Bamboo (7,710ft) to Jhinu Danda (5,840ft), 10km / 6.2 miles
10/28/25
Day 8. Rain. Cold. Leeches.
It’s raining when we leave Bamboo at 7am and it’s raining when we arrive in Jhinu at 4:15pm.
We’re the first to leave Bamboo and I am freezing cold to begin with. I try to wait for sis along the way but I get too cold so I go on ahead, planning to wait in Sinuwa.
Only I forgot how far upper Sinuwa is from lower Sinuwa, so when I passed through upper on my way to lower just thinking “keep moving to stay warm”, I realized….I have gone too far ahead. But there was no where to wait outside of the rain. Aaaaaand that’s how I temporarily went missing.
I ended up stopping at the first tea house in lower Sinuwa and turning on my cell data, but my phone didn’t immediately work (maybe from the cold and the rain?), but eventually I got a message through to Raj to tell him where I was.
40 minutes later they showed up to see me there – a pathetic drowned shivering kitten waiting under and awning. They brought me to the kitchen across the way and got me a hot tea to stop the shivering, then off we went.
Figures, I’d done so well every day of the trek with seemingly endless energy -but god help me if I get wet. I’m like a gremlin. I’d gotten so cold that I was worried I’d end up catching cold – it turns out my rain coat is not so waterproof anymore, and I was socked through to my bones. Sis was warm however and offered to trade coats, so that’s what we did.
From Sinuwa, we had to descend all the way to the river, cross the suspension bridge, then climb allllllll the way back up to Chhomrong. It took us an hour to slowly pick our way down, and an hour and a half of arm-in-arm climbing 20 steps at a time for over 2,200 steps (I counted….) to reach our lunch spot.
For the first time in days, I was actually hungry, and enjoyed the delicious tuna sandwich in a cozy warm dining room.
After lunch, we had to go all the way back down the other side of the hill to get to Jhinu.
Still raining, we descended each step in tandem for support and finally reached Jhinu an hour and 45 minutes after starting our descent. We threw our things in the room, embraced in a victory hug both in surprise and relief that we’d actually made it, and switched into our swimsuits to prepare for the thing that has motivated us for 4 days – the hot springs.
Now, in hind sight, this……was a mistake.
According to Raj, it’s just a 15 minute walk down to the springs. So naturally it took us as least 30 minutes. We quickly shed our layers and hopped into the delightfully steamy waters at the edge of the river, so grateful.
While we were experiencing cold rain at this lower elevation, base camp was completely snowed in, with more than a foot of snow falling overnight and throughout the day. In the course of just a single day, the route was shut down due to the storm – no one allowed in or out. Stuck there in freezing tin boxes they call rooms at 13,500ft. And anyone in Deurali was not allowed to go any further. If we had planned our trip for just 1 day later, WE would be stuck either at ABC or in Deurali. So yes, we were grateful.
We remind ourselves of that as we climb back up to the tea house in turbo mode – Raj and I on either side of sis -and inevitable find LEECHES feasting inside our boots on our feet and ankles when we reach our room. I’ll spare you the gory photo and instead leave you with a short poem:
A leech in the boot.
A leech on the ankle.
The carnage.
The blood.
The shrieks of “I want to go home”.
The emergency whistle hanging uselessly on our room’s door.
Lower Sinuwa (7,677ft) to Deurali (10,500ft), 14km / 8.7 miles
10/25/25
Day 5. I didn’t want to wake up this morning. Reluctantly I rolled out of bed around 6 and started packing up. This time we pulled out some items we won’t be needing from this point on and left them, to be picked up again on our way back through after reaching base camp.
With everything packed, we sat for breakfast at 6:30am, messaging family and friends while we still had wifi, and doing some morning stretches. We’d again done laundry the day before and hung it to dry on our clothesline outside the room….without success. It was just so cold, everything was still wet in the morning. So I looped it around my backpack to let it dry while I walked, and off we went at 7:20.
An hour and 10 minutes of climbing stairs later, we arrived at Upper Sinuwa. From there, the way was more or less flat (read: Nepali flat – aka – not flat but close enough) before two long series of stairs going down to Bamboo.
We walked through the forests, catching stunning vistas of the waterfalls coming from the glaciers beyond the mountains all around us.
After 2 hours of walking, we reached Bamboo and enjoyed a 20 minute break with some tea, pringles we shared, and the company of a mountain dog looking for some affection. Sometimes these mountain dogs will follow trekkers from town to town and I was really hoping this one would choose us.
From Bamboo, it was a mixed bag of uphill, downhill, and Nepali flat sections. We crossed many streams from waterfalls and I stopped to dip my hands in the frigid crystal clear water.
It took us an hour and 20 minutes from Bamboo to reach Dovan. We paused briefly in town then continued another 30 minutes to our lunch spot. My appetite was nonexistant at this point, but otherwise I was feeling totally fine.
After picking at lunch, we continued on our way at 2:15pm, immediately climbing on our way to the next town: Himalaya. My belly did not agree with walking uphill so soon after eating lunch and I was grateful to find a toilet – albeit a disgusting one – just before a shrine in front of a beautiful waterfall.
From there it was about another hour before Himalaya. I remember nothing beyond stairs and hoping my stomach would hold out until the next town. It did – but barely. In Himalaya we stopped just briefly before continuing on.
From Himalaya to Dovan – 300m / 984ft of elevation gain. Stair after stair after stair. Absolutely brutal. I started counting stairs at some point along the way and stopped counting when I reached 1000.
After the last step up, we reached a cave with a small shrine inside.
From there, down a bit to a rocky river. By then it was dark, so I fished out my headlamp, gave it to sis to use, and used my phone light to carefully pick my way down to the river. When I got there, I was shocked to be face to face with Suman! Not many porters would make it all the way to the destination, then turn around and come back to walk with the group the rest of the way, but here he was.
The way to Deurali was so incredibly long – we had met a few other straggling groups on the trail including a couple of Aussies that seemed to go at a similar pace to us, so we weren’t the absolute last ones to make it to town – but it was so important that we made it all the way because otherwise, we wouldn’t make it to base camp the next day. Tomorrow would trekking uphill 3,000ft at high altitude – it had to be shorter distance if we had any hope of making it.
See the lights of Deurali up ahead
Our motivation for this day was to get there early enough so that Raj would get a bed – when the guides and porters get there too late, sometimes they have to sleep on and under tables in the dining room because they run out of space. I’m not sure we succeeded, but we tried.
20 minutes and a lot of climbing later and we were in Deurali. The last stop before base camp. This time we shared a freezing cold room with 3 others and bonded immediately with a lovely girl from Malaysia before going to eat.
It was surprising to me how many people had to leave members of their group behind on days 1, 2, or 3 to either stay in a tea house or go all the way back to Pokhara. Altitude sickness is no joke and can quickly turn deadly up here – so if you shows any signs of it, or even if you catch a cold, you really cannot continue without risking your life.
At 10,500ft, the cold mountain air seeped into our tin-can room. We bundled up in our sleeping bags to stay warm, skipping a shower after dinner and going straight to bed.
Tadapani (8,628ft) to Lower Sinuwa (7,677ft), 12km / 7.5 miles
10/24/25
We haven’t even been here for a week but it feels like a month. Our schedule has us going to sleep around 8pm and waking up around 5am.
At least that means catching a nice sunrise in the mornings.
We arrived in the rain the night before so had no idea what the view might be like from this little village. Imagine our surprise when we walked out the door of our room to this view.
We took our time getting up, packed our bags, and set for breakfast at 6:30. By 7am, we were on our way.
Today has us going 12km to a town called Sinuwa. We will descend 800ft down from Tadapani to Siprung, cross Kimrong River, then climb right back up the other side of the gorge to Chhromrong, then allllll the way back down, over Khola river, and back up to Sinuwa.
The descent was as always tough on the knees and seemed never-ending. Sis and I developed a rhythm of descending the steep stairs with one of her hands on my shoulder, moving in tandem. Which seemed to help, but it did take us 2.5 hours to reach the bottom still.
One particular spot had us rolling in laughter when she seemingly aimed her foot straight for a fresh pile of poo right in the path.
At some point on the way down, our guide Raj left us alone for a few minutes. I don’t remember why, but I do remember the shenanigans we got up to when left alone. Observe: Instagram vs Reality.
At the bottom of the stairs, we excitedly crossed a suspension bridge over the river one by one, then started climbing right back up straight away.
Somehow I spotted a little creature jumping around faaaar below on the edge of the river – a weasel!
Climbing up was as difficult for our little troupe as climbing down, especially under the heat of the sun. So again we employed our own version of Pony Service to power up the hill.
When we reached the top, there was just a few more flights of stairs, so I took sis’s pack and ran ahead to our lunch spot atop a hill.
Lunch was a nice break from the up and down of the day, though I sparked suspicion when I referred to “pop” as “soda” – New York has slowly beaten the midwest out of me and it has made me SUSPECT.
After lunch in Ghurjung, the next 2.5 hours to Chhomrong were relatively flat with little ups and downs all the way.
With the sun beating down hard and sucking away our life force, we made dashes from shady spot to shady spot, winding our way along the ridge. From high above, we could see Jhinu Danda – our last stop on this trek – faaaaaaar below.
The motivation for the day to get us up each hill of stairs was that, who knows? There could be ICE CREAM up there! Most likely there were just more stairs, but though the chances were low they were not zero that there could be ice cream up there. Spoiler alert – it was just more stairs each time.
Writing this during dinner at 7:30pm, I can’t remember much from the day besides stairs, cows, “maybe there’s ice cream?!”, stairs, ponies, stairs, puppies.
So any stairs, in case you haven’t realized. When eventually we reached Chhomrong, we looked across a stunning valley, distant waterfalls, and learned that the village almost directly across from where we were standing was the objective……..after going allllllll the way down, crossing a suspension bridge, and then going allllllll the way right back up.
According to Raj, this should just take an hour and a half total. But for us, it took that long just to descend to the suspension bridge.
And the same amount of time to come back up, dodging men on ponies driving them at an absolutely mad pace up the mountain relentlessly. Hand-in-hand we climbed each step one at a time and finally reached our tea house at 6pm, 11 hours after starting.
Looking at the crescent moon over Chhomrong
This was the toughest day yet. Following a long day 3, we were exhausted and feeling it in our muscles. I was getting some shooting pains down my leg from a tight hip, so after we did a bit of laundry and had dinner, I rolled out my tight calves and hips with my nalgene, and passed out for the night.
Ghorepani (9,429ft) to Poon Hill (10,531ft) to Tadapani (8,628ft), 11.2km / 7 miles
10/23/25
4:00am – alarms ring and we reluctantly swing our stiff legs out of bed. “Are you ready to climb Poon Hill?”, one voice asks, “No, not all all” the other responds. Yet we pulled on our layers of warm clothes, pulled our light packs over our shoulders and opened the door into the cold starry night. The darkness is dotted only by the stars and shimmering lights from hikers’ headlamps.
The plan is to climb up Poon Hill to watch the sun rise over the mountains, then come back down to our tea house in Ghorepani for breakfast, and then to continue on our way to Tadapani. Which meant we could leave with just the bare minimum essentials in our bags.
Almost immediately we start climbing at 4:30am, step after step. With sunrise at 6:15am and only 1.2km to the top, we’ve given ourselves plenty of time to climb the innumerable steps to the top.
We step aside to allow porters and ponies to pass. Without a proper warmup, I’m pretty winded for the first 5 or 10 minutes. An hour and 15 minutes of climbing later, we reached the summit of Poon Hill – which seems a lot less like a hill and more like a mountain to me, but what do I know? – just as the first light of day began lighting up the sky.
We each lined up on a section of the edge where we found a gap in the crowd to wait for the sunrise. Sis set up her tripod to capture a timelapse while I zipped from one side to the other trying to capture the light on the mountains all around.
