Giant Mountain - Giant Mountain Wilderness - 3/17/17

This post is a little late for a conditions trip report, but I decided to document the trip anyways.  After the dumping of snow on 3/13 from Blizzard Stella, we were anxious to climb a high peak and see what goodness we could find.  The problem was that with 3 feet of new snow on the ground, most trails were not broken out yet.

We settled on Giant Mountain since it was the closest to us and also likely to have already have some foot traffic.  We didn't arrive at the trailhead until noon, but that gave others more time to break trail ahead of us and we knew the hike was only 3 miles each way.

We passed a family near the start and it looked like they were not intending to go all the way to the summit.  The trail was indeed broken out, and most folks had worn snowshoes, so the trail was smoothly packed.

While the forecast predicted cloudy skies, we were blessed with blue skies all day.  If was warming up to around 40 degrees, so all the better.  I had my sunglasses on all afternoon.

When we reached the Giant Washbowl, I was a little disappointed to see that someone had built a makeshift shelter a mere few feet from the trail.

  

Someone's attempt at a shelter at Giant Washbowl.

Giant Washbowl

Look at that sky!

An early look back, about a mile into the hike.  The dix range in on the left in the background.  The great range is on the right.

As we reached the split in the trail at the bump, we ran into some familiar hiking faces.  We chatted for a minute and Rev slid down a rock face at the upper end of the bump and we continued on.

Always a bump...

Junction with the Roaring Brook Falls Trail

Just above the Roaring Brook Trail Junction, we ran into 8 hikers coming down barebooting with no snowshoes.  They chewed up the trail quite a bit.  We had to watch our step until we got near treeline.

The alpine zone.

The Giant/Rocky Peak Ridge trail junction.

The summit panorama.

Leesa and Rev on the summit.

At the top, I went down into the little sheltered space below the summit and Rev jumped down to join me and landed in a big snow drift.  She wiggled her was out and joined me for a snack.

Natures sculpture.

We chose not to swing over to Rocky Peak Ridge.  It was mid afternoon and that trail was only slightly broken out.  On our way down, Leesa took full advantage of some butt sliding opportunities, while I chose to do some snowshoe surfing.  

After our hike, we went to the annual ADK High Peaks Forum Gathering in Upper Jay for a great evening of comaraderie and food!

 

 

Leesa... still butt sliding even near the bottom.

Hike Stats:
Hike Distance:  5.9 miles
Hike Time:  4 hours, 30 minutes
Total Vertical Gain:  ~ 3000'

Knob Lock Mountain - Giant Mountain Wilderness - 10/9/16

This year, as always on Columbus Day, we headed for the hills.  The quiet hills were what we were after.  All the high peaks and all the popular trails would be crawling with people.  We were hoping for a sunny day and a chance to catch the peak of the fall life season in the north country on a quiet peak with views.  Knob Lock Mountain came to my mind.

Knob Lock (also known as Elizabethtown #1) is  a fine peak with a fantastic rock summit and it is relatively unknown.  There is no trail or even well defined herd path to the summit.  I had visited this place on 2/1/14 on a cloudy day with snow squalls.  I had done that trip alone with my dog Rev.

This time, Leesa and Rev were both going with me and we parked at the Owl Head Lookout/Giant Mountain parking lot and only one other car was there at 8:15 in the morning.

     

An early look back to Owl Head Lookout 

We took off on the trail towards Owl Head Lookout (a wonderful destination on it's own) but after a half mile or so we veered off the trail to the right to locate the eastern spine of Knob Lock.  It's not hard to locate.  We were climbing the ridge after 0.4 miles from leaving the trail.

I brought Leesa on this bushwhack because my recollection was that the woods were not that dense. It turned out to be a little thicker than she would have liked.  I thought the bushwhack was through  moderately dense growth at the worst, but she thought it was thick.  I told her that if it was too thick for her taste, we would turn back.  She pressed on.  It did alternate between moderately thick and open rock.  That probably helped her.

We had an early view of Owl Head Lookout and soon we could see the Elizabethtown valley down below.      

Views starting to open up as we gained the ridge

I forgot my camera so the pictures here are from my cell phone.  It was a bit overcast and the phone didn't pick up the color too well.  The colors were more impressive than the pictures indicate. 

The summit is in sight

Looking towards Elizabethtown.  Route 9N is down below.

