Guided a hike up Goodnow Mountain.  It was a lovely day for a hike.  Temps were around 70 at the base when we started and around 80 when we got back down a bit after noon.  Humidity was reasonable, and the skies were nearly cloudless.  With a small exception for the end of our stop on the peak, the bugs were not an issue.  Really a perfect day to be in the woods.

I got a text from a hiking friend on Thursday asking if I wanted to go hiking this weekend, and what I thought about the forecast for Saturday.  Well, yes, I'm always up for a hike if I am free, and she pointed out a hike I've been wanting to do to knock nearly 7 miles of new trail for the Red Line challenge.  The weather, well, it looked to be on and off showers throughout the day with potential thunder showers in the afternoon.

After a full day of training, I headed up to do Hurricane from the north side.  The road to Crow Clearing was in pretty good condition, a couple small divots/washouts that were not hard to get over even in my tiny car.  The first mile in on the gulf brook trail was in great condition.  Only one blow down that people were going around, but was easy enough to get over.

I did this hike 2 weeks earlier as a scouting hike for this one.  Amazing how much changes in 2 weeks.  The trail is still in good conditions, but it was a lot wetter this time.  All the snow we had on the way up Porter last time was gone.  The flowers also started coming out and I saw a lot of red Trillium along the trail, and on the way out a lot of trout lilies too.  Not much I can really say that is different from the previous hike.

In the theme of starting to hit the less used trails, and working to red-lining the map, I did a traverse from Marcy Field over Blueberry and Porter, and out via 73.  This was also to scout for a possible hike a friend wants me to help him with in 2 weeks, since I've never done the Blueberry side of things.

Adirondack Mountain News posted a very good summary of what happens in New York whenever a hiker needs help from the rangers.  This is specifically the process that is done in NY where we're relatively unique in that the Rangers are in charge of all SAR activities on state lands.  Other locations in the country it could be any number of agencies and isn't always consistent with who is in charge.  That said though, the overall process and the insights into how the searches are run should be consistent across the country, if not world.  The full post by them is here:

The winter of 2025 to 2026 was a big winter for my hiking.  I started the winter with big ambitions.  Hike 20 peaks and get my winter 46er rocker.  It was doable, I had 2 or 3 weekends more than the number of hikes I needed.  I had high hopes.

I started the day out with high hopes of getting both Cliff and Redfield checked off my list on the last day of winter hiking.  We started off from ADK Loj and it felt weird to be hiking in just microspikes to start the hike.  The hike in to Marcy Dam was the typical quick jaunt.  As we crossed the bridge to the south side, the snow made a subtle but noticeable change from the firm ice to a more slippery slightly deeper and softer snow.  That is when I switched over to snowshoes and they didn't come off until I hit the car at the end of the day.

The last time I went to get these peaks, I had driven through horrible snow and the nerves just got bad enough that my body determined that it wasn't happening that day.  I hiked in to marcy dam and turned around.  This attempt, I came in from upper works.  It was a very wet day, and was predicted to be a wet day with on and off drizzle in the morning and warming temps in the afternoon.  The drive in had a couple spots of black ice, but it wasn't a horrible drive in.  

Well, really Gray, Skylight, and Marcy

We started the day as a group of 13 to get the 3 peaks in one trip.  The NOAA Mountain Point forecast told us that it was going to be very windy in the morning with some snow around noon, but calming down and clearing up later in the day.  With that knowledge, we decided that it was best to go in via Lake Arnold and hit Grey first.  It was the right choice.