0.7 miles | 138 ft gain | Difficulty: Easy | Rating ★★ After a week of moderate but intense hikes, 6000 ft gain and 30+ miles, we wanted an easy trail to end on a high note. Barely a hike, but part of the Adirondack Fire Tower Challenge, we decided to quickly run up Belfry mountain on our way home.
Adirondacks
Hike 30: Pitchoff + Balanced Rocks
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.
Hike 29: Hurricane Mountain
6.7 miles | 1,493 ft gain | Difficulty: Moderate | Rating ★★★★ Hurricane Mountain is often touted as one of the premiere non-high peak hikes in the High Peaks region. While a great climb and potential views for miles, the recent abundance of wildfires has covered much of New York state in haze. At the top of the fire tower, we could see the direction of mountains, like Vermont's Green Mountains, but we had to use our imagination to really make them out. That's the only reason I knocked the stars down to four.
Hike 28: Cathedral Rock
1.8 miles | 246 ft gain | Difficulty: Easy | Rating ★★★ After two days of moderately intense hikes in the Adirondacks, we needed a recovery but still craved views. The Adirondack Fire Challenge was on our list, consisting of 24 towers across the park and 5 in the Catskills. Many of the towers are spread widely across the park and involve a few miles and/or thousand feet of elevation. Not quite recovery. Luckily, we discovered Cathedral Rock was only a bit past Cranberry Lake and a short hike with plenty of payoff.
Hike 27: Indian Head
10.5 miles | 1,847 ft gain | Difficulty: Moderate | Rating ★★★★★ Not a high peak, but what I would consider one of the premiere hikes in the high peaks region. Many do this a quick stop on their way up (or down) Blake and Colvin or Dial and Nippletop. We orphaned Blake and have to do that pair again, but we always find ourselves too exhausted for just another half mile or couple hundred feet up. With the Adirondack Mountain Reserve's (AMR) newly created parking reservation system, this felt like a low stakes way to test the system.
Hike 26: Catamount Mountain
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.
Fifty-Two Hikes 