A little over a year ago, Julia and I kicked off our road trip with a visit to the Adirondacks. You can read about our time in the mountains here. We decided to go again this year, so we went up last weekend.
Unfortunately, Data was suffering from a minor injury (a pulled muscle or pinched nerve in his back or neck), so we left him with my mom to recover. We would have loved to have him with us, but in his condition he would not have been able.
We arrived at the Adirondack Loj Saturday and realized we wouldn’t have time to hike in before dark. Instead, we did a quick warm-up hike up Mount Jo before going into Lake Placid to buy our food. We stopped by Jimmy’s 21 for dinner, which was very good. We slept in the car (just like old times) Saturday night.
On Sunday morning, we hiked 2 miles in to Marcy Dam. The weather was cool and overcast – perfect for hiking. There had been some nasty rain during the night, but things cleared up by the time we got to the dam. We found an empty lean-to and dropped off our overnight bags. We packed small day bags and began the journey of the day.
We originally planned to summit Algonquin, the second-highest peak in New York, but as the day pressed on, we realized that there were two problems with that plan:
- We wouldn’t have time to summit and get back to camp before dark.
- Algonquin’s peak was completely under cloud cover.
We decided instead to summit Wright Peak, an approximately 4,500-foot beast (500 feet shorter than Algonquin) that would shave a mile off of our route.
The hike was strenuous, and we stopped a few times to rest, eat, drink, and dunk our heads in waterfalls and streams along the way. The payoff at the summit was worth it, though. Unlike Algonquin, which was completely obscured by a massive, dark cloud, visibility was surprisingly good atop Wright. We were above the treeline and the wind was really whipping along at approximately 70 miles-per-hour, but that made it even more exciting. A few small clouds passed around us and we enjoyed a few minutes of solitude as the only people on the mountain at that point.
Unfortunately, we couldn’t linger long. We hustled back down the mountain and made our way to the lean-to. The last mile or so of our trek was made by the light of the nearly-full moon. We had a light, but it’s always nice to exercise the night vision every once in a while.
Throughout the night we were treated to extremely powerful winds, which was nice because it kept the bears away. Since we were in a lean-to, it wasn’t much of a nuisance.
Monday morning, we hiked out and headed home, stopping for lunch with our friend, Pete, in Lake George.
All told, we hiked approximately 12 miles with an elevation change of over 3,000 feet. Not bad!
Here are some photos from the mountains…as always, click “there’s more to” to see them all or visit my SmugMug.
Approaching the summit of Wright Peak. Click the image for a larger version.
Fall colors were just getting started.
Heart Lake and the High Peaks from Mount Jo.
Ol' Club Foot, a grouchy toad, giving me the finger.
A better look at Ol' Club Foot's club foot.
Julia scaling some rocky part of the trail.
Approaching the summit of Wright Peak.
Julia battling high winds at the summit of Wright Peak.
Algonquin, the mountain we originally planned to climb.
Julia posing next to a cairn on Wright Peak.
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