This day, I attempted to do Dial and Nippletop. The day started out as usual, with a quick walk up to the trail register and down lake road to the turn off for the Leach trail. Going up the Leach trail is not bad, but there were a few icy spots that made it adventerous. After the icey spots were over, switched over to snowshoes for the climb up Noonmark's shoulder. This climb just killed me. I couldn't get my heart rate down, and was really struggling.
The plan for the day was to start early and go up the Beaver Meadows trail to get Gothics and Armstrong. If we felt good about it, we would continue on to Upper Wolfjaw and Lower Wolfjaw if we were feeling it.
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.
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.
Today it was Hurricane Fire Tower. I chose to go up this one as training for winter hiking, being only a week or so before winter, and someone had reported a couple days earlier that they used snowshoes all the way. I was pumped to use my snowshoes again. Sadly, the weather warmed up and all I used was microspikes.
To continue on my fire tower challenge, I did Hadley and Kane fire towers.
First up was Hadley. This trail was a bit icy and I had to put on the microspikes shortly after I left the car. The trail up was overall not bad, just steep and a few open slabs to climb up. The views from the top were lovely, and this is a wonderful hike that I highly recommend.
This time, I went and worked on completing the Tongue range for the Lake George 12, doing the lower 3 peaks. I started off on the crossover trail and next thing I knew I was on the ridge and heading south. When I got to 5th peak, it was a slight backtrack up to the leanto and actual peak. The views there were gorgeous, and I could easily see myself camping there, if not for the lack of reliable water nearby (yes, I can hike down to the lake, but that's a steep climb back up.)