I climbed the tower for a full panorama view along with 300 other people, wandered down to one side for a view of the Dhaalagir range, then zipped back over to the other side to watch the pinks and oranges appear beyond the layers of distant mountains. Then repeat.
And making friends each place I went. Including some dogs playing on the hilltop – so while everyone else was taking photos and videos of the one-in-a-lifetime view, I was of course watching the dogs.
We stayed up there until almost 7am. I could have stayed for days. (Post-edit – I can confidently say now that the trek is over, this is the most beautiful incredible view we had throughout the entire trek).
We made our way back down to the tea house in about 30 minutes, packed our bags, scarfed some breakfast, then started on our way to Tadapani.
Leaving Ghorepani, we started once again climbing stair after stair up in the opposite direction from Poon Hill. We were accompanied by masses of people heading in this same direction, a common path shared by several treks.
We climbed until we could once again see Poon Hill tower across from us, then climbed some more until we were back at the same elevation.
A bit more climbing into a forest and we were on a ridge with stunning vistas in all directions.
I found many interesting things on the path along with way, which naturally I carefully shoved in my pockets, but apparently my habit is contagious as soon my sister and Raj were also picking up small sticks and interesting things for me. Yay!
Clownfish leaf
The ridge was surrounded by Rhododendron trees stretching far as the eye could see – and they were MASSIVE compared to any I’ve seen in the state. It turns out that they thrive above 2,000m / 6,500 ft, which is why they were so huge and lush up here in the foothills of the Himalayas. I can’t imagine the beauty of walking this path in the spring, with the flowers in bloom – and it makes sense suddenly why the Rhododendron is the national flower of Nepal.
The ridge walk was delightful and more remote than any path we’d yet taken. It was 3 hours after leaving Ghorepani before we reached the next settlement and sat for lunch.
Did I mention that for the last 3 hours, I’d been walking with a clothesline wrapped around my pack, socks and shirts swaying with each step? And yet everything was STILL wet from wash the night before, so we spread everything out in the sun while we waited for our food.
The laundry in question
An hour later we were packing up our now dry clothes and starting on a looooooong descent down to Banthanti, following a stream as it cascaded down cliffs through verdant rainforest.
The trek is a bit misleading when you look at it on a map – it doesn’t necessarily show the hills you have to go up and down and up and down again as you trek from village to village.
It took us nearly 2 hours of careful descent down slick rock to reach Banthanti. From there, an estimated hour and a half of descent followed by 40 minutes of ascent.
By now, we were toast. Jello legs, sore aching feet and knees. I offered my shoulder to sis to help her descent more quickly and safely, and 30 minutes later we were at a beautiful trekkers lodge situated on a cliff. We couldn’t see much beyond the cloud we were in but it was beautiful nonetheless.
While Raj chatted with some of the folks there, we decided to cover more ground and make our way down. Not 10 minutes in, a loud crack of thunder spurred us to don our rain gear and quicken our steps.
However no rain came, just a few drops. 50 minutes later, we reached the bottom of the descent where a power station was situated, and began the climb right back up.
With Raj and I on either side, one of my sisters hands in each of ours, we practically dragged ourselves up the hill in a manner we have now dubbed Pony Service! Note that pony service is a real thing offered in some villages to get trekkers to the next village, but we like our version better. The motivation for the day was simply: Bed. Bed is waiting.
Along the way, Sumon rejoined us after having gone ahead to the tea house, a leech fell from the trees in the rain, and a few langur monkeys darted around the trees around the path. Yes, you read that right. A leech fell from the trees. More on that later.
And then, at 5pm, we were there! 12.5 hours after we started our day, we were climbing the last few steps up to our room.
The view from the room
I’m pretty sure we would have rather gone straight to sleep, but still we each took a quick shower before sitting for dinner. We looked…pretty much exactly how we felt. I’d been wondering before this trek which day would be the hardest for me. So far I was going strong, with some expected aches and pains, but after today I was sure day 4 would be the hardest.
Ulleri (6,726ft) to Ghorepani (9,429ft), 9km / 5.6 miles
10/22/25
I practically fell asleep writing in my journal last night. I felt great walking but we took so long that the time on my feet with both backpacks on my shoulders (mine and my sisters, to give her a hand on the long uphill) began to weigh me down. We were dead tired and slept GREAT.
Some anxiety-fueled nightmares left me feeling relieved when my alarm went off before 6am and we both woke feeling relatively pain-free and refreshed. We quickly got ready, packed our bags, and headed down to breakfast as the rising sun lit up the hills behind us.
A quick breakfast of oat porridge with fruit and we were off by 7:10am.
More stairs! Joy.
Today’s trek is shorter than yesterday at least. After 20 minutes or so, we passed a sign for Ulleri school and a man at a booth collecting donations. We donated what we had and he gave us each a marigold which we tucked behind our ears for the rest of the day.
We climbed stairs for another 1.5 hours to reach the upper outskirts of Ulleri, taking a pit stop for a bathroom break and water refill before continuing on.
We started our day a full hour before everyone else; the only people we saw for the first hour or more were porters, carrying their trekkers’ belongings up the trail.
Fortunately the trail this time had stairs interspersed with flat sections and gentle uphills. 2 hours after starting we got our first view of Machapuchhre, fish tail mountain. On day 6 going up to Annapurna Base Camp, we will pass through Machapuchhre Base Camp along the way.
After walking on the road for a few minutes, we turned onto the trail again and this time had cover of the jungle around us, following along a narrow river full of waterfalls.
Little ups and downs – this was a lovely walk. Around this time I felt disappointed that a massive group had caught up with us. Today we kept a slow and steady pace, reaching Nangethati after 4 hours, including a stop for tea and a snack after crossing a bridge over the stream.
Lunch – veg fried rice (again). 2.3km / 1.5 miles to go to Ghorepani.
Petting a mountain dog during lunch
Full bellies and heavy legs. It was at this lunch spot that we had our first casualty – I’d foolishly gone to use the toilet and didn’t remove my sunglasses from my head, and they FELL IN. I gingerly pulled them out by the tip of an arm, careful not to touch anything, but there was no amount of cleaning that could convince me to put them back on my face, so in the trash they went. Luckily my sister had an extra pair of nearly identical ones that I used from then on, so you probably won’t even notice they’re gone!
If you come to the mountains, you’d better get used to toilets like this
bye bye sunnies
Leaving the lunch spot I felt refreshed but ready to rest and relax, not walk for another 2 hours. At least we were all feeling the same.
Sumon – our porter – leading the way
We stayed on the road for a while slowly but steadily climbing up and up and up. After an hour or so, we reached the junction with the trail to Ghorepani – a signed noted it would be a quick 20 minute walk to town, but it was one long staircase the whole way and took us 40 minutes to reach lower Ghorepani. The motivation for today? Yak cheese pizza. Hey, whatever works.
Another 10 minutes up steps – pausing and moving aside to let a group of ponies and their minder pass – and we reached our tea house in upper Ghorepani with spectacular views somewhat obscured by clouds.
One last flight of stairs later and we were cracking open the door to our small but cozy room. We strung up a laundry line and opened the windows wide, then used an empty trash bin to clean the days’ clothes and hang them up. With plenty of time to enjoy a relaxing evening by the heater in the dining room.
Just as the sun was setting, the clouds cleared enough to see more of the mountains around us and we rushed out into the cold to take some photos before resuming our spot by the fire.
I was feeling very well overall but my stomach was having a hard time digesting the heavy meals we were eating at lunch and dinner. I picked at a bit of dinner before heading up to bed and calling it a night.
Somehow September slipped by without a SINGLE high peak adventure, so when peak foliage and beautiful weather aligned, I just had to get out there. Next up on my list – the Seward range. I’d already summitted Seymour a couple years ago to get it out of the way (it was actually a lovely hike but I didn’t want to end up orphaning it, so I did it first!). Now I am fond of loops over out-and-backs, but when I asked around for suggestions on whether to go clockwise or counter clockwise, so many people strongly recommended that I go up and down via Calkins brook that I decided to trust them.
I rolled out of bed at 4:45am, hit the road at 5, and reached the trailhead at 7:45am. Pulled my boots on, threw my pack on my shoulders, and signed in at the register at 7:55am.
At around 36 degrees F, it was brisk, but not cold. The last several weeks have been a drought, and I was hopeful that this notoriously muddy range would be dry. Or at least….drier.
The walk in to the base of the range is wide, flat, leaf-strewn – an excellent way to warm up before the big climb. After 35 minutes, I reached the junction 1.2 miles in, with a gated drive on the left. I turned right to head to the next junction 0.2 miles away.
I was on the path less than 5 minutes before I reached the next junction, and continued straight towards the Calkins Creek Lean-tos.
I had a lot of time to think on this trail. The path itself requires no thought – no careful planning for where to plant my feet, no attention paid to avoid wandering off trail, not even to think about being out of breath from any ascent, because there was hardly any. It was actually on the verge of being boring – but I listened to the birds and felt gratitude swell in my heart for every day that I’m able to do hikes like this and connect to nature in a way most people will never get to do.
I snapped back to attention a few times to remind myself that the path up to Donaldson is unmarked, so I’d better pay attention so I wouldn’t miss where it might branch off! I estimated the junction to Calkins Brook must be about 2 miles from the last junction but I didn’t know how it might be marked. Fortunately, it couldn’t have been more obvious – a pile of rocks and a rusty bucket mark the junction, sat practically in the middle of the path.
I turned left at the bucket to see my first look at Calkins Brook at 9:15am.
I still hadn’t encountered anyone at this point and I was enjoying my solitude. Enjoy the last selfie before my hat went on – once it goes on, it’s not coming off again for everyone’s best interest.
Just 5 minutes later, the trail seemed to cross right into the brook. A cairn indicated that this was indeed the right way, but I was a bit skeptical – it’s a small cairn so I wasn’t sure if it really did mark the way, or if someone just stacked some rocks there. (Don’t stack rocks btw! Read why here: https://www.ausableriver.org/blog/leaving-no-trace-rock-stacking). I investigated the surrounding area and determined that this was the right way to go, so across I went.
On the other side of the stream, there were a number of places where I suddenly found myself off trail. If you’re not accustomed to hiking unmarked trails, this area could prove dangerous. I walked slowly here to keep an eye on the path right in front of me but also on the big picture, to identify where the path went.
A few tips for anyone hiking unmarked trails like these: look for signs of feet having trod over the ground – packed earth, crushed leaves, dirt smeared over rocks – as well as sticks and branches lying across part of a path. Don’t just step over those if you see them – they’re telling you that’s not the right way to go.
As the path began to climb, I heard men’s boisterous voices to my left by the stream, getting quieter with every step I took. I assumed they’d either camped nearby or decided to take a break and filter some water.
Aaaaaand the hat is on! It definitely saved me from at least 1 large spider landing directly on my head, as I put it on not a moment too soon.
For an unmarked/unmaintained trail, this one was in great shape so far. No mud, hardly any rocks, and not terribly eroded. It was such a pleasant walk with the morning light filtering through the trees.
Well…there was some mud. But it was pretty navigable!
This was going to be a long day, and somehow my strength is in the uphill sections when they’re not immensely technical, so I cruised right up without stopping to try to cover as much distance in as little time as possible while the going was so nice.
Of course there were some rocks, but overwhelmingly this is a dirt-and-root kind of trail.
At 10:50am, 1h 35m from the junction with Calkins Brook Truck Trail and nearly 3 hours from the trailhead, I crossed another stream and noted this one as a great spot to filter some water. I carried 2 L with me and had drunk maybe 0.75L so far, and I wasn’t keen to carry a bunch of extra weight across the range with me, so I decided to stop here on my way back down and crossed to the other side to stay on trail.
Here’s an example of some branches blocking the wrong way.
The downside of wearing a cap is you can be knocked out by fallen trees hanging across the trail, unless you happen to look up just in time to save yourself, and see a beautiful little green mini-biome while you’re at it.
