Posts tagged Hiking

Early morning at Round Pond

And then there were nine; Dix today.

3 weeks ago

With a possible trip to Denver in a couple of weeks, I wanted to get out on the trails to get back my trail legs. I hadn’t set out on the trails in over 5 weeks given that the climbing season is on. With the rainy forecast, I elected to choose something not too long, so Dix it was. 

At 9:00 AM I was off from the Round Pond trailhead. The trail is somewhat flat and un-inspiring until you hit the slide. Of course, this lack of  enthusiasm for the trail may be directly related to the fact that there were no views to speak of given that the cloud cover was low.

The fun started at the base of the slide; I chose to follow the north side slide up to the top; this was impromptu as I just couldn’t resist following it once I was at it’s base. There were very tricky sections (given that it was raining) as well as some ice, but all in all, a nice slide climb. Unfortunately, the route I took didn’t bring me to the very top; this meant a nasty, nasty, dense and painful bushwhack to summit.

The descent was done through the normal route.

 

Note: I’ve been made aware of the issues of mud-season in the Adirondacks; this is a concept I wasn’t aware of so I’ll have to plead ignorance on this one … 

Uphill lean-to. My sleeping quarters for 2 nights

Weekend herdpath galore – Gray, Redfield, Cliff and Marshall

2 months ago

With most if not all marked trails out of the way on my quest to do the NY 46, the stage was set for a big weekend of herdpaths. This weekend, it made sense for me to combine Gray, Redfield, Cliff and Marshall. I was successful and the task was easier than I’d like to admit; apart from Gray, all trails were well broken in, visible and very well packed.

Day 1 – The walk in

On Friday, I set out at about 1PM from work to park at the LOJ for a walk up to the Uphill lean-to. The attendant mentioned that the brook was too high to pass on foot and that I should park at South Meadows instead. Obviously, on a weekend planned for over 30 miles of hiking, the extra couple miles didn’t bother me.

I started the hike at about 4:30. My body wasn’t feeling strong because of a very bad flu I had been going through the preceding days. Nonetheless, I was at the Uphill lean-to about 4 hours later, taking the route through Lake Arnold to get there. On the way up, a couple of gentlemen mentioned that Opalescent was impassable. With my tent on me, I figured I’d just stop there and re-assess the next morning if need be. They were right; but I had read the Allen instruction book for winter 2012 and had 2 large plastic bags to cover my legs with. 15 minutes later, I was across. Dry.

The lean-to was already occupied by a group of 3. I rudely setup shop between a couple of them and got to bed early.

Day 2 – Gray, Redfield, Cliff

At 8:30, I was out of bed and ready to hike. Gray was the first target of the day, and I needed to be back at Uphill for 11AM to meet up with a group of hikers joining me to do Redfield and Cliff.

All in all, Gray was done quickly. I was the first one up there in a while so the herd path were mostly covered. I obviously got off track a few times, but in the end, I got to the top at about 9:45. The views were awesome with Marcy and Skylight in full view. After a few minutes at the top taking advantage of the sun, I was off for a quick descent to meet with my group.

At 11:00 precisely, they showed up at Uphill and we were off for Redfield and Cliff; both these were done extremely quickly as well, so much so that at 3:00 we were done. The views on both summits were surprisingly good (I hadn’t heard anything good about these 2 summits).

Day 3 – Marshall

After another shitty night (this time, we were 6 at the lean-to with at least 3 snorers), I set out for Marshall. My legs weren’t as strong as the day before and the ascent towards Marshall was slow to say the least. Nonetheless, I got it done and by 5:00 PM, I was back at my car, totally spent.

The Stats

Gray Peak stands at 4826 feet, Redfield at 4606, Cliff Mountain at 3944 and finally Marshall tops out at 4380 feet. The 3 days combined had me walk about 50 km (30 miles) going up about 7500 feet of elevation gain.

The GPS log data can be seen here (day 1), here (day 2) and here (day 3).

The Photos

 

 

Early morning start

Easy going on the Santanoni range

3 months ago

I’d heard that the range was difficult and possibly nightmarish in bad conditions. But yesterday, with a beautiful day, broken out trails, early start and a great team with me, the 18 miles were done quickly and with no snags.

Yesterday was the 8th Winter Gathering where the organizers try to put someone on each one of the 46ers in the Adirondacks. I had asked to be on the Santanoni Range team.

