Trail Talk 2017

Little Crow Mountain.

"When we used to take hikes with kids, we didn't spend all of our time talking about the 46 or talking about mountains. We talked about our favorite movies, we talked about TV shows we loved, or our favorite baseball team. Because we were in this setting, we started to grow a great appreciation for being in the mountains... Two hours later they're sitting on top of a mountain going 'This is great!'". - Tim Singer, (The 46ers Film).

Kailee and I talked about a number of things while on the trails this year. From what was going on around us, to what was up with her friends and school, and the many thoughts going on in a Seven year old's mind.

We also had a number of recurring exchanges. This post is a way for me to look back at some of those memories down the road... But, I don't mind sharing this inside look into our sometimes very goofy moments in the woods.

Pokemon

Kailee is a big fan of Pokemon... And, I must admit that I enjoy playing the games on occasion. While hiking, she created two of her own Pokemon: Geraldine and Carldeen. The latter evidently evolves into the former an they are both Ghost and Water dual type critters.

"Deen! Deen! Geraldine!"

"Carl... Carldeen."

Jay Higgs

This is Jay Higgs:

Jay is the self proclaimed "Sultan of Snacks" and his generic brand food products can be found on the shelves at Save A Lot. At least one of his snacks could also usually be found in our backpacks for the majority of our hikes in 2017. No bones about it, I'm a big fan of his bacon jerky.

Anyway,  Jay became a character that we both voiced. Our version of Mr. Higgs has a really annoying, high pitch, nasly voice. Jay would lament and get upset if we brought another brand of snacks with us. When Jay got excited, he often let out a little bark.

"Did you just bark Jay?"

"Who meeeeeeee??? Noooooo... Noooooo... Noooooo, I didn't bark."

"You barked Jay. You barked."

The Emojis

Whenever one of us got a little ahead of each other or slightly out of view (or had to go off the trail to goto the bathroom) we would shout out a cheery "Hello?"

It's become a common practice for us on the trails.

At some point while descending Catamount, Kailee decided that those voices belonged to Mr. Smiley and Miss Smiley.

"I'm Miss Smiley and I'm an emoji."

 The number of emojis quickly grew from there.

"I'm wearing sunglasses! I'm the cool emoji!"

"I have a red face and am very mad. I'm the angry emoji" 

"The poop emoji is the number two emoji!!!"

I can attest, there's nothing quite like yelling that last one to the people near the Summit of Round Mountain from the middle of the col between it and Noonmark.

In hindsight, I guess these interactions gave us moments of familiarity while on unfamiliar grounds. Silly moments that kept the mood light in 2017. I'm looking forward to where the trails and conversations lead us in 2018.

Cheney Mountain. 

Kailee's 2017 Blog!

I liked hiking mountains this year. We started with Mount Baker. I like that it was easy and had great views.

Then we did Haystack the same day. There was so much mud! It had a cool summit.

Baker and Haystack were my first Saranac Lake Sixers. They were my Dad's last two Sixers and my Dad rang the bell.

Clap Mountain was our next hike. It is at Sharp Bridge Campground. We went up the trail to the cliffs. I liked the view. We bushwhacked to the Summit. All we could see was nature.

We hiked Clark and Silver Lake Mountains in the same day on a hot afternoon in August.

The path at Clark starts next to a big water tank. It was a nice little trail. It only took 15 minutes to climb. It had nice views of a beaver pond and Whiteface!


Then we drove to Silver Lake and climbed that one too! It had nice ledges and views of the lake, Taylor Pond, Clark, and Whiteface again!

The next day* we climbed Big Crow and Little Crow. We saw Hurricane Mountain. We had to climb down the other side of Big Crow to climb Little Crow. Both mountains had great views.

Giant Mountain was our big hike this Summer. It is a 46er. It is the 12th biggest in New York. It had a cool pond and cool trail. It had good views of Keene Valley and the High Peaks.

Next we did Poke-O-Moonshine. It is near home. I caught a newt. We passed a beaver dam on the way up. It had a fire tower on top. We could see Lake Champlain, Giant, RPR, and Whiteface. I liked going up the tower.

After Poke-O, we did Rattlesnake. It had great views. It had the best views of Lake Champlain.

Catamount was a hard mountain. It was a big mountain with a lot of open rock climbing. It had a chimney. We saw Silver Lake from the bumpy summit.

Then we did Mount Van Hoevenberg. It had a pond and a very old trail. It had a bobsled track on the other side of the hill. We walked down to it. It was so cool! I want to do it again, it was that fun!

We did Baxter Mountain. It had switchbacks. It was very fun. It had good views of Marcy, Cascade and Porter.

We also did Mount Gilligan. It was rainy but I still liked it. I was sad but it is fun. Kids can do it. Everybody can do it!

Then we did Noonmark. It was awesome! We were in a cloud. We had to do the long trail down. We walked in the col. I love Noonmark!

We did Porter and Cascade. Cascade had a bald summit. We went in the col and did Porter first. The two mountains are very easy. I absolutely love them.

Cheney and Belfry were our last mountains of the year. Cheney was next to an old dump**. Then we hiked it. Cheney was so fun. It had three lookouts. It had nice views of Lake Champlain. We also saw a mine, it looked like a mountain!

Belfry was like a road. It had a fire tower. It had good views of Cheney. I forgot to take a shower. Me and my Dad got ticks. I love those mountains!

I love all of the mountains! I want to be a 46er.



-Kailee

*Two days later
**An old capped dump.

Giant Mountain.

Kailee Pikachu completed 19 Total Peaks from 2017-01-01 to 2017-12-31, (12 ranked).

