To continue on with my ADK trip leader journey, I have to co-lead 2 level B or higher hikes.  I did the first of those Sunday with doing the upper tongue range and then over to deer leap on the way out.  To me, this is an easy hike apart from the distance, but it's a level B+ because of both the distance and elevation.  As a group though, including stops, we had a pace of 1.5 mph, so it really was a pretty easy hike... and a few of us (myself included) felt like we were going slow, so I was surprised to see that being our pace, or our movement pace being 2 mph on average.

After spending 8 hours sitting at a drizzly trail head at the base of Cascade doing trailhead stewarding on an extremely slow Memorial Day Saturday (didn't even break 50 people).  I went up the trail.  As I was expecting, the trail was wet and muddy.  We had reports of some snow earlier in the day, but it was gone by the time we got up.  About 1/3 of the way up, I stripped down to my tee shirt.  When we got above tree line, I started to get a little chilled, so at the second cairn I put my shell on since that was the most handy layer.

After a couple of near misses this past winter, and discussions with a few people here and there, I decided it was time to bite the bullet and become a trip leader for ADK.  I seriously thought about it last year when they announced they were transitioning to a program that required certain classes and certifications to run trips for ADK.  This apparently quite literally decimated the available trip leaders in some chapters, and left some really bad blood between some and ADK.

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.

Today I went up to the Paradox Lake area and hiked in towards Pharaoh Mountain.  Overall, I didn't know what exactly to expect since it is shoulder season and mud season.  I wasn't planning on going high, just in and around the ponds at the base of the mountain, but you never know.

The hike in to Crane pond was quite nice.  A couple small blow downs, and a few deep puddles that I needed to step to the side to get through.  In no time, I found myself at the road to Crane pond and was surprised to see someone had driven in.  Overall, pretty good shape.

This winter has been a very successful winter for hiking.  The weather has mostly cooperated with only 1 weekend that I really had to not hike due to a snow storm.  I hiked with some new people, and with many people I've hiked with before.  It sure has been a good winter for me.

Whiteface and Esther to close out the winter 46 hiking season, and a day after birthday hike.

The trails are a mixed bag.  I decided to keep things easy so I went up via the road... adds 2 miles but it's not steep at all so much easier overall.  A little bit after the toll booth, I put on the snowshoes as I was starting to sink into the snow and ice.  

Beware the Ides of March.  I threw caution to the winds and hiked Santanoni instead to finish off that range for winter credit.

March 8, I attempted the Santanoni range.  This range is one of my favorites in the high peaks, and it surely didn't disappoint on Saturday.