Oh how grateful I was for this forest – so often these unmaintained/unmarked trails are very narrow, rugged, and crowded with sharp scrubby evergreens that stab you when the weather’s dry and dump water on you when it’s not.
After crossing the last stream, the trail did get noticeably steeper, but it still wasn’t the worst I’d done by a longshot.
After just a bit of rocky steepness, I noted a little pile of rocks offhandedly before realizing oh! I’ve reached the junction! 11:20am; 2h 5m from the junction (~3 miles), 3h 25m from the trailhead (~6.5 miles).
I went to the right to look for the true summit of Donaldson and head towards Emmons. On the way, I caught my first glimpse of Seward, approximately 158 miles away.
I scampered up some rocky slabs and trod along the path when I noticed a spur in the trail, and explored it to find a beautiful lookout.
I wasn’t sure if this was the true summit or not, there was no indicator, but figured I’d take a picture just in case.
This was the definition of a bluebird day – not a cloud in sight, and excellent visibility.
I spent no more than 5 minutes there before heading back to the path and noticing a bit further on the left another spur trail. I suspect this was the true summit of Donaldson – so that’s number 39 for me! The view from here was nice too but I didn’t appreciate Seward taunting me with it’s distance – it looks like it might as well be on another planet from here.
15 minutes later, I had a decision to make – Left or Right?
Turns out it was a trick question. All paths lead to Mud. With a capital M.
I found on this hike that I had been moving through the 7 stages of grief, but with…mud. First: Denial. There won’t be mud, it’s been a drought! Then: Testing. Maybe I can find a way around the mud? Then: Anger. MY BOOT GOT SUCKED IN! Before finally arriving at: Acceptance. I’m just going to have wet feet and I’m gonna have to be fine with that. And then I caught my first glimpse of where I was headed – yikes! Emmons is…not close.
There was lots of up and down over semi-technical rocky slabs, but nothing unmanageable. However I did start feeling the pangs of a headache setting in, and when I realized the flashes of sunlight through the trees were making me feel disoriented, I grew concerned that it may actually be a migraine and not just a headache. This…..would be problematic. So I found a nice rock at a 45 degree angle to the ground and sat my butt right down the dirt, drank some water with ibuprofen, had a snack, lay my head back, popped my sunnies on, and closed my eyes. I stayed that way for just a few minutes as the worst of it subsided and decided to keep going, leaving the sunnies on for good measure. With how focused I was on just putting one foot in front of the other, I didn’t take many pictures. I knew when the trail started going up again that I must be nearly there, and I was! I climbed for just a few minutes and emerged on the summit of Emmons.
Number 40 is in the books! I was pretty hungry by the time I reached the summit, 1 hour after leaving Donaldson and 4 hours and 40 minutes from the trailhead. I plopped down with the small summit all to myself and set about enjoying some of the snacks I’d hauled up with me.
Can’t forget the victory chocolate! I thought it best to save some in case of an emergency when I got to Seward, so I enjoyed half and packed it away for later.
After 15 minutes, I thought I’d better get moving. It was 1pm already and I still needed to get all the way back up to Donaldson and over to Seward and back. Before long I was back at the mud – by the way there is no way around it, in case you’re thinking of being clever when you try it. Good luck and embrace the mud!
On the way back, I met a couple of solo hikers, and had a comical moment in which I could hear the men from earlier in the day – a group of 3 – coming ahead of me in a narrow section of trail, so I tucked myself into the trees alongside to give them room to pass, but….well, I guess they didn’t hear me, so when they came upon me in there I think I saw the soul leave the body of the first one in the group. The second one fist-bumped me for a job well done, we laughed about it, and I carried on. An hour after leaving Emmons, I was back at the junction.
Over to Seward! The good thing is, when I looked at the map, it didn’t seem like I’d have to descend too far before the trail would level off and eventually climb up to a false summit.
That assessment was spot on – I descended for no more than 10 minutes, and while it was a bit steep, it wasn’t too hard at all. I will say the way to Seward proved annoyingly….stabby. It was a lot like how I imagine running a gauntlet might be – the path lined with sharp branches jutting into the path, their life mission to draw blood and make some colorful bruises.
After the brief descent, the trail flattened out and wound around a rocky outcropping before heading up to the false summit.
Looking back to where I’d just come from, it looks so far away! But it had only been about 30 minutes since I was at the junction.
I’ll admit, I got a little confused looking for the summit of Seward. I knew I’d go over a false summit, which I assumed this to be, with the rocky outcropping the rightmost bump in the image below, but when I continued along the trail, eventually I started going down again when I estimated I should have been arriving at the summit….so that can’t be right. Just then, I heard some voices ahead and met a few hikers coming from the opposite direction, ALSO looking for the summit! They were sure it wasn’t behind them, so I must have gone right over it. I did recall noticing a bit of a clearing in the trail that had the hallmarks of being a wooded summit, but there was no sign or indication of any kind.
So together we hopped back up the trail – 5 of them, 1 of me, and the cutest little hiking dog aptly named Summit. AllTrails came in handy here to affirm that the clearing I’d passed was indeed the summit. Observe – the tree that used to hold the summit marker, with the remnants of the nails that used to hold it.
We each found a nice spot to sit and enjoyed snacks, sharing stories of our adventures in the mountains and a moment of camaraderie commiserating about the mud and the trek ahead. They’d decided to go back down the way they came up to get back to their camp, and I thought about going with them but according to them it was a steep, exposed, rocky route, so I chose to also go back the way I came instead. There was no view from this wooded summit, so when we parted ways 30 minutes later, I stopped at the top of a ledge to enjoy the views before heading back over to the junction with Donaldson.
Number 41 is in the books! I just have 5 peaks left, spread across 3 treks – Marshall, Allen, and Skylight, Gray, and Marcy.
It took me about 40 minutes to go the roughly 1.2 miles back to the junction. I scampered back up to the little cairn marking the junction just in time to spook the same triad I’d jump-scared earlier in the day – someone should really put a bell on me I guess! They were considering heading over to Seward but had a dwindling water situation and there were no water sources over there. I’m not sure what they decided because I ALSO had a dwindling water situation and I was eager to get back to the stream to refill.
It took me just 35 minutes of quick descent to reach the stream and fill my water bladder at the most perfect little cascade.
And it was a nice spot to rest, grab a snack, and look at the map for a few minutes. I filtered just enough water to fill my smaller Nalgene – filtering takes a while and I didn’t want to waste daylight. It was already 4:40pm and I still had probably over 5 miles to go.
Fortunately this trail is free of rocks and even mud for the most part, so I could really hustle. I walked….
and walked…..
And walked……
With nothing notable to report – no signs of people, no critters, no losing the trail, just…walking.
Right at 6pm I was so relieved to reach the crossing again, noted by the little rock sitting on the larger rock.
And 5 minutes later I was back at the rusty bucket marking the junction. It took me 2 hours to descend from the junction with Donaldson.
I had a headlamp of course, but I really wanted to make it back to the trailhead as quickly as possible so I wouldn’t get home so late – after reaching the car, I’d still have to DRIVE for 2.5 hours and I really didn’t care to do that into the night.
For about 4 seconds I had the great idea to jog along the calkins brook truck trail – until I remembered that I don’t run and I had 3 miles of this to go, so what’s the point – and slowed to a reasonably fast walk instead. And let me tell you – I did not REALIZE when I was hiking in just how much downhill there was, it just seemed to go up and up and up and I was over it.
It took me 35 minutes to reach the first junction back to the trailhead, and 10 minutes more to rejoin the main trail.
From that point on, just 15 minutes remained between me and my car. I reached the register at 7:10pm, 11 hours and 15 minutes after starting.
Spoiler alert, I made it home fine, and can’t wait to get back for my remaining 5 peaks.
Happy Trails!
41 down, 5 to go.
Donaldson: 4140′
Emmons: 4040′
Seward: 4361′
Total Duration: 11 hours 15 minutes
Total Distance: ~17 to 18 miles
All images are property of adktrailtalesandtails and may only be used with express permission.
The lower great range. I’ve been dreaming of doing this hike for a decade, and it’s finally here. I had no illusions of being able to do this as a day hike, so we repeated our strategy from Haystack (3), Basin (9), and Saddleback (17) and hiked in on a Thursday evening, did the big hike on Friday, and hiked out Saturday morning. This is gonna be a long one, so grab a cup of tea and get cozy, let’s dig in!
The plan – hike in at The Garden (pink), camp at a campsite near Wolf Jaw Lean-to (blue star), next day hike up to the ridge (light blue), over to lower WJ then back down and up to UWJ (light purple), to Armstrong (red), to Gothics (orange), down to Sawteeth (yellow) then back up over Gothics and down the Ore Bed Brook trail (dark purple) to get back to camp.
Thursday 8/14 – It begins
We got to The Garden trailhead at about 2pm, signed in and started walking at about 2:30pm. Look how cute and clean and fresh we were!
We must have been feeling good because we made it to the first junction within 10 minutes of starting, and stayed on the Phelps Trail to Marcy rather than exploring the abandoned south side trail.
It was a beautiful day and we’d hardly encountered any other hikers by the time we reached the second register, an hour and 20 minutes and 3 miles from the trailhead. We signed in and this time, instead of going towards JBL, we went left toward the Wolf Jaw Lean-to.
I’d never actually been this way before so I was excited to take this route! Just a minute from the register is this outpost for the NYSDEC headquarters.
The trail past the outpost gave me instant memories of hiking in Patagonia. The way the narrow dirt path cuts through the long grass is just the same. Remind me to write those trip reports sometime 😀
And another minute later, we were crossing Johns Brook on a swinging bridge. We had to exercise some serious self control to not stop here and go for a dip – it wasn’t the hottest day, but we were damp with sweat and the brook babbled in a way that was so enticing….but alas, we were trying to make sure we got to a camp site before anyone else did, so on we went.
Just past the bridge is yet another junction – this time we headed in the direction of the middle sign “Upper and Lower Wolfjaw Mountains”.
Another 0.1 mile stretch brought us to the last junction before the lean-to, which meets the abandoned south side trail.
We weren’t exactly sure where the designated campsites were on this trail and assumed they’d be close to the lean-to, which looked to be at about 0.8 miles up, just before the next junction. The path here is pleasant, just a bit of incline and smooth walking.
Within 10 minutes, we spotted a campsite marker! The path to the site looked pretty overgrown but the site itself was ideal – private with just one tent spot, close to the water, plenty of trees for my hammock, and smooth flat ground for the tent.
We threw the tent up in a jiffy to secure our new home for the next two nights and immediately – and I mean IMMEDIATELY – scampered down to the brook and sat on some very nice rocks to soak our feet and examine our route on the map for the next day.
By 6pm, camp was totally set up and we set about for some relaxation, playing some cards in the tent before the sun went down.
Not sure if it was the hike, the heat, or the stresses of the week, but I was soooo tired. I cozied up in my hammock a little before 8 to read until I couldn’t anymore.
Friday 8/15 – Trekking
Well, despite being so very tired, guess who was up most of the night?! I swear, my inability to sleep before a big hike must be chronic. Nevertheless, we were up and moving about by 6:30am to load our pack and eat some breakfast. Check out how masterfully I packed this bear can – can I get a round of applause please?
Can’t forget the coffee!
We may have been sleep-deprived, but we were so happy and excited for what was to come! One thing to take account for on this trek is that once you’re up on the ridge, there’s no water source. So we topped off our two nalgenes and filled our 3L water bladder with water from the brook, and packed our sawyer mini filter with us to grab more water on the way back down the range.
It turns out my sherpa is sneaky sneaky and takes pictures of me walking like a zombie. I am not an early bird, but here I was at 7:30am leaving camp to go climb an absurd number of mountains.
Within 10 minutes we passed the Wolf Jaw Lean-to. Everything was quiet and seemingly empty this morning.
I just love the long shadows and bright green in the early morning sun through the trees.
