What does one do after they spend 8 hours sitting at a trailhead talking to hundreds of people?  They go for a hike, of course!  It was peak foliage or damn near it this weekend, and it was busy.  I wanted to do Mt. Jo just to get a GPS track of it for the Lake Placid 9 and to see the new long trail.  I get down to Loj, and it's a mad house.  There were actually rangers ticketing people on Loj road for illegal parking.  I turn around and go down meadows lane to do Mt.

Today, I took a jaunt over to Baxter.  This is not a big mountain, but it does have some wonderful views at the ledges near the top.  Started off on 9N and followed the trail to the top.  Overall the trail was in pretty good shape, and the snow was all gone.  Once up top it was a question of do I go over and come back around, or just go back down and do another peak.  I went on, and this was a mistake.

Today it was Hurricane Fire Tower.  I chose to go up this one as training for winter hiking, being only a week or so before winter, and someone had reported a couple days earlier that they used snowshoes all the way.  I was pumped to use my snowshoes again.  Sadly, the weather warmed up and all I used was microspikes.

Another day of trailhead stewarding, and another hike after, and trying to do Big Crow once again.  This time I knew the trail was not next to the register, but the other side of the lot.  This is a weirdly steep trail for the length.  Not horribly difficult, short, but still not a walk in the park.  The views though, my, they're worth it.  This is another Lake Placid 9 down... now 3/9.

Looking to do a short hike after working as trailhead steward, I went to do Big Crow from O'Toole road, part of the Lake Placid 9 challenge.  I get to the lot, sign in at the register, and start hiking the trail next to the register.  After 15 min or so I start asking myself, am I on the right trail?  I thought this trail was only 0.7 miles and steep, but I've gone at least 1/2 a mile and it's been flat!  I check the GPS, and yup, I'm on the wrong trail, I'm heading towards Hurricane!  Oops!

So, this weekend, Michael and I spent the weekend at ADK Loj and did some hikes.... Well, the weekend weather turned back to winter, or so it seemed.  Saturday it rained all day as a drizzle and was in the 40's with wind chills on the highest of the peaks being well below freezing.  So, with that in mind we did a couple of the Lake Placid 9.