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.
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 🤷♀️
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ADK Trail Tales 