Freshly-made spider webs clung to tiny branches in the trees – which are pretty until you take one smack to the face. Perils of being the first people on the trail for the day.
Somehow it took us 20 minutes to reach the junction to the wolf jaws. So I’m thinking the campsite was really only like 0.3 miles up the trail rather than being much closer to the lean-to. We stayed on the red trail here and began the 0.9 miles up to the range!
At some point, I spotted this gorgeous green moss surrounding a cute rock and took a picture.
Which is when Gildo pointed up to literally a whole field of cute rocks surrounded by gorgeous moss.
In general, we were in very good spirits, feeling strong physically, and the trail was in great shape. We were so grateful to not be doing this in the rain like our fated HaBaSa trek 3 weeks prior, when boughs from the trees crowding the trail continually dumped water all over us. It wouldn’t be the Adirondacks however without at least a little mud!
For the most part though, the trail looked like this. Dry and wide and rocky. Can’t get away from rocks here.
40 minutes after leaving the last junction, we arrived at the top of the ridge. This junction and the next one are a little bit confusing – while this junction appears as a single dot on the map, it’s actually a bit more spread out than that. Go to the left toward Lower Wolf Jaw…
Walk down this path for literally 1 minute…
And boom! The rest of the first junction. We could see how people might get turned around here.
We thought this was a good place to take a quick break, hydrate, and have a snack for a couple of minutes.
Another 0.2 miles and we were at the next junction. This is a 3 way junction, but only 2 of them appear to be marked with a sign – the way to Lower Wolfjaw is straight up some rocks on a well-defined path but there’s no sign that I could see to indicate that.
Up until now, the trail was very walkable with few spots that needed upper body involvement. But immediately after the second junction, that all changed.
That said, it was still pleasant, the rocks were dry and easy to grip, and we enjoyed views of Upper Wolf Jaw behind us on what was turning out to be a bluebird day.
It really is a lovely hike up to Lower WJ. Interspersed with the climbing sections are spots like this – it’s definitely not a long grueling hike to the summit like some other mountains I know (looking at you Iroquois).
20 minutes and 0.3 mile past the last junction, we were sitting on a rock we decided was the summit along with another hiker, and a few others who joined while we enjoyed our break. High Peak #34 is in the books!
We were feeling fantastic at this point – we hit our first high peak of the day less than 2 hours after starting and we felt full of energy.
My poor sherpa has to put up with this all day. Send thoughts and prayers.
We didn’t linger but a minute before turning to make our way back to the junction and on over to Upper WJ. We made it back to the closer junction at 9:50am (and I saw there WAS an indicator to LWJ, I just…didn’t see it somehow on the way up?).
And to the second junction 10 minutes later. From here just 0.9 miles to Upper WJ.
After a bit of flat and a bit of down, we started some solid climbing. But again, compared to HaBaSa this really felt like a piece of cake.
Looking back we could see al the ground we’ve already covered from Lower WJ.
After hiking for 40 minutes, we saw a spur in the trail leading to a rock, from which we could see our destination. But the thing is….we weren’t sure what we were looking at? When the trail started going down again quite a bit we questioned all we knew to be true. Were we just on Upper WJ and therefore heading towards Armstrong? Did we…miss it? Seems impossible considering there’s only one way to go. Either way, we just kept on going.
After a bit more climbing, we stood upon a nice ridge looking out to the peaks in our very near future.
There was a good amount of this throughout the day – volume up to hear me complaining about it.
Notice that big smile on his face? It’s because he thinks we were about to summit our THIRD peak of the day, believing we’d already gone up and over Upper WJ. Look how happy he was.
PSYCH! We had not. That bump we went up and over was presumably Wolf Jaws Notch, something that is NOT INDICATED ON OUR DANG MAP. Humiliating. We hung a sharp right here to scramble up the rock to the summit of Upper Wolf Jaw.
What a view! We shared the rocky ledge again with a few other happy hikers, all of us in high spirits with how gorgeous the day was turning out to be. At 10:56am, we had hit summit #2 of the day, and my 35th high peak!
See that ‘little’ bump between Lower WJ and where I was standing taking the picture? That’s Wolf Jaw Notch – should be a peak in it’s own right, but it’s presumably not prominent enough.
We had a cool view of the mountains ahead of us for the day – Armstrong, Gothics, and Pyramid in view, and Haystack and Basin from 3 weeks prior. Cool to know what those look like considering we were in a cloud for each one!
We rested up for just 15 minutes before heading back down and continuing on our way to Armstrong.
Descents between mountains in a range always feel so demoralizing, but it wasn’t really getting to us this time. I think with having done HaBaSa in the rain so recently, literally everything else feels easy by comparison. After about 25 minutes of descent and plateau from Upper WJ, we started climbing up Armstrong. I love a good ladder!
We stopped to admire the moss on our way – it was so lush with the rain this summer.
It’s so hard to capture the scale of the slabs of rock you climb on these hikes, so see Gildo for comparison.
After 40 minutes and 1 more mile, we were sitting atop the 3rd summit of the day and my 36th high peak!!! Single digits left from here on out!
These views did not disappoint. It seemed like each peak we summited had better views than the last. I loved looking towards Gothics but I couldn’t help but notice that Sawteeth wasn’t even visible past Pyramid peak, and the logistics of the day started to cast doubts in my mind.
I swear my knees aren’t bulbous, those are the knee braces I wear to keep my patellas from sliding off track. If you’re a seasoned reader, feel free to skip to the next picture – if you’re new here, Hi! I have a chronic connective tissue disease called Ehlers Danlos Syndrome and it pretty much wreaks havoc on my body. So it’s a small miracle that I’m able to do these hikes at all, and it’s the reason why it’s taken me so long to hike all 46 of them. I have to be conscious of every step I take, and I have to have an almost supernatural ability to listen to my body and treat it accordingly. Thanks for following along my journey so far, I hope that brief explanation helps explain some of my weirdness!
Awww we look so cuuuuuute.
We hung out up there with the other happy hikers for 25 minutes before picking up and moving right along. We decided that we’d assess how we felt on Gothics – adding on Sawteeth is no small feat when tackling the range from this direction. We’d chosen to start at The Garden so we could camp and make the trek more manageable – but that means to get Sawteeth, we’d have to go over Gothics to Pyramid, down Pyramid and up to Sawteeth, then back up over both Pyramid and Gothics, and down the other side. So while this is a 5 High Peak day, it’s really more like 6? Not even including Pyramid.
Looking up at Gothics is very intimidating! But I’d heard so much about the view from there, they were what kept me going. We had just 0.4 mile to descend, then 0.6 back up Gothics.
At 12:30pm, after 15 minutes, we’d reached the junction between Armstrong and Gothics. Interestingly, the sign here shows 0.4 to the summit of Gothics, but my Nat Geo map says 0.6. Make of that what you will.
Just past the junction we spotted the most gorgeous little grove of moss. I contemplated taking a nap in it, but ultimately decided against it. Maybe next time.
I love trails like this so much. It’s so cool to see how this mountain is literally just a GIANT rock with a thin coating of organic stuff growing out of it.
15 minutes later, we were entering the Alpine Plant Zone! That’s always a good sign that we’re getting close!
Looking back towards Armstrong – Gothics is the tallest peak of the day. It felt so empowering to look down on all the other peaks we’d already hit.
AND WE’D MADE IT! At 12:57, just 40 minutes and 1 mile after leaving Armstrong, we were sat atop the 4th summit and my 37th High Peak!!! Not that I’m counting down or anything. We had a brilliantly clear day – no clouds or haziness from humidity or wildfires – and could see well into the mountains in Vermont. I love so much the layers and shades of blue of the mountains in the distance.
We found the marker in the rock and grabbed a mandatory shoe pic with it. Interestingly, none of the summits had an official sign marking the summit.
These cool labelled pics come from my Peakfinder app. It’s so interesting to see what all these peaks in the distance are, I’m just terrible at identifying them on my own.
We sat up there in bliss. It was remarkable. The 360 degree views of my favorite place on Earth just filled my heart. Looking down to Pyramid however kind of brought us back down to earth.
That little green bump behind and to the right of Pyramid peak in the middle? That’s Sawteeth. Waaaaaaaay down there.
So we had a decision to make. At this point, we’d been hiking for almost 6 hours. We still had plenty of water left, however we’d been subconsciously rationing what we had left knowing that there’s nowhere along the ridge to refill. We could either go back to camp and come back for Sawteeth another day….or, we could go for it. Given the title of this post, I think you know which one we chose.
The junction to Sawteeth is not right at the summit of Gothics – it’s along the ridge a little ways. We made it there at 1:18pm and went left toward Pyramid and Sawteeth.
Views were magnificent. We had fantastic views of the upper great range, with Saddleback right in front of us. It doesn’t look like so much from this angle!
We were pretty exposed up on the shoulder of Gothics so I took a minute to add a layer and my sunglasses to protect me from the sun – AND the very very hungry flies. It was about this time that my fantasy of donning a flying squirrel suit and falling with style to get off the mountain started to kick in. Ausable lake makes a tempting landing strip, IMHO.
The ridge on Gothics is stunning at every step. It was fascinating to look down into a bowl formed by the Great Range, the green valley below and Ausable Lake in the distance.
That sharp jutting rock is Pyramid Peak! While it is over 4000 feet, it’s not considered a high peak in it’s own right because it lacks prominence from Gothics. So instead it’s just a really nice place to stop on the way to Sawteeth. From here, it does look like we have to descend a TON, and like it should take a long time to get there.
We descended for probably 10 minutes on trail like the picture below, then climbed for 5 minutes up Pyramid….
And somehow, that was it! We were there! Literally just a hop and a skip from Gothics – 15 minutes was all it took.
I get the hype about this peak. You get basically all of the views you have on Gothics, PLUS Gothics itself.
We even had a great view of Indian Head and Fish Hawk Cliffs towering over the lake below. Indian head is the rocky outcropping on the left in the picture below, fish hawk cliffs is the one towards the right. We felt sentimental seeing these because we were married on top of Indian Head almost 2 years ago! Of course there’s a blog entry for that trek, check it out if you want: Indian Head.
I’ll be honest, though we’d been in high spirits all day, looking down at Sawteeth….waaaaay down…..did not feel confidence-inspiring. We’d been hiking for over 6 hours and after summitting Sawteeth we’d still have another 5.5 miles to go to get back to camp. Fortunately I was still feeling good, no unusual pains, but we started seriously considering hiking out on Lake Rd, getting a ride (somehow??) back to The Garden, and hiking back in. I really didn’t know which option was worse at this point, so I said let’s just get there and then decide what to do.
Coming down from Pyramid was STEEP. It was the first time I wasn’t totally loving the trail all day. It just. kept. goinggggg. Theoretically (based on the map, if you trust that thing) it should have only been 0.9 miles from the top of Gothics down to the col, and another 0.5 back up to Sawteeth. I tell you from experience it was at least 10 miles. Maybe even 20. The map is wrong.
There’s got to be some fancy word for the psychological phenomenon that occurs when you’re hiking down something that you know you’re just going to have to come right back up. Dread? Is that the word I’m looking for?
Tell me HOW it took us 50 minutes after leaving Pyramid Peak – a full hour and 10 minutes from Gothics – to reach the col?! Why did it take us so long?! Partway down, we were guessing that we just had a tenth or two of a mile left to go, when a kind woman coming up said she estimated we still had SIX TENTHS TO GO. What do you MEAN?!? I’m telling you….10 miles.
Eventually, we reached the col and a bit of flat ground before the climbing started again. At the junction, we met a woman who’d come up over Sawteeth who let us know the way ahead was quite steep. Oh joy.
Really, the first few tenths of a mile weren’t steep at all, just the last section was. This last 0.5 mile took us the expected 20 minutes to reach the summit, and then there we were.
And you might be thinking, ‘Oh wow! What a beautiful view though!’ Friend, THAT IS GOTHICS IN THE MIDDLE OF THAT PICTURE. That mountain seemingly 3 lightyears in the distance? We had to go BACK up and over that. Who planned this trip anyway.
