ny hiking – ADK Trail Tales

Donaldson (33), Emmons (40), and Seward (24)

10/3/2025

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.

Lower Wolf Jaws (30), Upper Wolf Jaws (29), Armstrong (22), Gothics (10), and Sawteeth (35)

8/14/25

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.

Upper wolf jaw

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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.

View post on imgur.com

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.

Haystack (3), Basin (9), and Saddleback (17)

7/25/25

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.

Dix Mountain (6)

10/19/2024

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.

View post on imgur.com

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.

Erebus and Sleeping Beauty

9/8/24

The dogs and I set off ambitiously to try to climb these two mountains on a Sunday morning. We had plans for the evening so I had to be back at the trailhead by 3pm. We arrived right at 10am so that gave us a 5 hour window.

I signed in at the register with my trusty companions, noting the warning for rattlesnakes in this area of forest.

I didn’t find much information on this route online, so I’ll be as descriptive as possible for anyone else planning this trip! See the map below – my plan was to start on the blue trail to Bumps Pond, then go left at the junction (green section) to do this loop clockwise. Then up to Erebus, with the orange line approximately where I think I went up (there’s no official trail to the summit), down to Fish brook Pond, then up to Sleeping Beauty (light purple) and back down to the trailhead. There were a few tricky spots on this hike so I’ll reference this map later on.

This trail starts off wide and rocky with a gentle incline, and continues that way up to the junction with Sleeping Beauty at 0.6 miles.

I wasn’t sure how much water would be on the trail for the dogs, so we made sure to take advantage of the little streams we crossed along the way.

15 minutes from the trailhead and we were at the first of many junctions. To do the clockwise loop, we stayed left here.

Things got a bit steeper after that, with no pause in the climbing for the first 30 or 40 minutes from the trailhead. While rocky, the trail was still wide, easy to follow, and free of any blowdown.

We spotted this cool old stone wall on the way up to Bumps Pond too. I wish I knew the history here but with just a cursory search online, I couldn’t find much of anything. If anyone knows about this old wall, please let me know!

About 25 minutes after leaving the junction to Sleeping Beauty, the trail started to level off. I had to stop to admire the forest here, as it looks like something out of a fairy tale. Fitting, since we’re on our way to Sleeping Beauty!

A minute later and a little bit of descent and we were at the edge of Bumps Pond.

It’s only early September but this morning was COLD. Quite a shock after so many hot days. I could see the clouds rolling in and out, and felt the occasional icy cold raindrops spattering my face, but the tree canopy overhead did a pretty good job of keeping most of it off of us.

Just 2 minutes later and we were at the next critical junction. The sign was very warn, but it says “Fish Brook Pond -> , <- Dacy Clearing, Sleeping Beauty”. Looking at the map, I was very confident that this was the junction I’d have to turn left at, but the worn sign didn’t indicate a 3rd path toward Erebus.

There was however a much narrower trail to the left which had these blue markers on a tree (I marked this trail as Green on my map above) so I headed that way.

This was starting to look a lot more like an Adirondack trail. At this point in the day, I’d only see one pair of people coming down right at the beginning, and I guessed I wouldn’t be seeing anyone else on this particular trail either, judging by how little it appeared to be traversed.

This is when we started to see our first indications of the summer’s storms and the damage they left behind.

We ended up on top of a ridge, and could see light through the trees on either side, though it’s hard to capture in a photo.

Descending the other side of the ridge, the trail got a bit messier and a bit more Adirondack-y. Usually I kind of disagree with the rating All Trails gives to trails. The last few I did were marked as ‘Hard’ but I would have classified as ‘Easy’ (for a mountain, anyway). This one however I was starting to see that I might agree with the All Trails rating!

The trail down the ridge led us to a marsh that we had to navigate through. Still the trail was easy to follow and well marked.

We reached the junction to Shelving Rock Rd. exactly 1 hour after starting, 2.5 miles from the start. There were several signs on different trees to help orient, but the only indication that the intersecting trail led towards Shelving Rock rd was a small with marker with handwritten directions.

