Lake George

Lake George
Lake George - from Tongue Mtn Range - 11/11/2011

Thursday, November 3, 2011

Prospect Mountain - 11/3/11

A great thing about living in the North Country of upstate NY is the easy accessibility to short adventures, even on weekdays with just a couple hours to kill.

On Thursday, I took a trail run from Lake George village to the summit of Prospect Mountain.  Although the hike was only 1.5 miles each way, there was a steady grade and lots of rocks to negotiate. 

Hike Stats

Trailhead Elevation:  477'
Summit Elevation:  2021'
Time Up:  36 minutes
Time down:  22 minutes
Total Vertical:  1582' 
Round Trip Distance:  3.09 miles

With the auto road closed for the season, there was nobody on the summit.
The trailhead starts at this significant pedestrian bridge over the Adirondack Northway (I87)

The view south from the bridge

Looking along the bridge

Machinery remains of an old incline railway

 



US Geodetic Survey marker
A couple shots looking at the southern end of Lake George and LG village 

 



 


The Adirondack Northway in the Distance with French Mountain at the far right
  

 

According to Wikipedia, the summit used to have an incline railway car from 1895 to 1903.  At one time, there was also a summit building, and later, a firetower.  This large gear is about all that remains,

Summit pavilion
In the summertime you can pay to drive the auto road to the summit and there are quite a few picnic table for people to use.  The auto road is 5.88 miles each way, and is open from around Memorial Day to Columbus Day.


View Prospect Mtn 20111103.kml in a larger map

Total trip time, including time on the summit was 1 hour and 15 minutes.  Not a bad way to get a view and a little exercise.  A future trip here in the winter may include a cross country ski on the auto road.

2 comments:

  1. hi. do you recommend going there in early november?

    ReplyDelete
  2. I go there all year around and I'm there quite often.

    ReplyDelete