some airport in Virginia. It was midnight and we snuck into the national park, grabbed a sleeping bag along with something to stave off the mosquitoes, and found a part of the beach without an active campfire. I bought this funky little mosquito net that provides a dome of netting right around the head of a single sleeping bag, sort of like the top end of a bivy sack. Shawn and Chris didn't have this, thus didn't get the wonderful four or so hour sleep under the stars. It started to rain, so we slept the last few hours of the night into our cars. The tent nor the Winnebago toting neighbors were present until the next night.
The learning curve for kite surfing can be frustrating ranging from lack of or blustery wind, gear problems, and just not knowing what the hell you are doing because you just learned a skill yesterday and the learning of the next level skill has the assumption of complete competence in the previous. Shawn was the first to get completely airborne with his wayward kite during a body drag . Chris practiced some emergency techniques while we waited for wind. Wind was not his friend on the last day. I blew out my eardrum during my triumphant, yet brief, plane on the board. Successful planing on the board means the pilot can control the 11 plus square meter kite in the wind window, sheet in and out for power, and trust that he can do everything relying on muscle memory.
While waiting for Gary to arrive the third day, Shawn found a nice quiet port-o-potty to take care of immediate business, only to have the industrial wondervac roll up next to the stall.
Random comments of the pictures above so I sound like I gained some understanding. The resting position is straight over head. The wind keeps the kite aloft like the wing of a plane but doesn't have any power. Shawn demonstrated a successful landing of the kite along the edge of the wind window. 
A good waterproof camera would have been perfect for the second day, because we were in the water for four or five hours . One of the kite boarders launched himself over us. We were standing and he, in complete control , dipped his kite into a power stroke and jumped over us. None of us are quite at that level yet!
Take the Cape May/Lewis Ferry if only to avoid a couple hours of I95 and add some beauty to an otherwise congested drive along the Northeast Corridor.
The dunes roll uninhibited along an east-west line parallel to Long Island. The horse-shoe crabs, sea gulls, and the piping plover are in abundance. There are remnants of development, some rusted and weathered foundation pilings. The only recent human footprint (other than actual footprints) on this end of the island is debri from campfires with some broken bottles around the fire rings. For the life of me, I still can't figure out why people do not pick up after themselves, whether on a city sidewalk or in this near pristine environment. Thankfully, most people are too scared to camp.
The next step is to control the kite with our eyes close. With instruction in Hatteras, hopefully we can control a much larger kite, strap a board to our feet, and cruise along the water. 
