5.6 miles* | 1,572 ft gain | Difficulty: Difficult | Rating ★★★★

The hike to Catamount Mountain, a Lake Placid 9er, offers all the hallmark features of a high peak in a much smaller package. Rock scrambles, slides, cliffs, a false summit and beautiful forest trails. The trail head claims 4 mile round trip but with our zigzagging, we recorded 5.6 miles. And I can guarantee that extra 1.6 mile is completely real. This was the longest little mountain I ever climbed.

When I saw AllTrails suggested it was a difficult climb, I almost laughed. The first mile is almost entirely flat. So it’s really just one mile. But with over 1,500 feet of gain, you feel every bit. We met one woman on our way up, as we crossed a small stream where she confirmed yes, this is where we start to climb. “At the chimney, you’re just going to bellyflop onto the mountain. It will be fine.” Sure I said, smiling. My brain silently screaming. BELLYFLOP?! I didn’t even know exactly what this chimney was.

At the waterfall, we climbed steeply through the woods for about a half a mile before we peaked above the trees. There in front of me was the chimney. A steep narrow crevice that you sort had to shimmy and pull yourself through. What I wasn’t warned about, was this section was not made for those with wide hips. Even with my pack off, it was still a pretty tight squeeze.

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But it wasn’t the worst part. Just short bit after there was an exposed climb with not much of a safety net if you were to slide forward. For someone a bit taller like Sean, the extra large step was no problem. But for me, I had to first shift my weight to a small tree branch for an extra aleooop. Only a minor panic attack…

Finally after some stretch of walking up a rock slide, we reached the summit. Or so I thought, until I turned around and found the rest of the mountain laughing back at me. Of course, the false summit. The final .3 miles was steep, mostly slide walking. Honestly, the way down was much harder.

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When we actually reached the summit, the reward was wonderful. Whiteface staring back at us, surrounded by dozens of smaller mountains, that we have yet to learn in this part of the park. It was a challenging, but amazing way to start our week.