The Rochester boys on their Great Adirondack Adventure. (Provided photo — Jack Drury)

Last week, I received a text with a photo from an unknown number.

At first, I had no idea who it was from, but after seeing the photo, I realized it had to be from my college roommate Gene. It was the first time since the 1980 Lake Placid Winter Olympics that I’d heard from him. The photo showed him, me and his friends on The Great Adirondack Adventure.

My roommate and his friends were city boys from Rochester and wanted a wilderness experience. They came to the right guy. I was a rookie outdoor leader, but I had been trained well and was ready to guide these nimrods. I thought the perfect trip would be to first camp on the shore of Middle Saranac and take them up Ampersand Mountain. Calling them greenhorns was generous. If you combined all their outdoor experience and put it in a thimble there would still be room for a finger. But they were game. I told them they had to dress in wool, and they did. I told them they had better be prepared for snow, and they were. In fact, they were better prepared than most wilderness adventurers of that time.

We hiked in to the old lean-to opposite the Ampersand trailhead, and I cooked them a hearty dinner of Dinty Moore’s stew. We spread out our sleeping bags. Mine was a state-of-the-art down bag while theirs were $19.95 classic kapok bags lined with garish pheasant hunting scenes. Water bottles were not as ubiquitous as they are today. So, the Rochester gang hydrated themselves with bota bags. Bota bags, popular among hippies in the ’60s, are traditional Spanish leather wine bags and if Gene’s friends were anything, they were traditional. The Rochester foursome spent their time toasting each other. “Salute” and “Cin Cin” echoed through the candlelit lean-to.

It was a chilly fall night, but they survived — perhaps the alcohol kept them from freezing. I got them up early, made them coffee and instant oatmeal, and, despite the hangovers, got them on the trail with hopes of summiting.

Anyone who’s hiked Ampersand knows that while it’s a steep, semi-ambitious hike, it isn’t far. It’s only 5.3 miles round-trip. In other words, it wasn’t as if we were climbing Mount Everest … although my Rochester friends would probably have disagreed. Because the trail was even more washed out than it is today, for every two steps up they slid back one. Then there was the unofficial Ampersand Mountain obstacle course: A large dead spruce tree with broken branches sticking out like porcupine quills was leaning across the trail. When one of the team grabbed it to steady himself, the tree started rolling. Luckily, he along with the rest narrowly avoided evisceration.

Finally, drenched in sweat, drained of energy and full of cursing, they reached the peak — only to be overwhelmed by the breathtaking view before them. They thought I had performed a miracle … and getting them to the summit, perhaps I had.

If you study the photo, you’ll see one guy looks freezing, two look exhausted and one looks exhilarated … and me. I was grateful they made it up alive and hopeful I could get them down in the same condition.

The way down was straightforward. No one got lost, no one fell and no one got injured.

I cooked up a big pot of mac and cheese which they wolfed down. Nourished and hydrated, we prepared to get into our sleeping bags for the night, when Gene whispered to me, “Jack, I gotta go to the bathroom.” I gave him a trowel and said, “Walk at least 150 feet behind the lean-to, dig a small hole, hold onto a tree, lean back, do your duty and then thoroughly bury everything.”

He went behind the lean-to and 20 minutes later came back with a story that I not only struggled to believe but got more unbelievable as time went on. Gene said, “I dug my hole, held onto the tree and did my thing … But just as I finished, the tree I was holding onto broke! I fell onto an upright stick next to the hole.”

He caught his breath and blurted, “I’m bleeding, I’m bleeding!”

“I not about to examine you!” I said, “My standard first aid training doesn’t cover this sort of thing.”

Eventually he calmed down and went to bed sans examination, but the story doesn’t end there. Gene’s buddies made it safely back to Rochester and he and I made it back to Cortland. The next day, evidently still in pain, bleeding and scared, he went to the college infirmary. He explained the situation to the doctor, who to say the least, was skeptical. Finally, when Gene was done telling the doctor his tale of woe the doctor looked him in the eye. “It’s okay, son, I’m a professional,” he said. “So, you can tell me the truth.”

After such a successful wilderness experience Gene’s friends were certain that I was the perfect person to help make their fortune. They suggested I guide them on a trip to a remote section of the Mexican/U.S. border and with packs loaded, I guide them back across the border with as many kilos of Acapulco Gold as we could carry.

Suffice to say that I passed on that golden opportunity.