Ah right, it was this chica right here. What a ding dong. A ding dong with 38 high peaks under her belt!!!!! As my sherpa would regularly remind me to try to keep my spirits up on the long slog back to camp, ‘What number are you at?!’ ‘Thirty – effing – eight 😩’.
Hand on hip, serious contemplation going on here. Of what, you might ask? Well, if it’s possible for us to bushwhack our way around Gothics, through that pass way over there. Complete with audible complaining.
At some point I decided it was best to just….not look up. 7.5h into our trek, up and over 5 high peaks, and we basically still had to summit one more – Gothics again. (Ok ok you’re probably telling me to shut up and stop my complaining at this point – I swear I’m usually pretty happy go lucky about being in the mountains – but I was really concerned about my body’s actual ability to do this without winding up in excruciating pain, and landing in a flare the next day. When I flare, I’m useless – can’t even get out of bed, let alone carry camping gear on my back and hike out 4 miles.) Ultimately though we did decide to go back over Gothics rather than face the unknown journey of Lake Rd.
We stayed for 20 minutes before continuing on our way, enjoying some snacks and water. Somehow, I completely forgot to pack our Victory Chocolate! So we agreed to eat some Victory Tuna when we made it back up Gothics. We headed back down to the col at around 3:20 and made it to the junction 20 minutes later, and started the loooooong steep climb back up Pyramid. I, a professional rock skedaddler, employed my impeccable technique for climbing up steep slides. It….looks more impressive in person.
40 minutes later, we were back on top of Pyramid, trying to avoid eye contact with Gothics looming above us, and headed right back down the other side. There’s exactly one square foot of ground between Pyramid and Gothics between descending and ascending, so we grabbed a victory shot of that.
By now we were getting pretty exhausted. I estimate we’d gained and lost somewhere around 4000 feet in elevation and had been hiking continuously, save for a few short breaks, for nearly 9 hours. That was something I hadn’t factored in to deciding on Sawteeth – the sheer exhaustion of having to go down and back up.
10 minutes from the col between Pyramid and Gothics, and a full hour and 20 minutes after leaving Sawteeth, we were back on top of Gothics.
We really needed a break to have a snack and rest our legs and I don’t think we could have chosen a better spot. This is on the trail down to the Ore Bed Brook, on the shoulder of Gothics. We actually toyed with the idea of hanging out on Gothics until sunset, but it was only 4:50pm and the sun wouldn’t set for a few more hours and we badly needed to refill our water supply. There were no clouds anyway, so the sunset would have been disappointing (this is what I tell myself anyway).
Victory Tuna is a pretty poor substitute for Victory Chocolate, but hey, at least get got some protein!
Coming down the back side of Gothics is super cool. I felt like a proper mountaineer – all smooth slabs of rock and incredible view of the tallest peaks in the ADKs. We were heading directly towards Saddleback, where we’d been just a few weeks prior.
The features on this side of the mountain are awe-inspiring. Check out this huge crack in the rock that Gildo beckoned me to come see.
I had totally forgotten until we saw them that the cables are on this route! I was so excited to use them, and they didn’t show up a moment too soon. My legs were tired and wobbly – walking on a decline down a smooth slide is the most tiring thing in my experience, more than boulders and rocks, because there’s no way to really adjust how you step to give muscle groups a break – you just have to keep going.
My toes were getting real acquainted with the tips of my boots, so I took the opportunity to descend backwards using the heavy chains to counterbalance me. Pictures just don’t do justice for how steep this was.
“This is the slide that never ends, it goes on and on my friends…” According to the map, the slide is less than 0.5 mile long, but it felt much longer. It took us about 35 minutes, going a little more slowly because my knees were starting to tweak, to make it to the junction with Saddleback and the Ore Bed Brook.
After this point on, I didn’t take many pictures because I was using my poles. I successfully avoided using them earlier in the day to try to save my elbows – they hurt when I put weight on them – but now with my knees showing signs of distress, it was time. Ore Bed Brook is probably no ones first choice of path to descend the Lower Great Range on, it’s rocky and tricky and my dedicated sherpa turned around every few steps to lift me down steep and treacherous obstacles. If you want more pictures and descriptions, go check out my report from HaBaSa. At any rate, it took us 20 minutes from the junction to reach the most amazing stairs in all of the Adirondacks – a sight for sore eyes!
I love these stairs. I love them so much. Pay no attention to the look of focus on my face – when the knees get tweaky, I need to concentrate completely on every single step I take, and I just look grumpy.
By now it was 6pm and we were out of water minus a sip or two left in one of the bottles. We kept an eyes out for easily-accessible streams to filter some water from along the way.
At 7pm, we found water! This trail down the Ore Bed Brook is loooong and rocky, 2.5 miles in total with a lean-to marking the 1.8 mile mark. I was feeling the dehydration and moving pretty slowly. I couldn’t tell if I was experiencing my unusual pain or if my body was simply utterly exhausted, stiff, and fatigued. Gildo stayed at the stream to filter some water and sent me on my way to cover some ground at my snail’s pace, so on I went.
At 7:25pm I reached the lean-to – just a little over a mile and a half to get back to camp, and Gildo caught up with me at about that point. A nice gulp of cool water and I felt like a dried up sponge coming back to life.
At 7:52pm, 2 hours and 10 minutes after leaving the junction at the top of the Ore Bed trail, we reached the next junction. Just over 1 mile left to go – 0.8 miles back up a hill to the junction with the Wolf Jaw lean-to, the back down to camp.
By now the sun had set and we donned our headlamps. In my memory, I was moving agonizingly slowly, but in reality, we hiked that 0.8 mile stretch to the junction in just 30 minutes.
The short trod back to the camp never felt so long – Gildo went ahead to look for it while I slowly plodded on, quietly willing my body to go just a little further. I was worried we’d passed it, breaking at the possibility of having to go back up and considering just sleeping under a nice tree somewhere. But then my headlamp illuminated Gildo just ahead, next to the tree with the indicator for our camp. We’d made it just before 9pm, 13.5 hours after starting.
We wasted no time in preparing some food, cleaning up our dirt and sweat with a wet shirt (well Gildo went for a frigid dip in the stream to clean up…I did not.), and passing out.
Saturday 8/16 – Over and Out
All in all, I think most of my pain from the previous day was more or less normal, and I was just stiff and exhausted in a totally normal way! We woke up at around 8 in the morning feeling surprisingly good, ate our breakfast, and got the heck out of there at just before 10am. I was so excited to be home, take a shower, and pet my dogs. Oh, and it was my birthday!! I’m in absolute shock that I felt so good – not even sore, just a bit stiff – which was the best birthday present I could have ever asked for.
I won’t ramble on much longer – the hike out was smooth. A ranger at the outpost joked that I made Gildo carry all the camp gear, and I said Yep! I know what I’m doing! My sherpa sure is a trooper, and he does it all with a smile on his face if he knows that he’s enabling me to accomplish my dreams.
For a beautiful Saturday morning, we really thought we’d see more people, but that wasn’t the case! We alternated quiet walking with happy banter, and decidedly agreed that between HaBaSa and the lower great range (at least the way we’d done it), the lower great range was harder. In my mind, I completely equate Sawteeth with Couchsachraga. I know they’re different – I know Sawteeth at least has a view, and the only way to summit Couch is up and over the Santanoni range while Sawteeth has several options. But the way we’d done it….yeah, it felt very similar. If I did this again, I would not add on Sawteeth. It took a really enjoyable day and honestly made it much more stressful, painful, and exhausting. That said, I’m very glad I did it! 38 baby!
Look at us – we reached The Garden just an hour and 40 minutes after leaving camp, covering those 4 miles at an excellent pace. I hope you enjoyed this long read, I’m looking forward to giving you just 4 more trip reports before I finally complete my 46er journey. Happy Hiking!
38 down, 8 to go.
Lower Wolf Jaw: 4175′
Upper Wolf Jaw: 4185′
Armstrong: 4400′
Gothics: 4736′
Sawteeth: 4100′
Total Duration: ~17 hours total
Total Distance: ~16 miles
All images are property of adktrailtalesandtails and may only be used with express permission.
The big HaBaSa. On my list of peaks and suggestions to group them, this one comes in dead last in order of difficulty from loads of information I’d gathered from other hikers. And I have to say…I agree with that assessment. [Spoiler alert] Did we see any views from the summits? Nah. Did we get absolutely soaking wet? Absolutely we did. Did we have a blast? Also yes.
On Thursday 7/24 we hit the trailhead at The Garden parking lot. We had a grand plan to break up the massive 18.7 mile hike by trekking in the 3.5 miles to John’s Brook Lodge, camping the night there, getting up bright and early on Friday to do the HaBaSa loop (in that order), camping again, then hiking out Saturday morning.
We signed in at the register at 12:25pm and happily trod on our way. I had three anxieties around this trip: 1. Finding a parking spot at The Garden (check – note to self, Thursdays are slow days at The Garden) 2. Finding a campsite near JBL and 3. The hike up HaBaSa itself, and managing to complete it relatively pain-free.
This time, unlike most of my other high peaks adventures, I wouldn’t be doing it alone! I brought my own personal Sherpa along with me.
For any first-time readers here, Hi! I’m a New York adventurer and I’m on my journey to become a 46er. I’m also an engineer, a singer-songwriter (check out my music), and a chronic illness sufferer. I have a connective tissue disease called Ehlers Danlos syndrome which prevents my body from creating collagen correctly. It affects everything in my body including (but not limited to) my joints, blood vessels, and stomach. As you can probably imagine, it makes intense treks like those in the ADKs pretty challenging. So my husband – er, Sherpa – takes his job very seriously and hauls not only all of our overnight supplies, but also me from time to time!
15 minutes of easy walking and we were at the first junction to the south side trail. That trail is abandoned and no longer maintained, so we decided to stay on the north side of Johns Brook.
We were in no hurry whatsoever, just so happy to be in the woods rather than sitting at our desks working. We stopped many many times to marvel at the Green Things, the Tiny Things, the Things that Tweet…
Roughly 30 minutes after starting, we’d reached the first lean-to (Deer Brook) approximately 1 mile in.
The trail up to Johns Brook Lodge is flat, wide, and super nice walking. Not much rock-hopping involved, and certainly nothing technical.
I very nearly stepped on this little cutie, so he won the prize of getting his photo taken, while Gildo stopped to use an app to identify birds based on their chirping.
Then, 1.5 hours in, we had the most magical encounter. This young deer was completely unbothered by us. We stood and watched her for a good 5 minutes crunching on leaves she found on the ground. I’ve decided she was the spirit of the forest, welcoming us back to the ADKs.
At 2:10pm, we reached the next register and signed in again. 3.1 miles down, almost to the Lodge.
By this time we were drenched in sweat – it was around 90 degrees and huuuuumid. We stopped a couple of times at the streams to dip our hats in and wet our faces, but we were daydreaming about dunking ourselves in Johns Brook.
I remember this junction from when I climbed Big Slide Mtn (27) with Bushnell Falls and the Three Brothers back in the day! That was another hot day, so instead of just climbing Big Slide as an out and back, I came down to this junction and hiked all the way to Bushnell Falls to take a dip!
By now we could hear signs of humanity up ahead, and we knew we were close.
If you plan ahead, you can reserve a spot in the lodge and get 3 meals in addition to your bed. But even if you don’t stay, it’s definitely worth a look around inside.
We had initially wandered around a bit on the other side of the river around Camp O’Brien, but it should be noted that the Crandall, Myers, and Goodwin lean-tos are private property and are reservation only. We saw that, then went to the lodge to ask about them, and ended up continuing maybe 1/4 of a mile up towards Bushnell Falls to find the camping area.
A few people had already set up camp, so we explored around until we found the furthest site available – which, it turns out, had a ‘back door’ straight back to the lodge. We’d looped around so far that we were closer to the l0dge than to the start of the camping area.
