Poke-O-Moonshine - Observer's Trail - 9/4/17

Poke-O-Moonshine is a familiar and imposing sight to many folks in the North Country. Bordered by Route 9 and the Northway, I've driven by the mountain countless times in my life but never put any serious thought into climbing it.

When I first moved to Plattsburgh ten years ago, I became aware of it's reputation as a party mountain with lots of garbage and poorly maintained trails.

Luckily, in recent years the Friends of Poke-O-Moonshine group was founded and took action in restoring the trails and it's fire tower just in time for it's 100th anniversary.

Kailee began asking a bit about Poke-O on our recent descent of Giant Mountain and she thought it was funny that it sounded like "Pokemon Moon."

Nope... That's not a Pokemon...

So it was decided that Poke-O would be our next destination. Although we didn't see any Pokemon on our hike, we did see a bunch of critters and great sights.

I opted for us to take the recently revived Observer's Trail which is a bit longer but is supposedly less strenuous on the legs... Hey, we just climbed a 46er the week before, it made sense to take the less strenuous route!

We set out to learn the trail at Poke-O on a hot Labor Day morning. The heat wound up being the only real issue we faced on the trip. Despite it's length, the Observer's Path is really easy.

It looked to me that the trail was originally graded for horses due to the width of the path and the fact that most of it is just dirt and loose stones.

Along the way up, you pass and cross some beaver ponds which are loaded with frogs and salamanders. We met an older couple and walked and talked with them for a short bit before picking up our pace to the Summit.

We could see some of the maples beginning to change colors as we neared the remains of the old observer's cabin and the graffiti covered lean-to.

Observer's Cabin remains.

The breeze picked up for the last .3 of a mile as we walked along the ledges
near the top and the respite was welcomed by Kailee and I.

As we closed in on the Summit, Kailee became really excited by the appearance of the fire tower.

We summited Poke-O in approximately two hours. We could see Lake Champlain, Willsboro Bay, the Green Mountains, White face, Rocky Peak Ridge and our recently completed friend Giant!

Kailee inspects the lean-to.

We enjoyed lunch in the cool breeze and mingled with the couple that we passed earlier and we ran into Kailee's substitute teacher!

Oddly and unfortunately, there was no tower steward on duty for the busy holiday. So, we were only able to get up to the third level of the fire tower.

On the tower!

Kailee continued to climb up and down the tower three or four more times and even danced her way up one of times.
After an hour at the Summit, we made our descent. It took just under an hour to get to the car.

Poke-O-Moonshine is a cool mountain and I tip my hat to the Friends of Poke-O for all the hard work they've put in there in the recent years.

If you've never climbed this familiar Northway roadside attraction, then I suggest checking it out!

Both Poke-O-Moonshine trails are located on Route 9 in Keeseville/Deerhead. The Observer's Trail is a mile south of the Campground trail.

Not a Pokemon!