We continued straight/to the right towards Erebus, on what is the Yellow trail on my map above. It was clear right away that I’d have to keep my head up along this trail and not go too far without checking for trail markers. There’s more blowdown here and muddy sections of trail that make it really hard to tell which is the right way to go. This particular spot (below) almost got me – in my research I couldn’t find where the unofficial trail or bushwhack up to Erebus from the trail would start, and I was wondering if maybe this was it. Looking at the map though, that didn’t really make sense because I’d be going straight up a cliff, and I was certain there’d be some cairn or unofficial marker to point the way to Erebus summit. So I stayed to the left here to follow the red markers.

The trail went up and up and sure enough, at 11:20am, just 20 minutes after leaving the Shelving Rock junction, I saw exactly what I thought I might see – a little white marker with a hand written note and a small cairn marking the start of the ‘bushwhack’ up to Erebus (orange trail on my map above).

Ok this was very much a ‘choose your own adventure’ adventure. While hard to spot though, there was a defined route going up that I could follow if I paid attention.

When unsure, I looked around to see if there was evidence of many feet passing over the ground before me, such as this section of decomposing log that had been squashed.

And even better, some thoughtful yellow markers had been tied to trees to guide the way. Again, I had to move slowly and keep my head up to stay on ‘trail’, which was difficult because it was really very steep and messy terrain.

I reached the top of this steep hill 10 minutes after starting and the trail flattened out nicely.

Not to be deceived though, because the climbing continues up this last steep stretch before reaching the summit. I was pretty slow going here, while the dogs ran up ahead of me. When I pulled myself up the last bit, I lifted my eyes to look for my pups, and saw them both standing on top of a boulder ahead of me looking down at me to make sure I made it up alright.

Just another minute through the woods and I reached this little cairn and weird plate with Erebus Summit written on it, so I assumed I had made it. It took just 15 minutes from the junction.

We didn’t bother stopping to take a break because there was nothing to see and it was chilly! So we just turned right around and headed back the way we came.

Sometimes during steep difficult descents, I turn around and go down backwards so I can use my hands, which I’d definitely recommend here.

Because I was going backwards, I didn’t see Pluto just sit himself down to wait for my slow self. What a good dog.

On the way I noticed a view that I’d missed going up! Weather was really spotty, with rain one minute and sun the next, so I was really hoping to have clear skies by the time I made it to Sleeping Beauty.

On the way up I kept telling myself that it would be really easy to lose the trail coming back down, and I’d have to be really careful to pay attention….and yet, I still lost the trail. It wasn’t a big deal honestly because as long as you just keep going down in the right general direction, you’ll make it back to the trail. I did end up finding the little yellow ribbons again though, and was back at the junction just 15 minutes after leaving the summit. For any families working on the Lake George 12ster, I would not underestimate this particular summit. Personally I don’t think I’d bring young kids up here – there were plenty of opportunities for uncareful feet to take some nasty tumbles. I’d also note that this little junction might be hard to spot of doing this loop counterclockwise – the cairn and white marker were on the side of a tree that would be seen only when coming from the clockwise direction.

Back on the main trail we still were navigating around blowdown and muddy bogs, but it was so much easier than the trail up the Erebus that it felt like a breeze. 15 minutes later at 12:15 we reached the junction partway to Fish Brook Pond and turned to the right to go towards the pond.

Again, I don’t think this trail is traversed too often 😅 That’s the trail there, that muddy area cutting through the green.

It was on this stretch that I started to see the first signs of Autumn!

There was still some blowdown to navigate around on this section, but nothing that looked recent. My girl Juno smartly followed behind me to see how I’d navigate around the tricky spots, so she didn’t work harder than she’d need to.

We passed a little bog on the way and the pups enjoyed a drink of water at the first stream we’d seen in quite a while.

At 12:30pm, 2.5 hours after leaving the trailhead, we reached the junction at Fish Brook Pond. There was another sign that indicated the trail to the right was a bridle trail, but I was sure that was the way I wanted to go, so we turned right there.

I could see the lean-to on the other side of the pond, at the back of a clearing at the edge of the water, with some folks enjoying the view, but I still hadn’t seen anyone on my own trail since earlier that morning.

I have a bad habit of forgetting to eat while I hike, so even though we were on a tight schedule, I stopped at the edge of the water to give the dogs a snack and have one myself. We didn’t take a long break though – I only had 2.5 hours to make it back to the trailhead on time, and still had 4.5 miles to go. So on we went.