I can never manage to sleep in tents, so I set up my hammock on top of a small hill where I could hear the brook babbling below.
By 3:30pm, we had completely set up camp. Next order of business – strip down to our skivvies and submerge our grimy carcasses in Black Brook. It was sooooo refreshing, if not numbingly cold, and we welcomed it. We salamandered on some rocks in the sun, going in and out of the water for the next 45 minutes.
Then we wandered back over to JBL to lounge and cook our dinner – Chicken Teriyaki and a tuna packet, and of course some water with a Nuun tablet for hydration.
We were cozied up in our respective domiciles before the sun had even set, eager to see what Day 2 would bring.
Day 2
Sleep? What’s that? The night was balmy, hot and sticky, and I was fighting for my life against mosquitos biting me through my hammock. So I was actually relieved to get started for the day when my lovely Sherpa came to wake me up at 6:50am.
We gathered our things in one day pack, filled up water at JBL, and hit the trail at precisely 7:49am.
The path up to Bushnell Falls inclines at a steady, easy pace and crests this cool ridge, with sharp drop-offs at either side.
1.5 miles and 50 minutes of slow hiking later, we reached the first lean-to at Bushnell Falls.
The trail down to the falls is a steep 0.1 mile. I’d seen them before, and as much as I wanted to again, this was going to be a long day and I chose to save my knees for when I’d really need them, so I sat on a nice rock and waited for Gildo to make his way down and back.
We continued on our way and just 10 minutes later, we were at the next Bushnell Falls lean-to.
At this point, we hadn’t seen a single soul on the trail or at any of the campsites. Seems like Thursday is a good day to hike in to camp!
2 hours in and the trail was decidedly more Adirondack-y – complete with mud, rocks, and blowdown. But with all the recent rain, we were rewarded with picturesque moss and verdant vistas left and right.
By 10:12am, not quite 2.5 hours into the trek from JBL, we reached THE slant rock.
And it’s accompanying lean-to. Like all the others, this camping area seemed vacant and we still hadn’t encountered a single person. We were starting to wonder if everyone else knew something we didn’t? The forecast for the day was admittedly not….great. But it was waaaay cooler than the day before, so even with a little rain, it was preferable to heat and humidity, right? At the junction just after the lean-to, we continued straight on the red trail to continue towards Marcy.
This appeared to be a steep 0.9 mile segment of trail until the next junction, complete with rocks….
mud….
and running water.
Some brief glimpses of the sky and some nearby mountains did not make us hopeful for magnificent views from the summits…
Mud – a short poem. A large step up, a slick muddy slope. Feet do slide.
At 11:15am (3h 25min/4.3 miles from JBL), we reached the junction with Marcy. We stayed left to continue on the 0.5 miles to Little Haystack.
And it was….actually, it was exactly what I’d expected. Welcome back to the Adirondacks, baby. Here’s some slabs of rock to climb.
At this point it was sprinkling with rain, and I was surprised at the state of this maintained trail – it felt more like a ‘trailless’ or unmaintained trail by how narrow, eroded, and crowded by pine boughs it was. Unfortunately, with the rain, walking through here meant we got completely soaked with water from the trees.
30 minutes of tough climbing later, we were staring at little haystack, with big haystack looming behind, encased within a whipping torrent of rain and wind.
It took us 40 minutes to go just 0.5 miles to the next junction. Good thing the signs are so clear and descriptive! Just another 0.5 miles remaining to Mt Haystack – we just have to hop right over little haystack first.
Up here we were extra aware of the fragile alpine vegetation and made sure to stay on the rocks and follow the yellow blazes.
The wind was honestly unnerving and I was feeling rather trepidatious about it. But the rock surface was still dry and we continued to slowly make our way carefully up and over little Haystack, sitting when the wind came in gusts so as not to be knocked over.
We hunkered down on the back side of little haystack for a few minutes, looking towards what we assumed to be Big Haystack – not that we could see it – and debating whether this was something we could do safely.
Ultimately we decided to go for it, and carefully made our way down to the col and the relative shelter of the trees there, before emerging again and scrambling up big Haystack.
I had to remind myself a few times that compared to the hikes I’d done in Patagonia, this wind was nothing. And with that thought in mind, and one foot after another, we climbed up and up. Well, I actually bear-crawled my way up most of it, on my hands and feet to have multiple points of contact, but still – you get the point. I have NO SHAME.
Nearly at the summit now, with not a view in sight! This last part reminds me of the back of a dinosaur, jutting out at such an angle.
We made it! Almost 5 hours after leaving JBL, we sat on the summit of Haystack to admire the stunning views and share some victor nutterbutters before the skies opened up and drenched us with rain.
There was really no point in hanging around and we wanted to get out of the elements, so we pulled on our rain coats and started heading back the way we came.
Supposedly this trio of mountains has some of the best views in the ADKs, so I can only assume I’ll be making another trip out here at some point when weather is nicer!
30 minutes later, we were back in the trees at the junction with Basin Mountain, and we turned right to go on the blue trail.
Next up, 0.5 miles of downward trekking to the next junction with the great range trails.
We reached this junction after 35 minutes of careful trekking, grateful to the trees for keeping us out of the wind and the worst of the rain.
On the map, the next 0.1 mile section of trail appears to steeply descend until the junction with Slant Rock trail, and I can confirm – it’s steep, rocky, muddy, and now with the rain – slick.
Still, surely we were on that 0.1 mile stretch for at least a mile. It took us TWENTY FIVE MINUTES to reach the next junction?! What did we DO for 25 minutes? At that pace, it would take us over 4 hours to go a single mile, for reference….
After that bizarre time warp, we stayed on the blue-marked trail toward Basin Mountain, trodding through the now-familiar mud, slick rocks, and dripping pine boughs. From this point on, every step we took would bring us closer to JBL.
The 0.8 mile to Basin started out with a little bit of down and a little bit of flat before climbing up again, sometimes steep and tricky rocky surfaces. In all, we’d lost about 1000 feet of elevation and had to gain back around 900 of it all over again.
At one point, there was a most thoughtful ladder to help us up a tricky section! I’m not sure what made this spot special to necessitate a ladder over the other spots, but I’ll take it.
Overall, the stretch from Haystack to Basin wasn’t overly difficult, and the climbing – though tough in spots – wasn’t that bad either. The higher we got, the more enshrouded in clouds we once again became.
Ah, what gorgeous views we had, just breathtaking.
One last pass through rainforest-esque landscape…
And we reached the summit. Woooooooow just stunning. I believe my remark here was ‘I guess now we know what it would look like to be inside of a marshmallow.’ A wet marshmallow. But hey, at least there wasn’t much wind this time. We made it here at 3:18pm, just about an hour after leaving the last junction, and 7.5 hours after leaving JBL.
There was no point in lingering to see the whole wide nothing, so we kept on along the trail. The cloud became so thick that we could barely see beyond the ends of our noses – at times, it looked like the trail dropped off to the abyss.
Coming down from Basin was less walking and more crab-walking and scooting down the sheer wet rocks, not trusting our tiring legs nor the grip in our boots.
The path from Basin to Saddleback is only about 1 mile long, but in that 1 mile we lost about 700 feet of elevation. It was pretty though.
Over the river and through the woods, to the cliffs of saddleback we go….These cliffs are pretty notorious for being intimidatingly daunting. And we were about to climb them in the rain. At some point I looked at my beloved sherpa and asked in all seriousness, ‘Are we stupid?’.
I was sure to snap a picture of a thoughtful sign at the lodge showing the recommended route of Saddleback and referenced it before we began.
That said, it ended up being pretty straightforward to figure out which way to go, given that the route is marked with yellow blazes.
I’m not gonna lie – there was more than one spot on the cliffs when I looked at the yellow blazes and said ‘What do you MEAN?!?’ as if the rocks would explain it to me if I asked.
I’m usually the first person to promote solo hiking to people. I love it. It’s my favorite and most effective form of meditation. Plus, no ones there to see you when you embarrass yourself falling in the mud or tripping over your own toes. So take that into account when I say: you should probably not climb this mountain alone. And I DEFINITELY wouldn’t suggest doing it from the other direction (descending the cliffs rather than ascending them) – there’s a reason it’s called HaBaSa and not SaBaHa!
I am 5’9″ and there were a FEW spots that my dedicated sherpa had to hold one of my feet in position so I could lift my other leg up, because there were no footholds. So in addition to your water, snacks, and non-cotton clothing, bring a trusted friend that won’t mind giving you a boost.
Climbing up this crack in the rock actually wasn’t that hard, as a person that’s not really afraid of heights, but it really looks impressive so let’s pretend it was DEATH-DEFYING, ok?
And then….we were there. To our shock, awe, and bewilderment, we’d summited all three mountains. 1h and 20 minutes after leaving Basin, 9 hours/9 miles from JBL.
AND the sun actually peeked out just for us, to give us an inkling of a view before clouding over again.
Coming down from Saddleback was a sloooooow procedure. We started with a steep 0.5 miles down to a junction. Over the next 3.3 miles, we’ll lose about 2200′ in elevation.
Here we stayed on the blue trail to make our way back to JBL – 2.8 miles to go!
The way down was a lot less like hiking and a lot more like bouldering. It was just problem after problem. Take 5 steps, stop to figure out a way down, using every bit of upper body strength to help and compensate for the slick rock. We both slid on our hands and feet on more than one occasion.
We were PSYCHED to see the start of the stairs peeking up through the trees to take us down the slide in styyyyle.
Forever grateful to the trail workers who built this thing. What an immense amount of work! It felt so good to not have to think about every step and just go for a little bit.
I wouldn’t want to be climbing up that in the rain! (or in the sun if I’m being honest)
As we descended, the clouds started to clear. Just in time! I turned to ask my favorite sherpa if he wanted to go back up Haystack now that the clouds were clearing?? He said no.
The stairs spit us out right at the bottom of the slide. Turning to look back, I could see how someone would miss the entrance to the stairs altogether. If you are for some ungodly reason doing this range in SaBaHa order (WHY you would do that, I cannot possibly imagine, but I can only assume you feel you must atone for your existence), be sure not to follow the yellow blazes at this point but instead look for the blue markers on the skinny tree to the left.
This spot looked to be a recent mini-slide, with some stairs that look like they were knocked down in a pile of rubble.
We stepped over the rubble and found a lovely little pool of iron-rich water, freshly fed from the slide above.
Oh my GOD is that flat ground? Wide trail?? No pine boughs dumping their rainwater on us? No massive boulders to scramble down?!? Hallelujah!
After 1.8 miles of descent (1 hour and 45 minutes for anyone keeping track of our lightning pace) since the last junction, we reached the Ore Bed Brook lean-to. Just one more mile to camp!
We skedaddled down the next 0.7 miles in just 20 minutes, and we were home free.
All day long, my loyal sherpa didn’t miss a single opportunity to help boost me up a big boulder or lift me down large steps to help save my knees. When my knee pain hits, it is pain indescribable, and it’s a one-way street. There’s no going back once it starts, I can only push through. A few short years ago I would have paled at the thought of accepting help up and down these boulders – how dare anyone insinuate that I can’t do it myself! I’m strong! Yeah…Those days are long gone. I did feel a suspicious lack of dignity a few times being boosted up by my butt, or trust-falling off a rock into Gildo’s arms, but by that point I simply didn’t care. So all that to say – the very last section of the trail before the bridge back to JBL was these steep stairs, and when I tell you that man lifted me down every. single. step. so I wouldn’t strain my knees….That’s love.
We strolled through JBL and took the back way in to our campsite at 7:49pm. EXACTLY 12 hours to the dot from the time we left.
My phone seems to think we did 15 miles but it was actually more like 12. Nonetheless, a massively difficult day, made ever-more brutal by the rain, wind, and slick rocks.
