On the Road with Maya: More Heat in the Adirondacks

Heart Lake from the summit of Mt. Jo

On top of Mt. Jo with views of the High Peaks Wilderness

When you are from Texas, going north in summer seems like a good plan. After all, New England is sure to be cooler than Texas, right? Well, not always… Our timing did not work out too well for a couple of weeks in July as most of Texas was around 10 degrees cooler than New York. Heat advisories and then excessive heat advisories were issued for the east coast and even in the Adirondack Mountains for a couple of days. But none-the-less, we decided to stay a bit longer before we headed farther north and east in search of relief. Moving campsites and getting electricity so we could run our A/C really helped make the heat bearable. It is amazing the heat you can endure if you can sleep cool at night. And if you can have frozen custard…

Just a few miles from our campground near Indian Lake was ‘Custard’s Last Stand,’ purveyor of ice cream and frozen custard and the object of our desires after hiking. I’m not sure we ever passed the ‘Stand’ without stopping for the frozen delights. David still thinks Ted Drewes in St. Louis has the best frozen custard in the world, but I have to say no other custard was ever more eagerly anticipated than the ones we devoured our last few days in the Adirondacks. That last mile of every trail was endured with the mirage of frozen custard dripping before our eyes.

Lunch time on Round Mountain

Descending Round Mountain with Noon Mark on left

Following the trail proved challenging sometimes...

Heat and all, we had some beautiful hikes. Round Mountain in the High Peaks Wilderness was notable for its rocky summit with views in almost every direction and the fact that we did not see another person on the trail that day. It was like our own private mountain. For my birthday we took a hike to Mt. Jo and then went on to Rocky Falls for a swim in the pool beneath the falls to cool off. The water was so cold that David and I could really only wade, but Maya had no problems. There were a few boys swimming under the falls and Maya was determined to swim out and 'herd' them back to the shore. Crazy dog!

Fire Tower on Goodnow Mountain

Another fun hike we made was the summit of Goodnow Mountain. At the top was a restored fire tower that we climbed, even Maya (she is pretty good with stairs). It seemed extra humid that day and no breeze to help us out. But up in the fire tower there was wind! It was so nice that we stayed at the top, letting the breeze cool us while we ate our lunch and enjoyed the 360 degree views.

Views from Fire Tower

I was impressed with our hiking statistics considering the heat and humidity. We managed to hike almost 5 1/2 miles a day gaining close to 1400 feet in elevation. One of the things that has surprised us about hiking eastern mountains is just how rocky and challenging they are. We were thinking hiking would be easy in the east after last year's Cascade Mountains and Canadian Rockies adventures. But not so. The altitude was certainly greater in the West and that did affect our breathing abilities until we got acclimated. But the actual elevation gain on eastern trails is about the same or even more in some cases. A lot of the trails in the east don't have the switch backs that western trails do. This makes them tougher to climb and many have some challenging rock scrambles that we didn't see as much of on western trails. We have new respect for eastern hiking trails.

Maya handles the climbs better than we do - 4 legs makes a difference

Even though there were still so many things left to see, we were weary of the heat and decided to move on. Several places such as the Adirondack Museum, the Wild Center and Great Camp Sagamore are places where you can’t take dogs. It was too hot to leave Maya in the car and with the excessive heat I was afraid to leave her in the RV under A/C in case there was a power outage. In most of our roaming, we have worked out traveling with a dog pretty well and not had to alter our plans much if at all. The heat will not last long, so we are planning to come back through in September and hike more of those ‘high peaks,’ see some fall color and visit the museums. In the meantime, we hear it is 10 – 15 degrees cooler in Maine…