Saw this weird thing along the way, which apparently I deemed worthy of a photo, so there you go.

We reached the other end of the pond just before 1pm. I kind of regret not taking the longer route around the pond for the views, but I just didn’t have time.

There was a clearing at this trail junction with what looked like a fire pit and a few people hanging out there, so we went on by following the sign back toward Dacy Clearing.

The trail here was much more maintained that what I’d been on for most of the day and I was grateful for it!

I was so happily plodding along, lost in my thoughts, that I nearly missed the junction for Sleeping Beauty! If it wasn’t for the dogs going down the trail, and me noticing the little bridge down to the left, I would have passed it right up. The only marker is this little yellow one, with two others on the opposite tree behind me.

We hung a left and crossed a little bridge to start the trek up Sleeping Beauty at 1:20pm.

The trail up Sleeping Beauty from this direction was never difficult – it was uphill, but it had switchbacks and flat sections along the way. It took less than 20 minutes from the junction for the trail to level off.

Here was the second part of the day that I was unsure of – where to find the actual summit of Sleeping Beauty. I knew it wasn’t at the popular viewpoint up ahead, and that Sleeping Beauty has two kind of bumps – the true summit is on the first ‘bump’. See the bright blue dot on the purple trail on my map. THAT is the summit. I thought I’d see some indication of where to find it on the trail, but there was nothing that I saw – no cairn, no ribbons, no hand-written marker…nothing. But when the trail started to descend again, I stopped, turned around, and turned left (when coming from Sleeping Beauty viewpoint) into the woods. There were no markings or anything but it was easy to see which way was up, and to keep going until there wasn’t any more…up. I went maybe 50 feet and found this little cairn at 1:40pm, with nothing else to indicate that this was the summit, except that there was no other noticeable higher ground. So I assumed I’d made it.

We walked down a bit through a beautiful forest toward the viewpoint. I was really looking forward to getting there, but the weather wasn’t really cooperating! Back at Fish Brook Ponds, the sky was overcast and rainy, but I was hopeful it would clear up.

At 1:50, we reached the junction to the spur to the viewpoint of sleeping beauty, and headed straight along.

Just 2 minutes later, we were standing at a VERY windy, beautiful rocky overlook!

It was so beautiful with the clouds casting shadows over Lake George and the mountains beyond.

We finally sat down to take our first real break of the day and eat some lunch. We found a nice spot in the sun out of the wind and had the whole peak to ourselves for about 10 minutes before anyone else showed up.

I could see darker clouds moving in and the wind had gotten intense, so at about 2:15 I packed up our things and we started making our way back to the trail, leaving behind a few groups of people still enjoying the lookout.

We reached the junction a minute later and stayed to the right this time. The trails run parallel for a bit and I was careful to stay on the one marked as dark purple on my map.

This is clearly a well loved trail. There was no blowdown, but it was slick with rain from the morning and a bit steep and rocky in parts, so I made my way down carefully.

We passed just one group with two small kids making their way up, otherwise we had the trail to ourselves once again.

30 minutes after leaving the summit and we were at the last junction of our loop, at 2:45pm. Just 0.6 miles to go!

We reached the trailhead at EXACTLY 3pm, right on time. I signed us out of the register and gave a ranger some information about the trail conditions – I think they were expecting a lot of down trees from the wind blowing through that day, but I hadn’t seen any fresh blowdown all day thankfully. I got the doggies in the car and they wasted no time in getting some zzz’s. Until next time – happy hiking!

Erebus: 2527′

Sleeping Beauty: 2347′

Total Duration: 5 hrs

Total Distance: ~9.2 miles

All images are property of adktrailtalesandtails and may only be used with express permission.

Black Bear Mountain

Feb 27, 2022

We picked another beautiful blizzardy winter day to climb the last of our Fulton Chain Trifecta, and unexpectedly we had the mountain to ourself. The parking lot for this trailhead is the same for Rocky Mountain. Instead of going to the trailhead at the middle/back of the parking lot, go far to the right (if you’re facing away from the road) to the very end of the parking area. We signed in at about 1:45pm and hit the trail in our snow shoes.

