In my quest for fire towers, I went far north and did Lyon and Loon Mountain fire towers. Two very different hikes. Both were very muggy and took a lot out of me making me actually eat on the trail! I also went through nearly 5 L of water over the 12.7 miles.
A while ago, a friend from my ADF days and I were talking about hiking as she had started hiking the Whites in New Hampshire, and I had already finished my 46er. I told her that I would love to show her "my" mountains some day, whenever she wanted to. Well, this memorial day was the time for me to show her. My original plans were to come in from the south, backpack into the Lake Colden/Flowed Lands area and grab some peaks out of there like Marshal, Marcy, Skylight, Grey, and Colden, but the one place she had to go was Avalanche Pass/Lake.
Today was a prep for memorial day hiking/backpacking, and I failed miserably. The hike itself is quite beautiful up to the former caretaker's cabin, that is once you get off the long road walk in. You pass through forest and meadows, by ponds and over streams. I actually saw some fish in one stream and painted trillium, which I don't recall ever seeing before. The trail up from the cabin was a typical ADK trail, but the views from the tower are lovely, and I haven't seen the high peaks this well from the south before.
Today, I took a jaunt over to Baxter. This is not a big mountain, but it does have some wonderful views at the ledges near the top. Started off on 9N and followed the trail to the top. Overall the trail was in pretty good shape, and the snow was all gone. Once up top it was a question of do I go over and come back around, or just go back down and do another peak. I went on, and this was a mistake.
First hike of the year from AMR. We went for one of the further ones and did Sawteeth up and down the Weld trail. Early start and up and down the lake road with no big issues. I was getting a little tired with the fast pace, but I pulled through. We crossed the river, stopped and looked at Rainbow Falls a bit, and then it was up the mountain. Once you start climbing, it keeps going. The trail was already broken out, and we just packed it down better. The trail was smooth, and no rocks. It was everything I like about winter hiking.
I went to go hiking and didn't plan on an early start in the Catskills, and never expected it would be a problem to find parking. My goal was Halcott. Well, I get there about 10 in the morning and the lot is full. So I go down to Shaft road to think and come up with doing Sherill. I had plans in the evening, so I only planned on doing one peak.
This was another big year for hiking. I finished the Catskill 3500 challenge and started/finished the Lake George 12 challenge. I also started on the ADK portion of the Fire Tower challenge, which will be my focus next year along with the LP 9, Saranac 6, and Tupper 3. Plenty of non-high peak hiking to do.
To end out the year, I hiked Big Slide. This was weirdly the first time I did it over the Brothers, which is the typical way most people first approach it.
It's the first day of winter, time to start hiking winter peaks again! Unfortunately, there was a major rain storm in the week leading up to the 21st, and that did some major road damage by Owl's Head on 73. Coming into the day, I was concerned about water levels around the washbowl. I totally forgot that on the ridge trail you cross the outlet 3 times.
