5.1 miles | 1,394 ft gain | Difficulty: Moderate | Rating ★★★★

Pitchoff is one of the Lake Placid 9ers. The west trail climbs though the woods, first moderately, then much steeper. Though there are a few nice view points along the way, including the Cascade Slide (people hike that?!), but the summit is marked by a large boulder, deep in the woods. A bit of an anticlimactic ending to our 9er journey. Luckily, Balanced Rocks more than makes up for that.

Pitchoff can be climbed from the west trail head, the east, or combined together to make a traverse. From the looks of things the approach from the east is straight up STEEP. Going down, maybe not too hard, but without a second car, the 4 mile hike back along the road does not sound fun. Parking across from the Cascade trailhead, we quickly climbed into the woods via the west trailhead.

Once in the woods, we climbed, interspersed with some flat areas. About a half mile in we started got some views through the trees. At about a mile, the climb got steeper and rockier. A few areas required a bit of a large step, that’s always a bit challenging for my shorter legs. With only .4 miles left, we leveled out with Balanced Rocks to the right and Pitchoff to the right. Knowing the views weren’t much at Pitchoff, we went left to finish our challenge.

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Once done with Pitchoff (yay LP9!), we made our way to Balanced Rocks, the real gem of the hike. Once out of the woods, we were rewarded with vast exceptional views of the High Peaks. We could even see the toboggan loop! At the end of the cliff, two rocks stood in the distance, a natural phenomenon left over from the glaciers.

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I’m not sure I’ll be climbing Pitchoff again anytime soon, but definitely Balanced Rocks, maybe for a sunset or sunrise.