Upper Great Range: Haystack, Basin, Saddleback (peaks 20-22)

We were lucky to find one more slot in the calendar before cold weather and busier schedules ruled out any more hiking for the year, so we decided on what looked like an ambitious, but fun hike. Various trip reports talked about this hike being very long and there were especially intimidating reports about the 100-foot very steep scramble to get up Saddleback. And since my August hike on the Dix trail had been so long and physically exhausting, I was determined to do everything I could to optimize this hike.

A round-trip hike from "The Garden" parking lot would be 19 miles, but we could shorten our day by 3.5 miles, by staying over in the Johns Brook Lodge. We hadn't seriously considered staying over in Adirondack Loj before, at $60 per person, but Johns Brook Lodge is only about $25/person, which seemed reasonable. And staying in the lodge and making our dinner and breakfast– albeit in an institutional kitchen– seemed like a good first step towards a camping hike.

To keep from losing time by getting lost, I printed out extremely detailed maps of the trails. And to keep from getting physically spent, I brought lots of high-protein snacks, water, and Gatorade. I even brought 50 feet of rope, because more than one person had written about having to pull their packs up the Saddleback cliff, because wearing a heavy pack was too risky.

It was fun to stay at the lodge. It was a good thing that I made the reservation when I did, because I got the last two of the 28 beds. We left home in early afternoon, but had our first snafu on the road, when I realized I had left the sausage for our dinner at home. After too much searching, we found a Super Walmart and bought the replacement. It was dusk when we got to The Garden and dark well before we got to the lodge 90 minutes later. The Great Room of the lodge was full of people playing cards and hanging out. We settled in and got going on our jambalaya and rolls.

Got up at 5am and when we left at 6, no one else from the lodge and even gotten up yet. It was pitch dark for the first half hour and dusky for the next half hour. Bushnell Falls was pretty, but we were looking at it before dawn. We did lose the trail at one point, as we laughed about a destroyed footbridge over a stream– until we realized that that was where we need to cross the stream to find the trail.

Our route took us to the farthest mountain first, Haystack, so it was about four hours before we got to its sentinel, "Little Haystack." Since we'd have to backtrack to Little Haystack after actual Haystack, we dropped our packs there and it was a pleasure to climb without them.

I'd read that the views from Haystack were great and had been afraid that we might have too much morning fog, but, although it was overcast, the views were clear and really awesome. As Ian said, you could see 100 miles in every direction. It's the 3rd highest peak in NYS. Marcy is right next door and fills your field of view in that direction.

On the way back, we started to see other hikers for the first time. When we got to the top of Basin, it wasn't even noon yet– we were making great time. We were met by a few French Canadians that we recognized from the lodge. As we got near the top of Saddleback, we caught up with a couple of women, so we all made the final ascent together. In spite of all the horror stories I'd read, the scramble was more fun than scary. It's true that if you were not in good shape, you could have some trouble here. There were some places where you just had to pull yourself up with your arms and swing your leg up high to get a foothold, but I never felt in danger of plunging down the mountain. (OK, I did read that someone had died here a few years ago, but that must have been a freak accident.)

The hike down Saddleback was pretty long. At one point, we came to an enormous mud slide from a few years earlier, that had basically removed all the earth and trees from a huge section of mountain and dumped them below. The remaining rock was so sheer that it was really hard to hike, either up or down, so some lovely people arranged to build a 377-step stairway.

After the trail leveled out, it was still a pretty long slog back to the lodge, but we made it there by 4pm, which was terrific. A quick break to pick up our sleeping bags, which we'd left there to lighten our loads, and we were on the trail again. I'd been aiming to get to the lodge before dark but was really happy to see that we'd made it back to the car before 6– still light out.

Tabletop Mt. (peak 19)

We decided to knock off Phelps Mountain and Tabletop Mountain and I invited my sister Lisa to come along. She, in turn, invited her friend Pam. Phelps is supposed to be one of the easiest hikes of the High Peaks, with nice views-- it's often described as a half-day hike. Tabletop has more obscured views from the peak and would make it a full-day trip, but we included it, to work toward our 46.

We left Glens Falls at 6am, but the trailhead is at the Adirondack Loj, so it was still after 8am when we got started. The first few miles make for a nice, easy hike– very scenic around Marcy Dam. The original bridge near the dam was washed out by Tropical Storm Irene, but a new one has been erected.

The morning was foggy, so when we got to the turnoff for Phelps, we decided to go on and do Tabletop first, since the views there weren't good anyway, and maybe the fog would have burned off by the time we got to Phelps. As we got close to the peak, we passed some people coming down who told us there was ice near the top– I thought they were kidding, but they weren't. Ice had formed in the tree branches and was falling down as it melted.

Our new companions weren't going at quite at the same pace that Ian and I were, and it was already after noon when we were all on Tabletop. When Ian and I got back down to the base, they seemed to be pretty far behind, so we took the very short side trip to the top of Indian Falls. It was well worth the time.

When Lisa and Pam caught up, we had to bring them to the falls too, and of course that took more time. As we started off again, we realized it was already mid-afternoon and, since Ian was starting his first day at a new job the next day, 5-1/2 hours away, we didn't want to be ending the hike at dinnertime, we decided to leave Phelps for another day.

The Dix Range: Macomb, South Dix, Grace Peak, Hough & Dix (peaks 14-18)

We decided to another five-peak hike, to make some good progress toward our 46. There are some longer routes through these mountains, but at 15 miles, this one seemed long enough.

