Tomorrow  go to Loj to attempt Street and Nye.  These are 2 relatively low peaks (#31 and #45) so they should be relatively straight forward.  There's only 1 way that people climb it, and that's from the HPIC, over a bit of trail, a bit of old X-country ski trails (32 Olympics I think?)  then it's all herd path.  The questions I have to worry about for this hike that I don't typically have to worry about for most of my winter hikes.  

It was a long day.  We started in spikes as the trail looked thin at the start and expected to run into more open spaces.  It was a bad choice as it was soft enough that we were making divots in the trail and not really gaining much speed wise.  About 1/2 way down the Calkins Brook Truck Trail we switched to snowshoes.  After that it wasn't bad.

Yesterday, I went up Seymour.  This is one of the more remote mountains to hike up here, being just over 14 miles for a single peak.  That said, it's not a horrible hike until the climb.  Thankfully, the road in was open all the way to the summer lot, and the lot was able to be parked in.  I did put chains on my car at the winter lot as I was having a bit of trouble, but the chains worked well and I got in and out of there with no issues.

2025 was a good year for hiking.  In the end I hiked 47 hikes over 40 days.  My shortest hike was the Normaskill East trail in Delmar at 0.5 miles.  My longest was Hough from Elk Lake via Lillian Brook at 16.5 miles.  Time wise, my shortest hike was the Normanskill East trail at 13 minutes and my longest being Panther and Couch at 15 hours.  I did one trail that had zero elevation change, and the most elevation in a hike was Dial and Nippletop at just over 5100 feet of elevation.

Today I went up to ADK Loj to hike Cliff and Redfield.  My body told me that it wasn't a good idea.  Well, it was a few things that lead up to it.  First, and probably biggest factor, was the drive up.  It had snowed overnight, and I went out to the car with about 5 or 6 inches on the ground.  This by itself was not bad.  The roads though were worse than I expected.  It took me a bit over 3 hours to get to Loj when it normally takes 2.5 hours.  The roads were sloppy the whole way, and there were a couple times I slipped, but nothing too bad.

At this moment, I have 19 high peaks left to complete my winter round of 46.  I went out on the first day of winter and got Colden, and found that winter hiking is what I remember, and did better than I expected on the hike.  That is good because I have a bunch of long hikes ahead of me.  At the moment, this is what I have left, and my concerns on each of the hikes.

Dec 21, Colden for winter credit.  Sunday I lead an ADK hike up Colden.  The weather forecast during the week was of concern because of the rain coming in Thursday and then the high winds predicted on Sunday.  In the end, it was a beautiful, if blustery, day to be hiking.  

Yesterday I lead a hike up Noonmark for ADK.  This is the second of what has now become my tradition of winter warmup hikes.  Hikes designed to get you used to carrying the heavier pack and hopefully walking in microspikes and snowshoes.

Last year, I did this hike about this time of the year with a friend and I was greatly impressed with these two little mountains.  Doing something once doesn't make it a tradition.  But doing it twice?  Well, it's a tradition now, along with the hike I'm doing next weekend.

So, today, I just learned of Scouting America (formerly Boy Scouts of America) had Department of Defense War partnership.  I honestly did not know that this partnership existed, but I am not surprised.  It seems that the scouts are losing their partnership most likely because of stupid stuff.  Specifically "attacking 'boy-friendly spaces'" and "fostering 'gender confusion.'"¹.  Basically they're saying that Scouting America is too woke and their efforts to provide an inclusive program to boys and girls is a big part of the issue.