I couldn’t have been happier that we’d decided to camp both nights so we didn’t have to hike out. I was tucked away in my hammock by 9:30pm and slept solid until the breakfast bell rang at the lodge at 7:30am the next day.
Day 3
I didn’t want to wake up. In between bouts of slumber I heard other campers getting ready for the day, the rustle of tents and low hiss of zippers opening and closing, birds singing…Eventually I roused and slooooowly got out around 8:30am to find Gildo preparing some coffee.
We hit the trail at 10:50am after taking our sweet time to pack up camp and have breakfast. I was not feeling super great, pretty sluggish and expectedly sore, so we were glad not to have to be anywhere at any specific time.
The hike out was unremarkable in every way. It was getting increasingly warm and the path was blissfully flat and even. No rock-hopping, no jumping off boulders, just…walking. Ahh, my favorite.
At 12:30pm we reached the last junction of our journey – just 0.5 miles remaining. That stretch from JBL seemed to be an eternity.
And finally – we saw the glisten of cars in the parking lot. We’d done it! Just shy of 2 hours after leaving JBL. I’m so incredibly proud of us. We loaded our stinky smelly strips of humanity (can you tell I’ve been listening to Anthony Bourdain’s audio book?) into the car and booked it straight to Stewarts to scarf down food. It’s no one’s business what all we ate there, let’s just say I spent all of the last 3 days SO HUNGRY – which is very unlike me – and I left Stewarts full to the brim and ready for the drive home.
33 down, 13 to go. Happy hiking!
Haystack: 4960′
Basin: 4827′
Saddleback: 4515′
Total elevation gain: 5137′
Total Duration: 12 hours (+ 4 hours to hike in/out)
Total Distance: 18.7 miles
All images are property of adktrailtalesandtails and may only be used with express permission.
Wow, it’s been a while since I was last up in the high peaks! The last time I was here was in 2022, I climbed the rest of the Dix range but had to orphan out Dix itself. This time I had my husband to accompany me and we decided to make a weekend of it by staying a couple nights in Lake Placid. I was most excited about sitting in a hot tub after the hike! At this time of year, the access road to the Elk Lake trailhead is closed, making access to the other peaks in the range pretty difficult. However it’s about the same distance to the summit of Dix from Rt 73, so that’s what we did! We reached the Round Pond trailhead at about 8:45am.
We’ve been to this trailhead before and embarrassingly, it still tripped us up. We looked around for a minute before checking with another pair of hikers to find out where the actual trailhead is.
This is just the sign for the parking area, NOT the trailhead. The actual trailhead is just a few feet down the road.
We unsurprisingly started climbing pretty much right away. Based on the map, we knew we’d have an initial climb until reaching Round Pond, then another stretch of climbing before the trail would flatten out for a good while.
Oh how optimistic and naive we were when, 7 minutes after starting, we saw this marshy clearing and started to wonder if we’d already reached Round Pond! Of course not, dummies! 😅
It always takes a good half hour to find that groove when starting a hike, when the mind overcomes the body’s desire to lie down under a nice tree and just…stay there. We moved slow and steady, and after 14 minutes from the trail head we had made it the 0.6 miles to Round Pond. Yay! Only 6.2 more miles to go to reach the summit!
What a gooooorgeous day we had! We enjoyed a few minutes to ourselves here letting two groups of people pass us.
By this point we were getting nicely warmed up as we walked around the little lake, spotting beaver sign along the way.
We missed peak foliage by about 2 weeks, but some of the trees still had beautiful bright yellow leaves, and we passed through a whole section of forest full of them. At this point I had actually mis-remembered the terrain on the map – I thought we just had to go uphill a little bit and then it would be flat, so we were kind of booking it to stay ahead of the group behind us. Then we realized it was more like a mile of uphill so why don’t we chill out a little bit and let the folks behind us just pass us up so we could take our time! Duh 😆
Eventually the climbing levelled off. It took us about 45 minutes to go the 1.7 miles from the pond to the next junction.
It’s really important to note that on the map, it looks like there are two junctions – one to Round Mountain, as the sign below shows, and one to Noonmark Mountain, but there is actually just ONE junction. Going to the right here would take us up Round Mtn, going to the left would go to Dix, and going straight (more or less) is the way to Noonmark, but it wasn’t as obvious a trail as the others.
We were really looking forward to a nice, easy 1.9 mile mostly-flat walk through the woods before the more arduous climb started. The trail here follows along a stream, weaving in and out of it along the way.
Conditions were mostly dry, though we still couldn’t escape a few muddy sections that made for some fun navigation.
As we grew nearer to the leanto on the map it became a bit difficult to make sure we stayed on trail. There’s one spot in which we crossed a little stream, and continued straight to the banks of the larger N. Fork Boquet River – it almost looks like you’re supposed to rock hop across the river, but actually the trail turns sharply to the right.
There was some blowdown near the leanto, where we spotted some signs for camping directing hikers to the leanto, but we made sure not to follow those and instead cross the river to stay on trail. This spot was particularly hard to follow; the group that had been ahead of us actually ended up behind us because they got turned around here! On the other side of the river, just before 11am (2 hours from the trailhead) we knew we’d reached the end of our easy 1.9 mile stretch and it was time to start a gradual ascent.
This section of forest was so lovely to walk through. It consisted of lots of spindly deciduous trees, some still with bright yellow leaves, so we could see farther through the wood than we usually can.
The path followed the stream for a while longer, and I couldn’t help but notice how rocky the trail is. I tend to be a powerhouse on the way up but have a hard time on the way back down the mountain, so I was already getting nervous about how rocky the trail was.
The higher we climbed, the further we moved through the seasons, with a glimpse of the conditions we’d find ourselves in at the summit.
The grade became a bit steeper with about 1.5 miles to go to the summit, following the stream closely and offering the occasional glimpse of the slide to come.
It was right about noon when we found a nice log in the sun on a little island in the stream to sit and have some lunch. We hadn’t taken a break in the 3 hours since we started so it was nice to sit for a few minutes, but we didn’t linger long due to the cold. 20 minutes of rocky muddy climbing later and we were at the base of the slide.
As we were hiking to this point, a group of 3 young men passed us going down – they were adorably enthusiastic about the day they were having, and warned us to stay to the right on the slide and exit at the cairn – the slide does not lead to the summit. They found this out the hard way, going up for sunrise and bushwhacking out of the top of the slide, then sheepishly admitting that only 1 of the 3 had brought microspikes – because of those two mistakes, they missed sunrise! Thanks to them though, we were prepared when we made it to the slide.
While I probably wouldn’t want to be on this slide in wetter conditions, we really weren’t on it for more than a few minutes before exiting at the cairn. Even so, the wind here was ROUGH! It was so cold I had to sit down and layer up right away to stay warm. Thanks to those folks coming down trail, we knew to look out for the cairn – which was great advice, because it wasn’t super obvious.
Just after re-entering the trail from the slide, we saw this no camping sign, indicating we were right at 3500′! This also meant we had a heck of a climb ahead of us.
This past spring, I spent 4 days solo trekking through mountains in Patagonia, and I was amazed at how good I felt. I had no pain, no issues at all – I loved every minute of it. So I’ve been wondering what’s different about Patagonia from the mountains here? Is it the air? The water?
No. It’s the FREAKING ROCKS. Who put all these rocks here 😭 The paths in Patagonia where I was hiking were much more level – yes, you were climbing uphill for 7 miles, but the trail itself was flat and easy to walk on. That’s the difference. But I digress. It was just before 1pm when we got our first views of the day.
And then…
More….
ROCKS. Seriously, this last half mile to the junction felt so much longer than it was, it was such slow going. We had one or two near miss incidents with slick ice before we decided it was dumb to go any further without putting on our microspikes.
Just when we were starting to feel like the climb would never end, we reached the junction! Just 0.4 miles left to the summit! Despite all my whining about the rocks, I was actually feeling so good all day. I felt strong and had so much energy on the uphill.
The third sign reads: “Beckhorn Trail Junction – 2.7miles, Lillian Brook Leanto – 3.3miles, Slide Brook Leanto – 4.7miles, Elk Lake Trailhead – 7miles”
We instantly scrambled our way up a steep icy ledge and got this view.
From here on it was very icy, interspersed with deep sections of mud that threatened to pull off my boot once or twice, along a ridge with lots of nice spots to sit in the sun and enjoy the view. We continued along just until the trail was about to go down toward the beckhorn, then found our own perch to enjoy the fruits of our labor. We did it!!! Summit time – 1:45pm, 4h45m after leaving the trailhead.
Enjoy this closeup of my face.
We savored our hard-earned victory chocolate, then hubby took a nap on a rock while I took photos. Despite the snow around us and on the way up, the summit was so warm! There was no wind at all and the sun warmed us up. It was so nice to be able to rest up there without worrying about getting cold.
At 2:30pm we decided we should probably be on our way. My #1 priority now was to make it back to our motel by 8pm so we have time to soak in the hot tub! Lucky for me, I got a lift down off the tall ledges to help save my joints by this handsome guy 😊
I wasn’t joking about the deep mud from the snow and ice melting in the warmth of the sun…I was able to navigate around one of the wannabe boot-thieves, but this is the only way I could think of to get around this one.
We were back at the junction at 3pm, ready for our steep treacherous descent back down to the slide.
The going was slooooow on the way down, as expected. I can fly up but I have to take such care on the way back down to make sure I don’t hurt my knees. Even so, the trail is so rocky it was impossible to avoid tweaking my knees and ankles at least a few times. For months, I’ve been climbing the mountain near my house 2-4 times per week, with larger more strenuous hikes on the weekend, including some of the Lake George 12ster peaks, and I’d done so without pain. I finally felt like I was gaining strength and endurance back and I didn’t want to ruin it on this hike.
It took us an hour to get back to the slide from the junction. I was relieved that we’d gotten the steepest part of the hike behind us.
It didn’t take long to reach the end of the slide and slink back into the woods along the stream filling with water from snowmelt on the summit.
Another 40 minutes after that, we were nearing the lean to. Somewhere along the way I started getting pain in my right knee again – I wholly blame the rocks. As we hiked down I remember taking about 4 steps on a flat, dirt section of trail and saying “Ah, this is nice!” and then it was over 😭 I was so grateful to be back to the 1.9 mile flat stretch.
We crossed the river towards the lean-to, and spotted the reason why people may have gotten so turned around here. Notice the arrow sign in the third picture below, obscured by branches of the fallen tree.
And just like that, our nice little flat section was over, and we were back at the downhill to Round Pond right at 5:30pm.
I was having a pretty tough time hobbling along by this point. The smallest tweaks from stepping slightly off on a rock would send pangs of lightning out from my knee, so I tried to keep it locked in place and use my hip to move my leg. All of this is doable on flat even ground, but on a rocky downhill trail? Not so much.
At 6:20 we reached Round Pond and caught the last remnants of the sun hitting the trees across the pond.
By now I had started thinking about the inevitable dilemma I have after every major hike – what should I do first when I finish? The hunger, exhaustion, need for a shower, and a soak in the hot tub all seemed equally urgent. Maybe I could eat a pizza in the hot tub? That might do the trick.
My husband had been carrying my backpack for the last couple of miles to take some weight off my knees and try to help with the pain, but I guess it must have gotten too much for him to watch me struggle because suddenly it wasn’t enough for him to carry my backpack, and he picked me up and carried me probably 3/10 of a mile down the trail. By the time he set me down and I again hobbled down the trail by the light of my headlamp, I almost cried tears of joy when I saw headlights of cars on Rt 73 in front of me – I was about 15 feet from the trail register and had no idea.
We made it back right at 7pm! We ordered some food from our favorite local brewery in Lake Placid, picked it up on our way to the motel, ate in the car, then hopped in the hot tub. On the map and trail signs, it says this hike is 13.6 miles, but both of our phones clocked it in at about 14.9 miles.
30 down, 16 to go! Happy Hiking!