To get an early start, we stayed in the Blue Ridge Motel in Schroon Lake. It was a good location– close to our turn-off from the Northway– and it turned out that they had serve-yourself breakfast already set up when we got up at 5am.

We reminded ourselves not to leave our lunches behind like we did the last time we stayed in a motel and were feeling like we had gotten off to a good start, but that was not to last for long. We found the designated parking area easily enough, but didn't see where the trail started. Another group had arrived and then headed back down the road we come up, so we headed that way too. After 1/4 mile, we realized it couldn't be down there, so we came back to where we started, plus a few more feet, and there was the trailhead. Duh!

The trail starts off  pretty level and almost wide enough for a 4-wheel drive vehicle, though probably too bouldery. After about three miles, it goes through a campsite and the junction for the trail up Macomb is supposed to be nearby. We kept walking and walking until, after 30 minutes, we decided to backtrack. When we got back to the campsite and talked to some people, we learned that the trail we wanted was a skinny little path at the back of one of the tent sites, marked by a little cairn. So now we had wasted an hour and a half by not knowing where we were going.

Almost immediately, the trail up Macomb became steep and long. I had to stop a few times to catch my breath and was pretty well soaked when we reached the top.

We moved on toward South Dix, which we reached in another hour (?), then left our loop trail to head towards Grace Peak (until recently known as East Dix.) We'd gone downhill for a while when the trail leveled off a little and there seemed to be a choice of paths. One path had a tree trunk over it, so we figured that must not be the right way. Dumb! We kept going down, down, down, until we figured it was not right, then had to climb back up, up, up to the junction. Almost as soon as we took the other path, it was clear that it headed up Grace Peak. We were starting to learn the value of taking a little time to figure out where you needed to go.

The rest of the hike went well, but I found it to be really strenuous. Before we were halfway through, I was overheated and exhausted. I started thinking about whether there was any way I could just give up, but there was no such option. It would be nearly impossible for a rescue squad to come for me and we had no way to contact anyone anyway. I didn't have warm clothing or food to spend the night. I had no choice but to just keep putting one foot in front of the other. In hindsight, I was probably not nourishing myself enough and my new synthetic-fabric shorts were making me too hot.

Dix Mountain was a bit of a tease, because there are a couple of bumps between Hough and Dix, but we finally got there and the views were nice. We still had a few hours of daylight left, but unfortunately, had more than a few hours of hiking ahead of us. It took at least an hour to descend from Dix and a couple of hours before we got back to the campsite area. By then it was dark and we had to get out our lights. The trail from that point was mostly level, but very rocky, so as tired as I was, I still had to be careful where I made each step. This last part seemed to go on forever and Ian was probably not appreciating the whiny mess that was dragging along behind him. It was after 8pm when we got back to the car and well after midnight when we got home.

Whiteface and Esther (peaks 12 & 13)

Whiteface and Esther are quite a bit further north than the rest of the High Peaks. Whiteface's other distinction is that it's the only one of the peaks that actually has a highway to the top, and a building– a meteorological research station-- on the peak.

We were climbing pretty much right from the beginning, but after an hour or so, the trail leveled out. It has a long middle section that's pretty flat, but in the Adirondacks a flat trail means a swampy trail. There were lots of mucky parts with "corduroy"– skinny logs laid lengthwise along a muddy section, to walk on.  It was not really possible to get through that cleanly. One side of Whiteface is a skiing destination and at one point, we passed the top of a ski lift.

On approaching Whiteface's peak, the going got steep again. At one point, the trail comes to a huge, man-made stone wall, which you soon realize is the retaining wall of the highway. After skirting that, we came to the peak, which had more than a dozen people on it— none of whom, I'm pretty sure, had hiked there.

After having climbed 11 peaks already, it was very odd to climb one and find a building, with benches, a soda machine, an AV show, etc.

The clouds were so thick– and below us– that we couldn't see any scenery at first. But there was a good wind moving them along, so before we left, everything became visible.

On the way down,we branched off the main trail to climb Esther. This was only about a half-hour trip each way. Unfortunately, just before we got to the peak, we were swarmed with gnats. There were also no good views from there, so we took our peak photo and hurried back down the trail.

Giant & Rocky Peak Ridge (peaks 10 & 11)

We decided to delay the start of our 2nd hiking season until May, because the winter had gone on so long. Little did we realize how wintery it still was in the High Peaks.

It seems like most people who hike Giant and RPR start at Route 73 in the west and hike east to RPR and then backtrack to the beginning. But if you have a second car that you leave on Route 9, you can keep going east until you get to that car, and the views along the way are supposed to be nice. So that was our plan.

At the beginning, we had perfect hiking weather-- sunny and just a little cool.

After a while, we started to see some snow on the ground and then later on, we found that the trail had about 2 feet of packed down snow. Some of the steep, rocky parts were iced over and we were really glad that Ian had rented some microspikes to slip over our boots.

By the time we got to the top of Giant, there was snow and/or sleet in the air and the wind was strong. It was winter! We moved on towards RPR and when we got to that peak, the weather was so fierce, we didn't even want to take the time to get the tripod out for our usual timed photo, so we each just took a photo of each other and headed off the peak.

We quickly discovered that the trail going east of RPR had not been broken in. I was sinking into the snow up to my hip! In May! We didn't have snowshoes, so this clearly wasn't going to work. We headed back over Giant and then back into spring weather.