Baldhead and Moose Mountains - Wilcox Lake Wild Forest - 12-14/12

Today I was looking to do a "most of the day"  hike, but I didn't want to get up early and I didn't want to drive too far.  I looked at my list of "to do" hikes and came up with a new one that had just been referred to me... Baldhead Mountain and Moose Mountain in the Wilcox Lake Wild Forest.

These mountains are located west of Warrensburg, and just north of Stony Creek.  They are just south of Crane Mountain (another fine hike).

I decided to do a loop hike and go up Baldhead, then over to Moose, down over Burnt Mountain to the road and back to the car.  If you look at the map at the bottom of this post, you can see that there is a sizable section of private land inbetween parcels of state land, necessiting my upsidedown horseshoe hike.  It was that or go back down the way I came.  I chose to do the loop and walk the mile on the road back to the car.

I started the climb towards the first unnamed bump south of Baldhead.  It was open hardwoods, but I got into some thick prickers for awhile.  I was rewarded however with a visit from a Snowshoe Hare.  It's funny, I just saw one yesterday on Niagar Mountain, but didn't have time to get a picture.  This time, he stopped and watched me while I took his picture.  As usual, my dog Rev was ahead of me, so she didn't see it.  Once the hare started to hop ahead, Rev caught a glance and it was off to the races.  Rev, to her credit, did come right back to me when I called out to her and told her to leave it.



 

A snowshoe hare!



  The prickers ended just before the first bump and they weren't a problem the rest of the hike.   After the first bump, there was a small downhill section and then I began to make my way up Baldhead.  It was a nice climb and there is lots of sloping rock that's not difficult to negotiate.  I could see the summit ridge up ahead and there was a band of rock there as well.
 



Heading up Baldhead Mountain from the south

 

The Baldhead summit ridge





Rev always gets there first

 

The summit of Baldhead is in and out of some spruce, but there are some fine views, especially of Moose Mountain and Crane Mountain. Be sure to poke around.  There's lots of nice little nooks and crannies with views.   I could tell Moose would be a nice summit.  You could tell the summit was mostly open.

After leaving Baldhead, we followed the ridge that hooks around towards Moose.  The walking continued to be easy.  It's nice in the hardwoods with the leaves down, you can easily tell which way to go without looking at your compass.  You can see the mountains in front of you.

 

Moose Mountain in the distance... next stop on the loop





As we bagan our climb up Moose, some clouds began to roll in. We never did get any precipitation, but the sky was darkening.  Moose has even more open rock than Baldhead, and is a very enjoyable peak.  The view to Crane Mountain are great.  You can also see Gore Mountain in the distance.

 

Looking north to Crane Mountain

We were on the summit of Moose at noon and chose a nice grassy spot to sit and have some lunch.  It was interesting to watch the changing sky.  It almost looked like a sunset to the west and it was only noon.

 

The summit of Moose Mountain

 

 

Some clouds came in, but no precipitation

Looking SW

Our last stop of the day would be to descend south via Burnt Mountain.   There was also a small pond that I could see on the shoulder of Burnt Mountain that I wanted to check out.  It wasn't shown on the map.  When we got down to it, it turned out to be a beaver pond.  The pond was starting to freeze, but still not a lot of ice for this time of year.

 

Burnt Mountain was not much more than a bump on the way out.  I was careful on the way down to follow a course to stay on the thin strip of state land that reaches the road.  Once at the road it was less than a mile back to the car.  I found this to be a great loop hike.  Alternatively, an up and back to Moose would be nice as a shorter alternative.



Looking towards Burnt Mountain as we were heading down off Moose

Beaver Pond in a col between Burnt Mountain and an unnamed bump to the north



My Route for the day

An approximation of the route on National Geographic TOPO

 

 

Hike Stats:

Hike Distance:  7.7miles

Hike Time:  5 hours

Total Vertical Gain:  ~2350'

 

Niagara Mountain - Dix Mountain Wilderness Area - 12/13/12

Some hikes go as planned and some just don't.  And if it's a bushwhack hike, forget it, all bets are off.  Do you see what I am leading up to?  On this day, my thought was to do a bushwhack hike to Niagara Mountain, and if all was going well, to continue on to Nippletop Mountain in the Dix Mountain Wilderness Area of the Adirondack Pack.  

The access point for this hike is hard to find, but is on Route 9 in North Hudson just shy of 4 miles north of the Blue Ridge Road.  There is no sign, and it's just a jeep road leading west into the woods.  After a short distance the jeep road forks, with private land to the left and a ROW access to the right.  Going right, the jeep road goes downhill to the Schroon River where the only way across is to ford knee deep water.  I came prepared, with a pair of contractor 3 mil garbage bags to use to keep my feet and legs dry.  Only one problem.... I got halfway across and found out the bags are not water tight.  The seam at the bottom must leak.  In the one minute it took me to cross the river, I had water in my hiking boots.  Not good in 20 degree weather.

