Today I started on the Lake George 12 by going for a hike with Michael up Cat and Thomas. We started off at the parking area on Edgecomb Rd. The trail starts off as a dirt road and eventually you make a left turn and are on trail. The trail overall up Cat was pretty nice to hike. It was surprisingly well marked and easy to follow. It was only at the top that it got a little steep to climb. The views though were well worth it.
For my last winter hike of the year, I went back up north and decided to do a "simple" 12 mile hike, TableTop and Phelps. The weather forecast was good, but suggested weather would be moving in later in the day.
I have heard many good things about doing Allen mountain in the winter. Biggest being that the hike up Allen Brook is not a slippery mess of moss and slime. I was looking forward to doing this hike in the winter to see how much better it can be. I also have never come in from the south on the East River trail, so those couple miles would be new to me.
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.
I got up to the mountain about a quarter of 7 and was on the trail by 7. It was on and off drizzle/rain for the first hour or so. Being that it was forested, I didn't get horribly wet. The wind was also rather consistent and strong the whole hike up. As you can see in the stats below, this was a relatively short hike, GPS tracked it as 5.44 miles, officially it's supposed to be 6.2 miles. This is probably because I turned down the sensitivity of the mapper. I decided to do Porter first as it is the smaller of the two. The trail was a stream the whol
Saturday, May 23, I did go up to do Whiteface and Esther. I started at Marble Mountain, which is an old ski mountain, and the trail literally goes up the old tow path for a lift. It was steep and rocky. Once at the top, great views though. At that point I joined the Wilmington trail and it was a slightly less steep climb to the point the trail for Esther comes off. At about 3500 feet though, about 0.6 miles from that point, it became mostly snow/ice instead of mostly mud/water. Thankfully I had my spikes, and I wore the most of the rest of the hike up.&nb
If I'm really good, Monday I'll be doing another 2 peaks. More likely than not, it will be next weekend though. These two will be Cascade and Porter from Marcy Field. The old approach to the peaks has been closed due to it's immense popularity and issues with parking. Cascade was the sacrificial peak as it was only 4.8 miles round trip and not a horrible hike either. We'll find out what the new one is after this eason as the approaches to Cascade are now significantly longer. I'll be doing the one from Marcy Field which takes me over Blueberry mountain an
This coming weekend, I will go out and attempt the northern most peaks of the high peaks, Whiteface and Esther. These are both north of Lake Placid, and Whiteface was actually a major venue for the 1980's Olympics. There is an observatory and a road to the top too.... I'll be hiking in from the old Marble Mountain ski area, going to Whiteface first, and then hitting Esther, which is an unmarked trail/herd path, on the way down.