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.

This coming holiday weekend, I'm going to be doing an ambitious hike to red-line a few more trails.  First, I am going to hike in to Panther Gorge from Elk Lake on the afternoon/evening of July 3.  Right now the weather looks like thundershowers, but nothing too bad.  This is going to be the first time I have ever hiked this trail, and the 8.75 miles will be interesting as it is going through Marcy Swamp, that supposedly has a lot of boards and low bridges that sometimes are out.  I'll be doing this with a full pack, twice.  

This weekend, I tackled the Great Range of the Adirondacks High Peaks.  Thursday, just after work I headed up to the Gardens parking lot.  I had a fear that there would be no parking as it was marked as full about 9 in the morning, but when I arrived around 530, there were a dozen or so spots.  I hiked in about 3 miles and set up camp on Howard Hill, just shy on the trail from the DEC interior outpost (aka rangers).  I was surprised when I hit the trail to see a party of 10, about half of which were pre-teen, getting on the trail to go to Johns Brooks  Lodge, an int

The great range of the High Peaks is one of the most rewarding things to hike in the park.  The range itself is 7, mostly close peaks with a side peak of Sawteeth that also hits the 4000 mark.  This is not one of the easier hikes to do.  I know from experience as I've done 4 of the peaks back in College, and we had an Alaskan with us that was used to backpacking and hiking in Alaska, and she had trouble with our trails.