MacIntyre Range (37, 38, 39)

Our July goal was to hike the 3 northern peaks of the MacIntyre range. (Mt. Marshall is also part of the range, but there's no trail connecting the first 3 to it.) There's a loop hike possible, but it would have added a couple of hours, so we decided to climb over Algonquin, on to Iroquois, backtrack over Algonquin, then take the side trip up Wright, before heading back to the Adirondack Loj.

On the last hike, I'd learned about TMax -n- Topo's, a hostel right near the turn-off to the Loj. Much closer than other places we've stayed at and the bunk rooms are only $28/person. It was nice to hang out in the common room and watch TV.

Our trail led past the turn-off to Wright, which we decided to climb on the way back. The incline was pretty gradual until we got close to Algonquin. Algonquin is the second-highest mountain in New York; there's a pretty extensive alpine zone, with lots of cairns to keep you off of the protected plants.

There was a good handful of people hanging out on top of Algonquin, including a mountain steward. After a break, we went down the col towards Iroquois, which was not too long of a trip.

Then we had to turn around and climb Algonquin a second time! When we got there, there was quite a crowd.

From there, we continued back, but took the side trail to Wright, which had an even bigger crowd, including-- and largely due to-- some folks who were finishing their 46 peaks.

Near the peak is a plaque and a few remains from a 1962 plane crash.

Mt. Seymour (36)

Last year, we'd attempted to climb Seymour on day 2 of an overnight outing, after doing the 3 peaks of the Seward range on day 1, but day 2 was pouring rain, so we cancelled. Now we were back, but because we knew there was a lean-to conveniently located near the base of Seymour, we made this an overnight outing too. But first we checked out the Wild Center, in nearby Tupper Lake.

We got to the trailhead in mid-afternoon and spent two hours hiking in the mostly level 6-mile trail to the Ward Brook lean-to.

The weather was nice and we were in no rush at that point, so we relaxed, made dinner and, of course, went to bed early.

We did have to be home before dinnertime the next day, so we got up before 5:00 to have some breakfast and hit the trail. A nice thing about having the lean-to to come back to on the way out is that  I could leave most of my stuff there and just take a day pack up the mountain.

Mt. Colden (35)

For something different, we decided to hike Mt. Colden as part of a group hike organized by the St. Lawrence chapter of the Adirondack Mountain Club (ADK). Ian’s high school friend Pat Carroll came along too.

The hike had been described as having a pace that would be “on the slow side of moderate.” I figured it would be hard for Ian to go that slow, but for myself, I welcomed the excuse to go a little slower. When we met at the Adirondack Loj, we were a group of seven, including the leader, an older guy who was involved with his local chapter and was interested in seeing the trail improvements that had been done a while earlier.

Also, it was Memorial Day weekend, so when we got to the register to sign in, there was a crowd there. But there are a lot of trails leading out from the Loj, and there didn’t seem to be too many people heading to Colden.

When we got to Marcy Dam, we had a clear view of Mt. Colden.

Around halfway up, our hike leader made an announcement: He was tired and not feeling well, so he was going to turn back! We were free to carry on without him, which we did. Suddenly, Ian was one of the people in the lead and the pace picked up considerably! Before long, a young woman who’d been counting on the “slow side of moderate” was finding herself way behind us; when she caught up, she had decided to head back too. So now it was just Ian, Pat, me, and two others.

We stopped for a nice lunch at Lake Arnold, at about 3,800 feet, one of the highest bodies of water in the Adirondacks.

There’s a shoulder leading up to Colden, which has a great view of the peak. It seemed really far off still, but was only 10 minutes away.

Nippletop & Dial (33 & 34)

After having done a very wintry hike in May, two years back, I didn't expect we'd start off a new season with an April hike, but it had been such a snowless winter that I thought we could do it (without snowshoes.)

Last fall, we hiked nearby Colvin and Blake, camping out on the trail afterwards, with plans to hike Nippletop and Dial the next day. But two days of mountain hiking with a full pack was more than I could handle, so these two were postponed. This was our chance to get caught up. Nick decided to join us.

This hike is usually done as a loop, but people seem to be split about which direction is best. After reading lots of hike reports, I decided to do it counter-clockwise, making a long, gradual hike to the base of Nippletop, then a very steep climb to the top, then a long, relatively easy hike along a ridge to (the lower) Dial and on towards the starting point.

After a slight delay due to the discovery that our motel wouldn't be starting its free breakfast offering until May, we hit the trail a little after 6am. For the first few hours, the trail was the same we'd taken to do Colvin and Blake. Finally, we veered off that trail, through Elk Pass, to the base of Nippletop. And yes, it was steep. And we knew enough to bring microspikes for digging into the ice that became more and more prominent as we got higher.

There was a lot of walking up slabs of ice— impossible without spikes.

It was still cloudy when we reached the top, so there was no view whatsoever. We actually had a working camera this trip and avoided setting up timed shots because there always happened to be someone on hand to take our peak picture for us.

Note the visibility behind us!

The Nippletop peak was cold and breezy, so I was glad to move on. I was shocked at how easily we got to the peak of Dial. It's a running joke to keep telling each other that the next peak is just ahead and I was just about to do that when it turned out to be true. The sky was starting to clear, so we got a pretty good view from Dial.

On Dial, with the clouds lifting.

That was the last 4,000+ peak of the day, but on the trail back, we still had to climb over the smaller Bear Den Mountain and Noonmark Mountain. The mountaintop at Noonmark had suffered a fire a few years back, so it was pretty barren.

Noonmark— barren, due to fire.

Got back to the car a little after 4— a 13.6-mile hike in 10 hours.