Sunday I took a nice short hike up Potash mountain in Lake Luzerne.  This is a small mountain, only 1700 feet, and the trail is relatively new.  This was also my first hike co-leading for ADK, which completes the requirements for me to become a level 1 trip leader (once the paperwork all goes through).  So, the group was a bunch of other people I've never met and ranged in abilities from no issues and probably could have trail run it, to slower and a bit of concern with going up/down some of the wet rocks.

The trail itself was in pretty good shape.  It was nice and hard packed for the first half with a couple of small water crossings that were bridged.  Then the climb began and the trail was still pretty good, but got a bit rougher.  Stairs started showing up, but they were not full trail width and clear stairs.  There were a couple of steppy slabs too, and these were wet, but not slippery.  Really though, considering it had rained so much the day before, this trail was amazingly dry.

Wildflowers were starting to come out.  Saw my first few red trillium this year.  Also just heard about a couple days before, and actually saw, Dutchmans Breeches.  At one point, a big stand of fiddleheads made me wish I had a frying pan and butter.  Violets and all kinds of greenery were popping up all along the trail.

There are 2 viewpoints on the trail.  We stopped at both and the views of the Hudson River valley were just beautiful.  With the trees still leafless, the views were just more expansive the whole hike.  I will have to go back at the height of summer to see the peak with leaves.  For what we were rewarded with at the top, it was well worth the hike.

At the actual peak, we ran into a ham radio operator.  He explained to us what he was doing, and where he's been reaching people.  As he said when talking about the Morse Code coming through the radio, there's and app for it... he was learning it and was much slower than the person on the other end.

Overall, great hike.  Slower than I would typically hike, but still, with breaks and all, not a horrible pace.  3 miles over 2.5 hours bringing me to 149 miles over 104 hours and 7.4 miles of elevation for the year.