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Skier brothers conquer all Adirondacks and Catskills high peaks
Completing epic ski journey inspired in part by the loss of Woodstock man's wife to cancer
By Rick KarlinMarch 26, 2024
WOODSTOCK — There were times Jamie Kennard wondered why he was doing this — attempting to ski the Adirondacks 46 highest peaks, in addition to the 35 highest Catskills peaks he and his brother had skied a decade earlier.
One such moment of doubt came when he found himself upside down in a spruce trap, or natural depression in the snow around a tree in 2016.
He was hanging by one ski, unable to move up or down.
“I was face down in this hole,” Kennard said. “It was like Luke Skywalker in the ice cave,” he added, referencing a scene from “The Empire Strikes Back.”
That was near the summit of Algonquin Peak, one of the highest of the Adirondack High Peaks, where snow at the top covered the scattered miniature alpine treetops there.
Somehow, Kennard managed to extricate himself, climb out of the icy hole and continue his trip.
“I asked myself, ‘Is this worth it? ’ and I said, ‘Why am I doing this alone? ’” recalled Kennard, who explained that his brother, Doug, had accompanied him on most trips but was out of action due to an injury suffered while competing in a ski race.
Fast forward from that episode to March 3 of this year, when Kennard celebrated his 50th birthday with his brother atop Mt. Colden in the Adirondacks, having skied all of the classic High Peaks in both of New York’s mountain regions. Kennard's brother also completed the mountains when his injury had healed.
During the past few years, when they tackled some of the Adirondacks’ toughest or most remote peaks, Kennard wondered if the effort was worthwhile.
But at those moments, Kennard would think of his late wife, Tracy, who died in 2021 from a rare form of cancer.
He spent two years as her caregiver. And while Tracy wasn’t outdoorsy, or much more than a casual skier, Kennard said she put up a ferocious fight to survive until the disease finally overtook her.
“I saw that perseverance. It gave me a new purpose,” he said.
The couple moved upstate in 2015 after Kennard sold a successful graphic arts business in New York City and bought the Brunette wine bar in Kingston. They sold the bar when his wife fell ill, and after her passing, Kennard started getting back into graphic arts, taking photographs and making films. And he took up what he called a 5K daily regimen, of doing five of something each day. That could be a 5K run, or a 50-mile bike ride in good weather.
All the while Tracy Kennard’s battle with cancer, and the toughness she exhibited, fueled Kennard’s desire to conquer all of the Empire State’s major mountains.
“After she passed away, every mountain that I did, for sure, she was in my thoughts,” he said. Like his wife, he wasn’t going to give up.
To be sure, the quest started a decade ago when Kennard and his brother skied all the Catskill high peaks.
Both were lifelong skiers who honed the skills on the slopes of ski hills like Bristol Mountain outside their native Rochester.
To this day, they know of no one else who had skied all the Catskills high peaks.
And as far as Kennard and others knew, just one person, Keene resident Ron Konowitz, has skied all of the Adirondack High Peaks, in the 1990s.
As anyone who has hiked in the Catskills and Adirondacks knows, skiing all of those peaks would entail enormous amounts of time, skill, energy and grit, as well as a tolerance for being cold and frequently damp or even wet.
Some of the Adirondack peaks are remote, requiring lengthy trips just to get to the base of the mountains. Others are almost perpetually wind scoured and some are trail-less or don’t have trails that are amenable to skiing.
There have also been low-snow periods, when they had to pick their way up and down through rocks, stumps and logs, moving slower than snowshoers or skiers.
It was mentally as well as physically taxing.
Ascending, they had to take constant mental notes about how to get down: Should they stick on a glare-ice or rocky trail, or circumvent a given spot, going off-trail and cutting through crusty or muddy snow?
“We were always looking at everything about what’s possible for the way down,” Kennard said.
“It was really tedious and slow. You are just picking your way down,’’ he said of some descents.
Other than the well-known ski routes like up Mt. Marcy or toward Avalanche Pass, they didn’t see many other skiers, although many of the trips were on weekdays.
One time, they came upon a professional guide with some clients during their ascent of the remote Seymour Mountain.
“His eyes just about popped out of his head. He was not expecting to see skiers,” Kennard said.
The guide asked them some pointed questions about their experience and equipment and he appeared satisfied as they ran through a list of their gear and what other peaks they had already tackled.
They quickly figured out that proper gear was important, and their packs could often weigh a good 30 pounds, with spare headlamps, crampons for both skis and boots to navigate icy spots, as well as plenty of spare dry clothing as well as food and water.
They also carried small GPS navigating devices as well as two-way walkie-talkies.
The radios were particularly useful one time when Kennard slipped off an icy footbridge over a creek and was, once again, dangling by a ski, this time over a 6-foot drop above the water. He was able to call his brother, who shimmied out on the bridge and pulled him back.
They also carried extra foldable ski poles — since they broke about a half dozen poles during their trips. Small snowshoes also came along, as did ice axes, a stove and a shovel in case they need to build an ice cave.
On one trip they used special pullable sleds to camp in a lean-to, before tackling the remote and steep Dix Range.
There were memorable moments as well, such as the time they found themselves looking down on a rainbow from a high peak.
And the bright sunny days, when the Alpine world of white snow, blue sky looked like a National Geographic photo.
Kennard recorded many of those moments and he plans to spend the summer editing footage for a film about their adventure.
He has made short films, including one about a Utah ski-tuner who waxes and repairs skis for a living.
Going forward, he wants to keep skiing, but he’s not in a rush to chalk up more lists of back country trips.
“I want to ride a chairlift for the foreseeable future,” Kennard said.