This trail can be done as a loop, or as an out and back. The shorter path up is also notoriously steep, while the longer path down is more gradual. We chose to go up the steep way and come back the gradual way to complete the loop.

There was already a worn trail through the snow, and even though it was filling with fresh powder it was still easy to follow.

The first 0.7 miles is relatively flat, until we reached a junction pointing to the right for the short steep ascent up to the summit.

The snow was falling so pleasantly, and the trail continued to climb a little more steadily as we trudged along in our snowshoes.

Climbing did pick up as we neared about 0.5 from the summit. Some spots were so steep and tricky that there’s a handy rope looped around a tree to help pull ourselves up.

Right as we approached the summit, some weather blew in, pushing icy snow directly into our faces.

At 4:10pm, almost surprisingly, we popped out onto the summit to the most stunning view…

There wasn’t really a reason to hang out up there other than to sit around and get cold, so we turned right around and headed down the opposite trail to take the gentler way down. It was still tricky and a bit steep in spots, but nothing necessitating a rope! Juno however was encountering some technical difficulties.

We stopped many times to break up the clumps of snow around her face and back legs. Good thing she had her snow suit on to cover the rest of her! But when times got rough, she got the VIP treatment.

When we reached about 2.2 miles until the trailhead, the going got much easier. The steepness was behind us and we could just plod along the trail.

We made it back to the trailhead around 6pm and began the lengthy process of defrosting. Happy Hiking!

Black Bear Mountain: 2454′

Total Duration: 4.5hrs

Round Trip Distance: 6.2 mile

All images are property of adktrailtalesandtails and may only be used with express permission.

Rocky Mountain

Dec. 22 2022

Rocky Mountain shares a parking lot with Black Bear Mountain trailhead near Inlet NY. The day we chose to climb this little mountain was a blustery one, and I didn’t take many pictures for that reason. So none of my usual trailhead and trail marker photos! The trail starts at the back of the parking area. While short at just 0.5 miles to the summit, it is steep! Which makes it extra interesting in wintery conditions. We started right around 2pm.

There’s not much to note on this short but steep hike to the summit. The snowpack wasn’t especially deep yet, and the more well-trod sections of trail had turned to ice so we employed our microspikes for much of the way.

Before we know it, we popped right out on the summit, though there wasn’t much to show for it.

We were pretty well in a cloud, but sometimes I enjoy those views. They’re so different than how it might look in the summertime.

We turned around to head back shortly after arriving as our sweat from the climb started to cool us a little more than we liked. So we layered back up and carefully headed back to the trailhead.

Our drive home was an extra slow one as a blizzard decided to pass through on the same route. Happy Hiking!

Rocky Mountain: 1759′

Total Duration: 1.5hrs

Round Trip Distance: 1 mile

All images are property of adktrailtalesandtails and may only be used with express permission.

Buck Mountain

Sept. 2, 2024

We had the brilliant idea to climb a mountain on Labor Day, and even knowing that everyone else in the state would also probably have that great idea, we still didn’t expect everyone and their mother to be at the Buck Mountain trailhead on Pilot Knob road at about 12:15pm when we arrived. Nevertheless, we hooked the doggies up to their leashes and set off.

Trail starts off flat and wide with a few trails merging in and out with the main one.

There are lots of little water crossings for thirsty pups to cool off. It was another perfect day for hiking – not hot, not cold, just right.

This trail is rated as ‘Hard’ on AllTrails, while Black by comparison is rated ‘Moderate’. For a mountain in the Adirondacks, I personally would rate Black as ‘Easy’, but I really wasn’t sure what to expect from Buck. Would it climb the entirety of the 3.3 miles to the summit? Would it be very steep or have lots of big boulders to climb up?

Shortly after the first stream crossing, we came to the first uphill climb. It was gradual though, and only lasted maybe a quarter of a mile before it levelled off again. It continued this way, with a little bit of up then a little bit of flat, until we reached the top of another uphill stretch marked with a large boulder and a sign indicating that we’d already gone 1.2 miles, and thus had 2.1 miles to go. It took us less than 45 minutes to get to this point, we were just cruising right along.