Six of us started out at the trailhead at 6:30 after a night spent in Newcomb. But there were much more than 6 of us out there. In my last year of hiking, aside from Cascade, I had never seen as many people on the trails.

Roughly 3 1/2 hours after starting, we were atop Panther. The walk up to Herald Square was constant and in the packed snow, relatively easy. Snow shoes were donned somewhat early in the hike, something that I hadn’t done often this year.

Then commenced the walk down to Couchsachraga. At 11AM, we were at it’s summit and at just over noon, back at Time Square to have some lunch. Again, snow conditions were more than perfect.

Santanoni was then quickly dispatched and at 1:30 we were back on our way to Times Square. Some time was lost on Santanoni trying to find the express way back down, but we figured that the extra few miles weren’t worth the risk of having to bushwhack through spruce traps.

At 2:20, we were back at the Time square and at 4:45, back at the cars.

The Stats

My GPS died for a few minutes of the hike, so the track log isn’t necessary precise. Nonetheless, the tracklog can be viewed here.

Panther Peak stands at 4,442 feet; Couchsachraga at 3,783 feet and Santanoni at 4,606. The hike took us about 10.5 hours and had us walking close to 19 miles (30km). The elevation gain was in the vicinity of 5000 feet.

Current Conditions

As mentioned before, the conditions were perfect. No tricky sections worth mentioning and all water ways were frozen over.

The Pictures
The Tracklog


River crossing on the way up

Finally, Haystack

3 months ago

 

Exactly 1 year ago, day for day, I had failed to get to the top of Haystack having stopped at Little Haystack. A lack of proper equipment coupled with my courage shrivelling under the extreme winds had me going back to to the LOJ with my tail well tucked between my legs (what a horrible analogy).

 

Yesterday started pretty much the same way all my hikes begin: Leave home at 5:00AM, border crossing at 6:00, McDonalds and finally the trailhead at just before 8:00.

This time, I used the Garden trail going through JBL, Bushnell Falls and Slant Rock. The hike up to Slant Rock was easy and without anything to report. I had a few problems with my feet after this. First off, with my new boots, I could feel blisters forming on my heels. I quickly stopped and applied Duct Tape therapy to the affected region. 30 minutes later, I could feel my toes getting very cold so I stopped another time to put foot warmers in my boots. Both solutions took care of the problems and I was ok for the rest of the day.

At the bottom of Little Haystack I got ready for the 1.5km of exposition. The day was again very windy. Every step was deliberate and precise; a fall on the ice field that is now the Haystack ridge would have been unfortunate (and that’s under-representing the consequences of a fall). The descent from Little Haystack towards Haystack was nerve racking. My ice axe was useful for the first time.

The top of Haystack was reached at 1:00PM; getting back to the lodge from here was then easy and leisurely. At the JBL, I stopped about 30 minutes chatting with some nice gentlemen who were very curious about these extreme hikes we all do.

The Stats

A 30km (19 mile) hike with 4648 feet of elevation gain done in just under 10 hours. Haystack stands at 4960 feet. The Trimble Outdoors info is here.

Conditions

Snow pack is very hard on the trails. Micro-spikes up to Slant Rock, then full on crampons to the top of Haystack. I changed back into micro-spikes at the JBL. I wouldn’t recommend anything less than crampons on the Haystacks at this point in time.

The Pics

One of the 2 trails that branches off from Lake Road towards Colvin

A fever on Colvin and Blake

3 months ago

Not much to say … This is a pretty standard and somewhat boring hike; if it weren’t for the goal of becoming a 46er, I would have bypassed this one having heard nothing good about it.

Of note: For different reasons, I’ve been exploring the possibility of changing to doubled plastic boots for my hikes. I rented a pair of Scarpa Inverno’s at the Mountaineer this morning to see how I would fare … I didn’t; the boots hurt my soles as well as the whole of my lower leg. I’ve read great things about the Inverno’s, so I’m thinking it’s just that my foot isn’t adapted to their boot.

Other note: I was sick for this hike; very sick. I knew I should have stayed home … but didn’t. I hadn’t checked the stats for this hike and thought it was an easy one. As it turns out, without being a very hard one, it’s definitely not an easy one (being the second longest I’ve hiked in a day).

The stats

Colvin stands at 4080 feet and is 39th in the list of 46. Blake, even if below 4000 feet still counts, and stands at 3970.

A 26km (16.2 mile) hike done in just over 8h30 mins. The total elevation gain was 1296 meters (4252 feet).

The GPS data can be seen here.

The pics

The tracklog

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