Leesa appreciated the views that appeared often as we climbed higher.   The best part of all was the open summit we had to ourselves!  I expected as much, but it's always nice to find.  We looked across the valley to Hurricane Mountain and we could see at least 30 cars parked on the north side of the road at the trailhead.  There were probably more parked on the south side.  Who knows; there may have been a hundred people on Hurricane.  We had a summit almost as nice to ourselves.   It was an extremely busy holiday hiking weekend, but our plan paid off.  I will take a bushwhack over a trail any day for the solitude that is awarded and for the exploration that a bushwhack provides. 

  

Looking south to Green Mountain from the summit of Knob Lock

Rev - On the summit

It was a little windy and chilly on the summit so we didn't stay quite as long as we might have otherwise.  We did enjoy a lunch in a sheltered spot out of the wind before heading back.  We swung a little further northward to avoid a dense area in the col prior to the summit.  We were successful, but then we reclimbed to the ridge to enjoy the views again on the way down.

   

Looking NW

Part of the nice rocky summit.

Hurricane Mountain in the distance with Route 9N down below.

When we regained the trail, we saw 3 groups of hikers just in the short distance back to the car.  Upon reaching the parking lot, we found an overflowing lot with cars parked out on the shoulder of Route 9N.  Most the these hikers were probably hiking to Owl Head Lookout, with a view others headed to High Bank or Giant Mountain.  Driving home on Route 73 we were amazed the the overflowing parking lots everywhere.  It just confirmed for us that we made the right hiking decision on this day. We were content!

 

Hike Stats:

Hike Distance:  6.2 miles

Hike Time:  5 hours

Total Vertical Gain:  ~ 2100'

The approximate route

The route on the NG topo map

Hopkins Mountain (3156') - Giant Mountain Wilderness - 1/31/15

My task was simple; find a hike in the vicinity of Keene Valley that would take 3-5 hours and offer fantastic views.  I had 3 friends coming up Saturday morning who were staying overnight at the Aubable Inn in Keene Valley.  They hike 1-2 times a year.  The options I came up with included Hurricane, Hopkins, Round, Noonmark, Blueberry and Roostercomb.      

Hopkins and Hurricane were at the top of my list.  The deciding factor ended up being the extreme cold and wind.  I eliminated Hurricane since I knew the summit would be quite windy.

We met at the Noonmark Diner at 9 AM and had breakfast.  Afterwards, we parked the cars at the Roostercomb trailhead.  I chose the Ranney Trail as our route of choice.  Just so you know, this route is not obvious. You walk in on Ranney Road, which is diagonally across the street from the parking lot.  The road sign says it is a private road, and there is no indication that that there is a trail there.   You have to walk straight in on Ranney Road for a quarter mile or so before you see an old sign pointing to Hopkins.  See the picture below which shows the sign.

  

I was quite surprised by the lack of snow.  There was only an inch of snow on top of some icy crust. The group did not have microspikes, but I had brought snowshoes for all.  We put them on at the first trail sign, but we banged them up a bit in the beginning due to the lack of snow.

As we climbed out of the pines into the hardwoods, the snow was deep enough to make the snowshoe walking much more comfortable.

Finally, some snow 

The Ranney Trail is well sheltered and we were unaffected by the wind.  As we reached the junction with the Mossy Cascade Trail, we discovered fresh hiker tracks.  Soon we found the source; a pair of Canadian hikers wearing crampons.  They were stopping for a break and we passed them at that point.

My group was doing OK.  They were whining a little bit, but it was more out of fun than agony.  They weren't used to climbing 2000' in snowshoes, so they let me hear about it. 

The final steep 0.2 miles to the summit  

The snow depth continued to increase, but there was still only a foot or so on the ground.  That certainly has changed as I write this.  Another foot fell today.

The final steps to the view

The big surprise of the day came when we reached the open summit where we were treated to sunshine and no wind!  I was redeemed by my friends.  They raved about the views and more or less forgot about their climbing woes.  We all sat down on the summit and had some lunch. 

Always worth the climb to see this view

The summit is in sight

Looking at Giant Mountain in the distance

The lunch gathering

Bartering food items

We returned to the car via the same trail.  The group had stopped their whining and they were now joking and having fun.  Our 2 hour climb equated to a 1.5 hour descent.  The 30 minutes on the top gave us a 4 hour trip which worked out perfectly.

We completed the day with a few beers at the Ausable Inn and all was good.

Hike Stats:

Hike Distance:  5.4 miles

Hike Time:  4 hours (including stops)

Total Vertical Gain:  ~ 2000' 

The route (click image to enlarge)

The route on the National Geographic map