Dix Mountain: 4,857′, elevation gain: 3,725′
Total Duration: 10 hours
Total Distance: Either 13.6 or 14.88 miles 🤷♀️
All images are property of adktrailtalesandtails and may only be used with express permission.
I was really overdue for some time off work, so I took the day off and set out with the pups to tackle two more of the Lake George 12sters – Cat and Thomas! Only, not in that order. We rolled into the parking area on Valley Woods Rd at about 9am with just 2 other cars there, whose hikers were still getting ready for the hike.
I got the doggies suited up and off we went. I signed in at the register as the first hiker of the day.
I had a map with me, but took a picture of the one at the register just for good measure. The plan was to go up the ‘Cat and Thomas Ridge Trail’, summit Thomas, then Cat, then go back down ‘Cat Mtn Trl’ to ‘Thomas Mtn Edgecomb Pond Trl’.
The trail starts off wide and pretty much flat, albeit rocky, and parallels the Valley Woods Rd for a while.
Between the trail and the road is a nice little stream, lush and green.
After 3/4 of a mile of flat walking, the trail splits – right to go directly up Thomas, and left to go towards Cat.
We took the path to the right and the trail became a bit narrower and started climbing. It wasn’t particularly steep, and the terrain was easy to walk on, but the climbing did not let up.
Writing these trip reports really helps me to stay in the moment during my hikes. It’s so easy to get lost in thought and miss little details in my surroundings, like this little guy!
And this pretty miniature stream in a mossy jungle. I make a conscious effort to live in the moment and appreciate the little moments in life, and stopping to enjoy the beauty of the things around me helps me to do that.
Though the path all the way up looks identical (I took about 12 photos at different points and they all looked almost exactly like the one below -.-), I could sense the elevation we were gaining.
Stopping to look at the little flowers was also a good excuse to take a break and catch my breath! Being the first person on the trail, that made me the designated Spider Web Clearer for the day. Oh joy. I had to be mindful to keep my mouth closed so I didn’t get any extra unexpected protein in my diet.
Along the way I noticed some random rocks stacked on the side of the trail. I looked around but didn’t see anything to indicate that I was supposed to go that way to get to the summit. Per the tenets of Leave No Trace, please do not stack rocks found in nature. We should make as little impact as possible on the trail – “Take only photos, leave only footprints.” Not to mention that cairns typically indicate something important to draw a hiker’s attention to, so these little decorative stacks are misleading. Soooo I kicked them all over.
It took me a couple of tries to get a picture of this cutie – I took the first one just as it had hopped away, giving me a stunning photo of some leaves on the ground.
I was catching the most beautiful glimpses of blue sky between the trees and couldn’t wait to see the view from the summit.
We’re almost there! Just near the summit were some downed trees, casualties of the storms this summer, but the Trail signs and markers help guide the right way.
We did it! It took just 45 minutes to reach the summit of Thomas Mountain, 1.5 miles from the trailhead.
The drive to the trailhead was super foggy that morning. I was really hoping there would be some fog left in the mountains by the time I made it to the summit – I think it makes the view that much more beautiful! So I was so glad to see some remnants in the distance from the summit of Thomas.
Note that the true summit of Thomas is off the marked trail. This viewing point is the site of an old cabin and is considered the Official summit. No need to bushwhack to find the true one for sake of the hiking challenge.
We sat down just for a couple of minutes to take in the view, but we weren’t tired at all yet so I didn’t bother to unpack the snacks and water.
You can see our next stop, Cat Mountain, to the left of center in the picture below!
Just as we were getting ready to leave, a group of women was just making it to the summit. The puppies sat at attention.
Here’s another view of Cat. I know better by now that it’s never as far as it seems, but heck that does not look close by.
There’s only one thru trail going up Thomas, so no worries about taking the wrong path, unless you somehow get confused and go back the way you came. The path down is toward the right of the summit, and is pretty tricky right away.
There are loads of signs to help hikers stay on trail, but between the damage from the storm and the slick rocks, there were some difficult moments navigating.
Much of the trail looked like below – I just walked slowly and constantly looked for the next yellow marker on the trees.
We reached the flat section below the summit and continued through the forest, looking for our next yellow marker. On the map, it looks like we go up and around several bumps on our way to Cat, so I was expecting some ups and downs.
I was so grateful for all directions on the trail – I’ve never seen so many. At points this trail reminded me of so-called ‘trailless’ hikes I’d been on. Very rugged.
My goddddd were there a lot of spider webs. They were starting to demoralize me a bit, if I’m being honest. I am not the biggest fan of silky webs clinging to my arms, neck, face, and hands. I was starting to wonder if I’d have enough of them by the time I’d finished to knit a scarf.
While the recent rain made the rocky path more treacherous than usual, it also made the forest so verdant, vibrant and green.
There were several places where fallen trees made it tricky to stay on trail, but they’ve been down long enough by now that I could see where other feet had trod before me. It helps to have path-finding doggies leading the way too!
Here’s one of many spots I almost ate it, stepping on slick wet rock. At least it’s pretty.
I spotted this little glade through the trees and hiked a bit off trail to get to it. I could just imagine having a picnic here and reading a book in the sun.
I cannot emphasize enough HOW. MANY. SPIDER WEBS. I passed through. I think I invented some great new dance moves – one waving my arms alternately in front of me like an elephants trunk to clear the webs before my face does, and one to wipe them off of myself when I inevitable walk into them. There were several like the one below too – beautiful ornate webs with happy little spiders sitting in the middle. I tried to go around or under so as not to disturb them, but couldn’t help but wonder how many of these I HADN’T spotted and just walked through, and therefore….how many happy little spiders were currently hitching a ride up to Cat Mountain with me?
Despite being a rugged, tough section of trail, it was really beautiful and looked a bit different at every turn. I particularly liked this section of forest with skinny spindly trees.
As we came up another little hill, I started thinking this must be it. We couldn’t possibly be on this ridge trail for much longer. It was very slow going due to being a bit treacherous, wet, and hard to follow, but still, we’d been on it for AGES.
Over an hour after leaving the summit of Thomas, I saw this sign – “<- CAT 0.5” woohoo!
Pluto likes to sit and wait for me while I haul my slow self along.
I figured with just 0.5 miles to the summit of Cat, we must have a fair bit of climbing left to do. We did go up a bit,
and around some more blowdown,
before we arrived at the intersection with the blue trail! I don’t think the sign here is accurate – or maybe the previous one wasn’t – because why did it take 12 minutes to go just 1/10 of a mile?? That doesn’t seem right. We made it here just before 11:30 – 2 hours and 20 minutes after we left the trailhead.
I saw this warning for Bees on the trail to Thomas – fortunately we avoided them! We have encountered a few ground yellow jackets in the last few weeks on different trails, much to the dogs’ dismay.
The path up Cat starts off somewhat flat, until we passed this stinky stagnant green puddle. I kept the dogs close so they wouldn’t jump in or drink from it – I have a feeling it would be the gift that keeps on giving it they had.
Not gonna lie, the absolute biggest thing I was looking forward to on this trail was hoping that someone else had been up already and CLEARED THE DANG SPIDER WEBS. I’m like a broken record but wow I had forgotten what it’s like to clear a trail of webs using your own face.
There was just one spot where a trail arrow was needed, otherwise it was an easy to follow trail.
The climbing was not steep or challenging here. Just a little bit of ups and flats.
After just about 10 minutes from the junction, I could feel we were very near the summit. There wasn’t much more Up we could go.
And sure enough, at 11:40am, 2.5 hours after we started, we reached the glorious summit of Cat!
There was just one pair of hikers already up there (thanks for clearing the webs for me and my sanity!!) so we went to the left toward the edge and sat in the sun to enjoy our lunches.
It was getting a bit toasty up there, when I looked to my left and saw my clever boy Pluto lying in the shade of a tree on some grass. So I packed up our stuff and headed over there with him!
I turned around again and saw this time my clever girl Juno finding a comfy spot in the shade too.
So I decided to be a clever girl too and join them. The last hike we did was Erebus and Sleeping Beauty. We were on such a time crunch that we didn’t stop to rest or enjoy the summits much at all that day. This time we let ourselves get comfortable.
Maybe a little too comfortable!
What a gorgeous view of Buck on the other side of Lake George.
And Erebus to the left. I could just start to see autumn colors emerging in the trees.
Despite being a challenging hike between Thomas and Cat, I was pain free and in great spirits. Especially since the spiderweb-pocalypse was over.
We hung out in our nice shady spot for about 30 minutes before packing up and heading back the way we came. Not before first going to the other side of the summit and checking out the views from there!
At 12:35 we left the summit and reached the junction again just 10 minutes later. Up until this point, the only people I’d seen on the trail all day had been several groups of women! No men! It was a special day.
The path down from Cat was similar to the one going up Thomas. Somewhat wide, free of blowdown, and easy to follow.
We passed a marshy area on the way and I couldn’t resist wandering in a little bit.
This part of the walk was very enjoyable. A gentle downward grade, easy terrain, no webbbbbbs.
Ok. This is the point in the trip report where I explain my error in judgement so no one else repeats it. Even though I had taken a picture of the map at the register, the one I was relying on was the one I brought with me, the first picture in this post.
So when I saw these signs, I was a little bit confused. I didn’t want to go back to Thomas Mountain, and when I read ‘Edgecomb Parking’ I must have just skimmed over the Edgecomb part and skipped straight to ‘Parking’. Sooooo I went the wrong way and didn’t even realize it. I even thought ‘Oh cool, red markers’ and my map didn’t give any indication to what color markers were for each trail, so I didn’t think twice about it.
There were signs that I was on the wrong path….aaaaand I missed them entirely.
At this point I was admittedly starting to get suspicious that I was not on the right path. But looking at the map, I didn’t see where I could have gone wrong.
Past the barrier, the trail was completely blocked by an overflowing pond. So I went into the woods on the right to cross at a narrow stream.
It was perfectly picturesque.
On the other side of the stream I could see the pond that had taken over the trail.
Just beyond that was a gorgeous stream which followed the trail.
On the right side of the trail, the most beautiful forest.
THIS was the point where I realized completely that I’d messed up. Through the trees….what’s that blue thing? A lake? There’s no lake on the trail back to the valley woods trailhead….There’s only edgecomb pond, which is on the way to……not the trailhead I had started at. Oh boy.
Well, we might as well enjoy it!
When I saw this sign for the red trail going to the right, I was skeptical and trusted my instincts to keep going along the water’s edge to reach the not-my-trailhead.
Now I know that the point where I made the wrong turn was the blue dot on the map below. I turned right when I should have gone straight. I didn’t even consider that the white trail intersecting the black dashed line would just look like any other trail. It looked like a road to me on the map. The trail marker and sign in the picture above was at the point marked in yellow – leading up the back way to Cat. I think the trail down from the summit to go that way was right near where the pups and I were sitting under that tree.
Even though we went the wrong way, we might as well enjoy the views and the lovely pond we’d come across.
And then…we were at the Edgecomb Trailhead. The not-the-trailhead-the-car-is-at Trailhead.
And so we walked. Tell me how this road went up and UP and UPPPPP. Hadn’t I climbed enough for the day 😫 It felt like it took forever, walking on the side of this road with no real shoulders, but at least very few cars drove by while we were there. I didn’t have any cell service so we used the map to navigate on the roads back to Valley Woods parking area.
We were so hot from walking in the sun on the asphalt for the last 45 minutes, so when I saw the turn to the trailhead up ahead, I knew that if we went into the woods to our left and crossed the stream, we’d be back on the trail for the last little bit, and could enjoy the cool shade of the trees. So we bushwhacked our way back in!
We made it back to the car at about 2:15pm, about 5 hours after starting. Next time….we’ll take the blue trail 😀
Happy Hiking!
Thomas: 2031′
Cat: 1956′
Total Duration: 5 hrs
Total Distance: ~9 miles
All images are property of adktrailtalesandtails and may only be used with express permission.
ADK Trail Tales 