20 minutes later we were at another stream crossing and found a little trail marker with “Buck Summit” pointing the way.

At this point I was still wondering when the trail would become difficult. But I didn’t have to wonder for long! From about 2.2 to 2.5 miles, the grade did become much steeper than it had been.

Still, by Adirondack standards, it wasn’t bad at all. We were fortunate to have no mud, but we did have to stay on constant alert for people coming down the trail because it seems the entire population of New York State was hiking this mountain at the same time we were. We have to stay hyper aware of our surroundings when hiking with two pups!

Being that this mountain is only 2334′ tall and we have 3.3 miles to get to the summit, there are lots of refreshing flat sections interspersed with the climbing sections.

Just before 2pm, as we climbed another steep spot, we saw some hopeful light indicating we were nearing the summit!

Psych! It was just a lookout. But a really lovely one at that, offering our first gorgeous views of the day. A few groups were scattered about here enjoying their lunch in the sun. We snapped a picture or two before continuing on.

There’s not really any climbing after this point, just a little bit through the woods, then you can see the summit straight ahead. But don’t be fooled! You actually have to veer to the right to go around the large boulder.

A little bit of down and a little bit of up later and you’re coming out of the woods and onto the summit.

We climbed up onto the summit rock and tried our best to get a picture with our feet on the summit marker….it didn’t go well.

At 2:10pm, a little less than 2 hours after starting, we sat down in the sun to have some lunch and enjoy the gorgeous views of the lake.

We packed up to head back after about 20 minutes and noticed ice on the trail! In August?!

Just before heading down, we went down a little spur trail for another view.

There was a really large group ahead of us at the overlook, so we scampered right along to pass them and make our way down the mountain.

We were CRUISING on this mountain. Anyone who’s been following my journey for a while knows that I’ve been struggling with debilitating knee pain (and so much more if I’m being honest) for the last several years, until I was diagnosed with Ehlers Danlos Syndrome. Read more about that on the right side of this page – but I’m very happy to announce that I’ve finally found a system to help with me knees! Cycling class! I go twice a week and since I started, I notice I can now climb many of the same mountains without braces or poles, when before I would have had pain even on just the littlest mountain. I’m working on these 12sters to get back into shape for the high peaks, building up distance and endurance again, so to do a 6.6 mile hike with no pain was pretty monumental!

This was almost definitely the fastest I’ve ever descended a mountain. For once, I was passing people on the way down. Me! That never happens. Someone must have been having a rough day though because we found just the sole of a shoe in the middle of the trail, still at least 1 mile or two from the trailhead.

We made it back to the trailhead right at 4pm, about 3hr 45m after we started. It would have been even faster if we didn’t have to stop a gajillion times to have the dogs sit off trail so people could pass! Until next time…happy hiking!

Buck Mountain: 2334′

Total Duration: 3.75hrs

Round Trip Distance: 6.6 miles

All images are property of adktrailtalesandtails and may only be used with express permission.

Black Mountain

August 17 2024

Our first Lake George 12ster! A lot has happened in the last year, including buying our first home together, getting married, adopting another dog, and constant ups and downs with my health, so we haven’t been out exploring much…until now! We pulled into the trailhead at about 12:45pm, signed into the register, and went on our merry way on the trail starting at the back of the parking area.

Check out the map below from all trails to show our route. We went the out-and-back route for a total of about 5 miles…

But we didn’t realize until after that there’s a loop option that’s about 7.7 miles long! In hindsight, we would have taken that route had we known about because loops are so much more fun.

The trail starts off wide and flat on what used to be a road – a nice warmup for any climbing up ahead.

It didn’t take long to reach the first junction with a trail going off to the right, around Sugarloaf mountain.

Then at about half a mile in, we passed a private residence on the left just before reaching this next junction showing directions for a series of ponds to the left, and Black Mountain to the right.

For the first mile or so we passed several of these metal posts with remnants of old wiring hanging off some.

Weather was perfect – not hot, not cold; not humid, just windy enough – and all the way along the trail we spotted SO MANY mushrooms! They must be enjoying all the rain we’ve had this summer.

Eventually the trail did start looking more like a trail and less like a gravel road, but still it was very pleasant at a gentle grade for the first mile and a half.

