Today I went back and tackled MacNaughton, or as I've been calling it, MacNaughty from the south. The day was perfect for hiking, with a brisk 32 degrees at the parking lot, and it was a new moon without any clouds so it was dark with some stars visible through the trees. Really making me itch for winter hiking to start, I just love that weather.
Today, with the bad weather predicted later in the day, but high winds all day, I ended up hiking Mt. Colden as a loop from ADK Loj in order to finish up what I didn't do the previous weekend, and to finally go up the trail between Lake Colden and the peak.
Today, I went up to ADK Loj to do the MacEntyre range, and possibly add on Colden on my way out. The goal was to pick up a couple trails I haven't hiked before and get GPS traces of trails I hiked decades ago as I work on redlining the High Peaks Wilderness. I was torn between adding in the extra miles and elevation to go up Colden vs going through my favorite place in the park Avalanche Lake. Turns out the choice was made for me when I ate lunch.
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.
I guided a group of 4 up MacNaughton from Upper Works. Going in we knew this was going to be a tough hike because there is no established herd path up the mountain. We decided to go in from the south because of my experience a month or so earlier coming in from the north. Even with the longer bushwhack (1.5 miles vs 1.0 miles), the approach was shorter, easier, and more importantly drier, less boggy, and less muddy than coming in from the north.
I guided a hike up Haystack this weekend (https://h2hpguide.com/trips/haystack-2026-08-23-1253). We met at the Roostercomb parking lot, put everything into my car, and drove up to the Gardens parking lot. We found one of the few remaining spots and were on the trail shortly after 3 to backpack in to the DEC outpost area. We got lucky, there was one open marked campsite around the DEC outpost, so we took it. Apparently we should wish Julia a Happy Birthday.
Saturday, I brought out the coconuts and pretended I was a horse as I spent most of the day on horse trails. As a part of red-lining the map, I went and explored some of the trails off of Corey's road. Started the morning parking at the Raquette Falls trailhead and headed down the road to the typical summer entrance for the Sewards. On the way down, hiked the short trails in to Rock Pond and Pickerel Pond. Both were easy to follow, and seeing the sun rising over the ponds, the fog on the ponds, and just the stillness of everything was beautiful.
Saturday, Aug 8, I and 3 other souls went to go and tackle MacNaughten. My other goal was to get the last of the Indian Pass trail and Wallface Ponds trail for red-lining. So, we came in from Loj. This is really a tail of 3 trails. The first was Indian Pass trail. From Loj to Scott Clearing was pretty good by ADK standards. some mud, but only one pit that had an established herd path around it, everything else was easy enough to go through.
Today I guided 2 people up the three mountains of the Tupper Lake Triad. The weather was looking questionable with a forecast of on and off showers all morning and possible thunder storms in the late afternoon. I was hopeful that we'd be able to get off the peaks before the thunder happened, and we did. We didn't stay dry though, about 1/2 of our hiking was in drizzle to light rain, but it was a fun experience for all.
One of my personal goals is to hike every mile of trail in the High Peaks Wilderness. This is known as Red Lining, and I've hiked most of the miles to get to the peaks, but there is still a lot of low trails that I haven't hiked yet. This hike was to hit some of the low trails. The long term benefit of this is that I gain experience of those trails, so if requested to guide in that area, or someone wants to do something other than peaks, I can speak from experience and not just what I read in the guide book.