Baker Mountain

My first climb up a Saranac 6er!

10/17/2015

Weather: Cold, cloudy, and snowy!

My dad had come for a visit all the way from Ohio and we had been looking forward to our trip to the Adirondacks together for months! We had originally sought to climb Algonquin, but we seriously doubted our abilities and decided to climb baker mountain on the first day of our overnight trip since it’s supposed to be an easy 1.8 mile round trip. As we arrived at the parking spot, I realized that I had forgotten to put the memory card back in my camera! UGHHH! So I resorted to using the camera on my dying phone, so there weren’t many photos during this trip. At any rate, we hit the trailhead and set off!

I took a moment to capture the dual seasons, summer on the right and winter on the left. There was also a mysterious delicious cinnamon smell right around here, and I couldn’t figure out where it was coming from! yummm. The climbing started almost immediately, and I was huffing and puffing in the cold air. My dad got concerned, he had never seen my asthma in action, but I assured him I’d be fine, I just had to slow down a little.

Apparently, at 0.6 miles up there was a junction with a gently inclining trail that meets up with the steep trail at the summit of Baker, but we didn’t even see it. Anyway, after a while of climbing, we reached a little lookout where we could see the beautiful fall colors through the haze of winter clouds. It was actually really beautiful, there are certainly perks to hiking on cloudy days!

It took us almost an hour to finally reach the summit of Baker (embarrassingly), but we were rewarded with gorgeous views of Saranac Lake and the McKenzie wilderness area beyond it. We rested for maybe 20 minutes, snacked on some apples and trail mix bars, and headed back down the way we came.

The way down was certainly less exhausting than the climb up, but it was tedious and hard on the knees. My dad was having a hard time, so I gave him a bulky knee brace that I used to use when recovering from running injuries, and he was excited to use it for whatever mountain we decided to do the next day. We got back to the car, and drove around to the other side of Moody Pond to view the monstrous mountain we just heroically climbed…There it is. Little Baker Mountain. It may have been short, but it was not easy (surprise, we’re out of shape!). We headed back to Gauthiers Saranac Lake Inn, and planned to use their kayaks to head out on the lake (they thought we were nuts, it was snowing out after all), but ended up staying in watching shows. Oh well, maybe next time.

There it is. There’s the giant mountain that we climbed, that kicked our butts.

Mount Baker: 2454′     Elevation Gain: 859′

Round Trip Distance: 1.8 miles

Total Duration: ~ 2 hours

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