It seems the trail follows a stream bed for much of the way. It was dry for us, but I could imagine it being a bit tricky in Spring or during periods of heave rain.

At around 2 miles, the grade starts to pick up a bit but still it never because challenging (compared to most Adirondack peak hikes – but we are still climbing a mountain, after all!)

The new pup is fitting right in 🙂

Finally we started to see signs of the summit approaching!

We squeezed our way through a narrow section of trail between some wildberry bushes and emerged onto the summit where we spotted this “In Memory Of” sign which for me is indecipherable beyond that.

We stopped at this nice lookout to catch the hazy views of Lake George before going up to the true summit next to the radio tower. We took our time on the hike up, and made it to the summit about 2.5 hours after starting.

We found a nice rock to have some lunch and…

Victory chocolate!

The tower area is closed to the public but there’s a nice big rock right in front of it that offers excellent views of Lake George and the Tongue Range on the opposite side.

At about 3pm we turned around to head back and saw these trail markers on a tree nearby. I think if we had followed the bottom one back up to the summit, we would have spotted the trail going down the opposite side of the mountain to complete the loop. But instead, we went back the way we came.

The way down was as pleasant as the way up – and this time the trail was happy to see us too = )

As far as Adirondack hikes go, I’d say this is a very family friendly option. At no point was it technically challenging (though again that could change in wetter conditions), and even the climbing portion was never aggressively steep.

The theme of the day was ” What a nice hike!” as we repeated this to ourselves and each other numerous times throughout the day. The walk was so pleasant that it allowed us time to take in little interesting things on the trail, like the mushrooms and these huge weeping holes left by a pileated woodpecker.

This trail is marked as a snowmobile trail in winter, and you can see evidence of that on many of the rocks that jut out on the trail!

We made it back to the trailhead a little after 4pm, already looking forward to our next hike. Happy Hiking!

Black Mountain: 2665′

Total Duration: 4hrs

Round Trip Distance: ~5 miles

All images are property of adktrailtalesandtails and may only be used with express permission.

Indian Head

September 27, 2023

It has been over 5 years since I last stepped foot on one of the most beautiful rocks in the Adirondack Park. Last time I was here, it was an ill-fated attempt at a sunset hike with a new friend that I was just getting to know. On March 26, 2018, I confidently told this new friend that “I know a great mountain to climb! Want to try to catch the sunset?” So off we headed to climb Indian Head. In March. For Sunset. We made it to the trail and started off that day at I think 4pm. Let’s just say…..it took a lot longer that I had anticipated with the snow, and we missed the sunset……by a solid 4 hours 😅 We were almost closer to sunrise than sunset by the time we made it, so obviously I NAILED the planning with this one! But we did make it to the top, with a trail highlighted in the glow of the half moon, and butt-slid our way back down the mountain. Finally back at the car, driving home sometime around 2am, my friend looked at me and said “We’ve been hanging out for 12 hours 😐”. It was at that moment we both realized how compatible we were! I will never live that one down.

Fast forward 5.5 years later, somehow this absolute success of a first hike didn’t deter my “friend” because we have now bought our first house together near the Adirondacks, and we decided we were past due for that sunset on Indian Head. This time it was a chance to redeem myself, so we took the day off work and hit the trail at 1pm just to be absolutely sure we didn’t miss it this time!

Peak fall colors have come a bit early this year, but fortunately I had snagged a parking reservation 2 weeks prior. These days you need a reservation not only to park in the lot, but to gain access to Lake Road at all.

We had a 3.3 mile walk along Lake Road ahead of us, and we couldn’t have picked a more gorgeous day for it. Temperature was perfect and the light filtering through the leaves in the canopy overhead made for a dreamy setting.

It turns out that Wednesday afternoons are not a very popular time to start a hike in the Adirondacks! We didn’t encounter any other people heading in the same direction as us, and only a few small groups passed us heading the opposite direction. We paused just a couple of times to have a snack and a sip of water, and to check the map. There are many ways to get to Indian Head – the first time, I took the scenic Gil Brook route; this time, we were going to stay on Lake Road all the way until it ends at the lake, then go left at the last junction.

1.5 hours after starting, we reached the last sign for our destination, and happily headed into the forest. It felt so nice to walk on an actual trail after all that way on the gravel road!

