The Adirondacks, Rain and A Heat Wave

View of The High Peaks Wilderness in the Adirondacks from Mt. Baxter

After our grand time in the Catskills, we stayed a couple of days at a lovely campground on the shores of the Mohawk River near Albany while we took care of necessities.  All cleaned up and resupplied for a new adventure, we headed north on I – 87 for the Adirondack Park.

 

 

Much like the Catskills, the Adirondacks are also a mixture of public and private land with 2.7 million acres of state-owned Forest Preserve within the over 6 million acres that make up the Adirondack Park.  That’s two-and-a-half times the size of Yellowstone National Park or roughly the same size as Vermont!
 

David and Maya on the summit of Mt. Baxter

 

An area that big takes a little time to explore and because the private land is distributed throughout the Forest Preserve, there are small towns, museums, art galleries, shops and restaurants to visit besides the over 1,800 miles of hiking trails.  David and I have never been any place with so many fantastic day hiking and backpacking opportunities.  There seemed to be a trailhead or two every few miles along just about any road we traveled.  With 46 peaks over 4,000 feet in elevation and a trail to the top of each one of them plus trails to the top of many of the lower mountains and the almost 3,000 lakes – well, it is a hiker’s paradise if we've ever seen one.

 

Heron Marsh Trail at the Visitor Information Center at Paul Smiths College

 

 

We camped at Wilmington Notch, a state campground about 10 miles from Lake Placid.  Lake Placid was the site for the 1932 and 1980 Winter Olympics and future Olympians still train there. Olympic venues are spread throughout the town and nearby Whiteface and Gore Mountains. At the Kodak Sports Park, training freestyle aerial skiers land in a heated 750,000-gallon pool in the summer months. 

Our first few days in the Adirondacks we had a good deal of rain, so we used those days to do some car touring and familiarize ourselves with these beautiful mountains.  We spent some time in Lake Placid and the Keene Valley area.  We also visited Saranac Lake and explored some trails at Paul Smiths College Visitor Interpretive Center.

 

Summit Views from Whiteface Mt.

 

 

 

The rain cleared one afternoon so we took that opportunity to visit nearby Whiteface Mountain.  Whiteface has the greatest vertical drop east of the Rockies and is a favorite among skiers and snowboarders but in summer months mountain bikers and hikers come to the mountain.  Many tourists and cyclist take the Whiteface Memorial Highway (as we did) to a parking lot near the summit.  From there you can either take an elevator to the top or hike the short but steep and rocky trail to the top.

Bunchberry growing in the harsh alpine climate on Whiteface Mt.

 

 

We wanted to hike up anyway but no dogs were allowed on the elevator.  Maya is part mountain goat but David and I were very thankful for the hand rails.  Some of the rocks were slippery and would have been a bit of a challenge to scramble up without the help of ‘hand-holds.’  Nature too, was struggling to hold on in that extreme alpine ecosystem.  The trail had good interpretive exhibits along the way explaining the delicate balance of nature in such harsh conditions.

Map lichen growing on rocks near summit of Whiteface Mt.

 

Looking down hiking trail to Whiteface Mt. summit

 

Whiteface Mountain is one of the 46 “High Peaks” and New York State’s fifth-highest peak at 4,867 feet high.  The view from the top was spectacular although the day we visited the summit had been ‘in the clouds’ most of the day.  But as we were driving up the highway that afternoon it started to clear and as we hiked the trail, the clouds lifted and we had dramatic views in nearly every direction. We couldn’t quite make out Lake Champlain or Montreal but Lake Placid and many other lakes glistened beneath the clouds in the afternoon sun.

Lake Placid 'under the clouds'

Luna Moth on the window of the weather station on Whiteface Mt.

We spent the next few days hiking other trails in the area.  Many of the ‘46ers’ are in the Lake Placid and Keene Valley vicinity.  At first we had ambitions to climb several of the 46ers but those tended to be some of the longest and steepest trails with many having some challenging rock scrambling near the summits.  We were going to have to give our knees a rest between long hikes.  And then to complicate things a little further, the temperature and humidity started to climb – the northeast was experiencing a heat wave.  At 90 degrees or better with 60% or more humidity, we found our stamina greatly diminished.

Lots of great fungi in the forest...

We need to get a mushroom/fungus guide so we can learn them

 

We still went hiking, but we took shorter hikes and started them earlier so we could finish earlier and avoid the hottest part of the day.   After several days in the state campground with no electricity, we declared 'defeat' and moved to a commercial campground so we could have some air-conditioning. I can't believe that we have used our air-conditioning more in the last week than we have almost the whole time we've had our RV.

David's Stats:
Days Hiked   3

Rain Days     2
Total Miles Hiked       11.46
Ave. Miles per Day      3.69
Total Elevation Gain       2,290
Ave. Elevation Gain per day  678

 

 

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