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.
rock scramble
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 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.
Hike 13: Bonticou Crag
4.7 miles | 925 ft gain | Difficulty: Medium (Hard w/ Scramble) | Rating ★★★★ As a kid, I visited Mohonk Mountain House at least once a year, just for a day trip. We'd wander around the grounds, paddle the lake and scramble up the Lemon Squeeze to Sky Top Tower. In fact, it's after a scramble up the Labyrinth to the tower (I remember it being much easier as a small child!), that Sean proposed to me nearly 12 years ago.
Hike 9: Butter Hill + Storm King Mountain
3.8 miles | 1,014 ft gain | Difficulty: Medium | Rating ★★★★★ "Bring spikes!" they all said. "Lot's of ice!" I trust my hiking community and arrived at the sunny, mostly dry trailhead prepared with our crampons, but couldn't figure out why. We tucked them into our backpack and started up the steep assent to Butter Hill, on our way to the top of Storm King mountain, with stunning view points along the way.
Hike 2: Carris Hill + Wyanokie High Point
7.4 miles | 1,289 ft gain | Difficulty: Moderate | Rating ★★★★★ We took the long path. Intentionally? unintentionally? I'm not entirely sure. It's not unusual for our recorded hike to be slightly longer than AllTrails, but a 20%+ difference is a bit much.
Fifty-Two Hikes 