Expectedly, the trail instantly became steeper and we reminisced about the first time we took this path. It was the same one as 5.5 years earlier, just without all the snow, and admittedly with more daylight! After an initial climb, we reached a small overlook just above the beach at the end of the lake. We stopped for a moment to admire the colors emerging on the hillsides, then continued our way up.

On the map, it looks like approximately 1.4 miles from the junction at Lake Road to the summit of Indian Head, so we were prepared to have to climb for a while longer. We stopped briefly just once to hydrate and look at some interesting mushrooms (Gildo’s attempt to distract me so he could take a break from the upward trek I think…..and it worked).

Either I misjudged how long we’d been climbing for (feasible, given our first hike up here), or the map isn’t quite right, OR the map is really confusing with a ton of trails dashing all over. But either way, we emerged onto the summit much sooner than we’d expected, and sat down to enjoy our hard-earned VICTORY CHOCOLATE!

I cannot tell you how these mountains continue to take my breath away. It feels like coming home every time I return, and rekindles that burn to get myself up those high peaks again. Even better to share it with my favorite person!

We’d made it to the top well in advance of the sunset, at 3:30pm to be exact, so we took our time in lounging about at the summit and gorging ourselves on our snacks. One thing for sure, if you hike with me you will not go hungry!

**Alright. It’s at this point that I have to pause and ask all of our family and friends to NOT BE MAD and to maybe sit down before continuing to read? Great, thanks!**

We enjoyed the summit to ourselves for a while, with just a few people passing through along the way, when our photographer Sam suggested we go change our clothes at around 4:15pm. Sorry, I failed to mention that Gildo and I weren’t alone on our hike this time! We moved to a quiet section of the summit, unzipped my pack, removed our carefully folded attire, and switched out of our sweaty stinky hiking clothes. Without further ado, I’ll just….

Surpriiiiiiiise! At 5:14pm on the summit of Indian Head on September 27, Gildo and I were married, without telling a soul (besides Sam of course)!

With only the mountains as our witnesses, we have bonded ourselves together in the same place where we first realized how compatible we were and how much we enjoyed each other’s company. Accompanied by the wonderful Samantha Ernst of Ernst & Co Photography (https://www.facebook.com/ernstcophoto/), who both photographed and married us, we had the most fun day we’ve had in a long time. We are both so out of our element all dressed up, on top of a mountain, posing for photos, and we couldn’t stop laughing for so long that our faces hurt.

We awkwardly stumbled through our vows, each saying “I do” too soon, Gildo kissing me because he felt like it but before he was supposed to, neither of us knowing where to look, but before we knew it, we’d done it. To top it off, we didn’t have rings to exchange (even if we did, we wouldn’t have brought them up a mountain!), so naturally we decided to exchange boot laces on our hiking shoes.

We stayed at the summit enjoying our time with each other until about 5:30pm, when we changed back into our stinky sweaty hiking clothes and started to make our way back down the mountain as a married couple.

We didn’t make our way over to Fish Hawk Cliffs, which is a shame, but I did wonder if anyone had seen us from there (particularly if they’d gotten a show while we were changing in and out of our fancy clothes). Funny enough, the next day I spotted a picture of us from Fish Hawk Cliffs in a hiking group on facebook, congratulating the couple married on Indian Head (credit to Josh Wilson – thank you!). There we are, those little pixels at the top of the mountain.

Well….thank you for reading! We safely made it back down the mountain just 2 hours after we left the summit, and went to town to enjoy a nice dinner before heading home.

We are elated to have spent the most perfect day together in the mountains, doing what we love, and committing our love to each other. It’s exactly how we wanted it – with the same adventurous spirit that defines our relationship. We fully endorse adventure elopement – 10/10. We couldn’t think of a more perfect way to share the news of our marriage with our friends and family than a trip report, we hope you’ve enjoyed it!

Many many thanks to Sam Ernst for joining us on our journey and embarking on a 10 mile trek with us, and for making our ceremony and photo session way more fun than we could have imagined! Also thanks to Amazon for selling inexplicably beautiful wedding dresses for $136 that don’t wrinkle when folded and loaded into a hiking pack 💪