Once across, I took my boots off and changed my socks.  I knew the second pair would soak through since  the inside of the boots weres wet, but I decided to hike anyways, and if my feet started to get cold, I would turn around.  Immediately on the other side of the river there are steel beams that presumably were once bridge beams for a river crossing at this location.

Schroon River Crossing to get to Walker Brook

On the west side of the Schroon River, the jeep road had another fork.  Since the right side had a posted sign, I went left, and what did I see?  There was a brand new pedestrian suspension bridge over the river (only 100 yards downstream from where I had waded across).  I'm not sure if not is on private property, but the east side of the bridge is on the earlier fork that was marked as private.  There were no signs anywhere near the bridge.

A new pedestrian suspension bridge over the Schroon River.  I don't know if it's  private or public.

I continued west sifting through a maze of jeep roads until I found the walking culvert under I-87.  This culvert is a ways north of the stream culvert for Walker Brook.  Once on the west side of I-87, a jeep road leads south and a foot path leads west.  I took the foot path, which quickly leads to Walker Brook.  It starts on the North side of Walker Brook, but after a short distance, crosses the brook and continues on the south side of the brook.

Looking east to the walking culvert under I-87

The walk along Walker Brook was easy.  I followed the trail, which is unmarked, but is now shown as trail # 1 on the new Lake George/Great Sacandaga National Geographic Map 743.  It had not been shown on the previous edition.  The trail eventually peters before reaching the col between Niagara and Camel's Hump.  Rather than head for the col, I headed due west towards the first false summit on Niagara.  Upon reaching it, I was surprised by a big white hare that jumped out from practically under my feet.  It was gone before I could get my camera out.  His tracks were all over the open rock.  The views were great to the west and to the north.

 

Camel's Hump from the Niagara Ridge.  East Dix and Wyman on the left

I pressed on, following the south-SW ridgeline of Niagara.  It was quite thick in spots and the going was slow.  The true summit has lots of open rock and fine views in almost every direction except east.  I took some pictures and enjoyed the summit for awhile before heading east to a slightly lower bump on the ridgeline.  The trees and cripplebrush were thick, and I had to pry and claw through a few areas.

Suddenly my pack felt like it was bouncing a little and I took it off to discover the main compartment was half open!  It must have gotten caught on the some of the brush.  To my dismay, I discovered I was missing:  my sandwich, my tupperware of trail mix, one water bottle and my wet socks that I had taken off.  Fortunately my best mittens and winter shell had not fallen out.  They would have been the next to go.  I retraced my steps for a little while, but to no avail.  I didn't want to go backwards for very long so I gave it up.  I'll have to look for them another day.

Nippletop Mountain from the summit of  Niagara

Since I now had no food, less water and still had wet feet, I decided I better not head for Nippletop, but call it a day and head back to the car.  I headed NE and I descended back down towards the the Walker Brook trail.  I noticed some deer tracks on the trail and could tell I had kicked out a pair of them.  I saw them later as I continued downward.  Once I reached the Walker Brook Trail, I followed it once again and was back at the car at 2:30 PM where it felt great to peel off my wet boots and socks and change into dry footwear. 

From L to R, Camel's Hump, Camel Mountain and Old Far

Looking south to Marsh Pond Mountain and Hoffman Ridge from Niagara

My route shown in blue (Click to Enlarge)

As I was driving south, I looked to see if I could see some of the new trails identified in North Hudson (as shown on the new National Geographic map).  Right at the welcome to North Hudson sign (just north of the Blue Ridge motel, there is a jeep road on the west side of Route 9 that I found to be trail 6A (Fish Dam trail).  Once again, their is no trailhead sign and no markers, but the trail is shown on the map.  This would be a nice XC ski trail as long as no snowmobiles or ATV's use it.  The trail leads to an old weir on the Schroon River.  I had kayaked this section of the Schroon  last summer when I had launched at the old Frontier Town.  As I looked at the weir, I saw a small black mink or ermine in the cribbing.  It came out and started to swim across the river until it saw me and then it turned around and went back in the cribbing.

I had a nice day in spite of all the troubles along the way.  The weather was clear and the views were nice.  The wildlife was nice too!

Old weir on the Schroon River

Hike Stats:

Niagara Mountain

Hike Distance:  10 miles

Hike Time:  6 hours, 10 minutes

Vertical Gain:  ~ 2300'

North Hudson trail to Weir on Schroon River

Hike Distance:  2.5 miles

Hike Time: 45 minutes

Vertical Gain:  

North Hudson Fish Dam Trail