Snowy Mountain, Indian Lake NY - 2/11/12

I had climbed six Adirondack High Peaks in the last week, so it was time to do something on a different list.  We chose to climb Snowy Mountain in Indian Lake, NY on Saturday.  Snowy Mountain is part of the ADK Firetower Challenge, and is the highest mountain in the southern Adirondacks at 3899'.

Leesa, Nick and I went on this hike.  We knew it would not be a good day for visibility and we had several periods of light snow, but we had a good hike anyways.  The trailhead is a designated parking area on Route 30, a couple miles south of the town of Indian Lake.  A group of 4 guys were starting up the trail when we arrived.  No one else was there.

We chose to ascend in snowshoes, although micro spikes would have been fine.  The trail starts very gradually, and only climbs about 600 feet in the 1st 2.4 miles.  Don't be fooled though!  In the last mile the trail climbs about 1500 feet.  In the packed snow, the climb wasn't so bad as it might be in other conditions.  We were able to make the ascent in our snowshoes.

In the steep stretch, we passed the 4 other hikers.  A couple of them were barebooting and a couple were wearing tubular snowshoes that were not designed for steep ascents.  They did manage to make it up, they just couldn't go at the pace we were climbing. 

We reached the summit after about 2.5 hours from the trailhead. 

Icy steps on the firetower

No view on this day from the tower

Nick and Leesa at the firetower on the summit

The firetower is open to climb, but the cab was not accessible. 

Mike and Leesa

After a quick lunch and about 30 minutes on the  summit and then began our descent.  We switched to micro spikes for the steep pitch and kept them on for the entire descent.

We could faintly see Indian Lake in the distance from the clearing just below the summit.

Nick at the clearing just below the summit

The beginning of the steep descent

Once we got down through the steep section at the top, we made good time going down and we were back down to the car after about 2 hours.    Nick enjoyed seeing a couple feet of snow on the summit.  He hadn't seen much snow yet this winter prior to this hike.

Hike Stats:

Hike Distance:  6.8 miles

Hike Time:  4 hours, 40 minutes, including 30 minutes on the summit

Trailhead Elevation:  1810'

Summit Elevation:  3899'

Total Vertical Gain:  2340'

Maximum Slope:  57 %

Our trail shown in blue

 

My Snowy Mountain track at EveryTrail

P.S.  Below is a picture of the summit a week later, when visibility was better...

A zoomed in view of Snowy Mountain from Route 30 on a clear day



Hadley Mountain - 9/3/11

Hadley Mountain can be a great hike to get a view of the southern adirondacks from atop a restored firetower.  On this day though, it was extremely humid outside and the black flies were out in full force.

The weather forecast for the day was questionable with 40 % chance of scattered severe thunderstorms so we chose a shorter hike close to home.  Another reason was the closure of the Eastern High Peaks due to storm damage from Hurricane Irene.  While driving to the trailhead, we noticed all along the roadways cut up logs and branches that had been removed from roads, but not yet cleared away.  We got to the parking area at about 11:15 AM and there were about 10 cars in the parking lot (including a state forest ranger pickup truck).

Leesa, Nick and I were doing this hike and we decided to do a little geocaching along the way.  There were 4 caches hidden along the trail and we found all 4 of them.  As we were hiking we passed the forest ranger along the way.  He was there with a chainsaw cutting up all the trees that had fallen into the trail.  We thanked him for his efforts!

The only safe haven from the black flies was up in the firetower.  The wind up there I think was enough to keep them away.  The cab of the tower was locked, but you could still get a view from the highest platform.  On this day though, it was rather hazy, so visibility was reduced.  We stayed on the upper platform of the tower to have a snack, and then headed back down.

Roundtrip distance:  3.6 miles

Roundtrip hiking time:  1.5 hours

Elevation at summit:  2653'

Elevation gain:  ~ 1490'

Our route is shown in blue

The trailhead sign

Historic sign at the trailhead

Informational sign

Nick signing us in

The forest ranger clearing the hurricane damage

There were quite a few trees down everywhere

The fire observers cabin near the summit

The cabin has been restored, but was locked and you couldn't see in

View of the tower from the cabin

This was near the cabin and was the entrance to the cellar of some former small building

a closer look

The summit

Nick and Mike

We'll have to come back and do this hike again when the visiblility is better.

St. Regis Mountain - 7/17/11

After having stayed the night before in a leanto near Paul Smiths, it was time to climb St. Regis Mountain.  Trailhead parking is on Keese Mills Road, 3 or 4 miles west of Paul Smiths. 

St. Regis Mountain - Trailhead Parking

The weather promised another sunny day with a little more humidity, but there was a good breeze. Leesa and I started towards the summit around 9 AM.

Elevation at Trailhead:  1614'
Evevation at Summit:  2874'
Total Gain:  1260'
Distance One Way:  3.3 miles
Total Distance:  6.6 miles
Approximate Total Hiking Time:  3 hours

Our route is highlighted in blue

The trip to the summit was uneventful.    After climbing a small rise near the trailhead, the trail drops approximately 250 feet before a steady climb to the summit.  This day was quite windy and the breeze at the summit felt great.

We were somewhat disappointed to find the the summit fire tower is no longer open to the public.  The bottom two flights of stairs have been removed.  We did not know this in advance, and were looking forward to climbing the tower (at least I was)! 

St. Regis Mountain firetower

 You did not need to be in the tower to have a great view, but it would have been nice.

From L-R, Lower St. Regis lake, Spitfire Lake and Upper St. Regis Lake

We stayed on the summit for about half an hour, and then returned to the car by the same route.  It was a hot day, so an ice cream stop was quite nice on the way out.  We like to stop at small unusual places such as this (Donnelly's on Rt 86 between Paul Smiths and Saranac Lake).  Their sign inside said they serve twist and only twist, so that is what we got.

All in all, this hike was not so strenous as some, and the views are great, but we suspect the firetower will not be reopening for public use.  We don't know the future status of the structure.  Perhaps it is scheduled to be dismantled.  It's sad to see so many disappearing.