September 11, 2001 was a horrible day. Many of us, myself included, have ties directly to NYC and have stories about that day and the weeks that followed. I personally was fortunate to not have lost anyone, but I know people that did. With this year being the 25th anniversary of the towers falling, a hiking friend of mine, Pamela Chiani, saw what the New Hampshire people were doing in the White mountains, and she organized the Adirondack hiking community to come together and raise flags on the 46 high peaks at 11 AM.
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.
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.
My next trip will have a lot of hiking and hit 13 peaks over a week. The first 3 nights I'm saying at ADK Loj, so I'll have a soft bed and shower available each night. The next 3 nights, I'll be in the backcountry, hopefully at Lake Arnold, camping.