Completed	Name	Elevation	Prominence	State	Counties	Quadrangle
2017-11-05	Belfry Mountain	1,863'	207'	NY	Essex	Witherbee - Map
2017-11-05	Cheney Mountain	1,353'	459'	NY	Essex	Port Henry - Map
2017-10-22	Cascade Mountain	4,097'	1,194'	NY	Essex	Keene Valley - Map
2017-10-22	Porter Mountain	4,084'	328'	NY	Essex	Keene Valley - Map
2017-10-15	Noonmark Mountain	3,556'	784'	NY	Essex	Keene Valley - Map
2017-10-09	Gilligan, Mount	1,394'	66'	NY	Essex	Elizabethtown - Map
2017-10-01	Baxter Mountain	2,427'	508'	NY	Essex	Keene Valley - Map
2017-09-24	Van Hoevenberg, Mount	2,939'	627'	NY	Essex	North Elba - Map
2017-09-17	Catamount Mountain	3,169'	1,513'	NY	Clinton	Wilmington - Map
2017-09-10	Rattlesnake Mountain	1,328'	295'	NY	Essex	Lewis - Map
2017-09-04	Pokamoonshine Mountain	2,181'	361'	NY	Essex	Clintonville - Map
2017-08-28	Giant Mountain	4,625'	2,969'	NY	Essex	Rocky Peak Ridge - Map
2017-08-22	Big Crow Mountain	2,814'	108'	NY	Essex	Jay Mountain - Map
2017-08-22	Little Crow Mountain	2,575'	98'	NY	Essex	Jay Mountain - Map
2017-08-20	Silver Lake Mountains (HP)	2,374'	944'	NY	Clinton	Redford - Map
2017-08-20	Clark Mountain	1,591'	525'	NY	Essex	Au Sable Forks - Map
2017-08-14	Clap Mountain	1,610'	249'	NY	Essex	Underwood - Map
2017-08-08	Haystack Mountain	2,874'	299'	NY	Essex	McKenzie Mountain - Map
2017-08-08	Baker Mountain	2,457'	712'	NY	Essex	McKenzie Mountain - Map

Silver Lake Mountain 12-4-2017 Solo

For whatever reason, I had been dealing with a feeling of anxiety for a few days. I decided that a good hike might be the perfect cure before Winter really picks up. So, I chose to climb Silver Lake Mountain once again.

It's a quick hike with a nice payoff and it's close to home, which was important since I had to pick Kailee up after school.

It was cold, gray and gloomy
in Plattsburgh. But, only a few
miles away at Silver Lake it
was gorgeous!

It was cold and gloomy in Plattsburgh when I dropped Kails off at school and made my way to Black Brook. I assumed that I'd be summiting into a cloud.




On the contrary, as soon as I exited P-Burgh and entered the town of Saranac, the sky opened up to a beautiful shade of blue.

This was unexpected and fully welcomed.

It felt warmer at the trailhead than it did back home!

SLM is only a two mile round trip but I think it's a pretty good practice mountain. The incline jumps at you as soon as you begin your hike. Then it levels off for a bit before picking back up for a final open rock push to the top.

I stumbled upon a geocache, which was a brand new experience. I noticed that my friend was the last person to sign it. I scrawled a note in it and put it back and continued forward.

I reached the Summit in a half hour and enjoyed the panoramic view. I love looking at mountains that I've hiked from other mountains. SLM offers a great view of Catamount which was a really fun climb. Poking up from behind it was Whiteface... Kailee is dead set on climbing it in 2018. You gotta love the determination of my little girl.

I was distressed to find that someone had brought two cans of paint and left a bunch of graffiti on the trees and ground in the time since I had last been there.
Seriously... Not cool!

Bushwhacking.

As I began my descent, I decided to try out some basic easy bushwhacking on my way down. I'm glad that I did. I was able to get some views to the North and spot Lyon Mountain/Averill Peak along with other mountains.


I used the three bodies of water (Mud Pond, Taylor Pond & Silver Lake) and my compass to keep my bearings and enjoyed this different side of SLM.

More whackin'.

I linked back up with the trail near the register, signed out and headed back to gloomy old Plattsburgh with plenty of time to pick up Kailee!

This was a nice late season hike. It was fun. My head and body really needed it. A good hike is amazing for the soul.

Looking back at the Summit on my
bushwhack down Silver Lake Mountain.

Silver Lake Mountain is on Silver Lake Road in Black Brook.

Poke-O-Moonshine & Gilligan -Solo- 11/12/2017

Rules are meant to be broken!
When I finished the Saranac Sixers this past Summer I made a rule: No repeats for the rest of the year. After 23 mountains... A repeat was well deserved.

Poke-O-Moonshine (Ranger Trail)

Hiking the Poke-O-Moonshine Observer Trail with Kailee on Labor Day was a lot of fun. Now, it was time to scope out the shorter but steeper Ranger Trail for my first solo hike of the year.

I looked forward to setting my own pace seeing how much I could push myself.

The weather at the trailhead was pristine. It was 34°, sunny with minimal cloud coverage, and nary a hint of breeze.

I checked in at the register and proceeded at a good pace. The incline jumps at you but it isn't unbearable. After half mile, there's a lookout and the trail eases up from here to the Summit.

Beautiful dustings of snow and frozen runoffs decorated the hillside. Yet, it was a little strange not having Kailee or another hiking partner with me to fully enjoy this frosty, new perspective and route up Poke-O...

Beautiful ice covering the rock steps
near the Summit

I reached Summit in under an hour, including stops to check things out.

After enjoying 20 minutes of peaceful solitude which included climbing the fire tower and enjoying the views, I was feeling good and ended up jogging back down the trail.

The crisp air felt amazing and I was back at the trailhead in a little less than 30 minutes (which included a quick stop to watch some ice climbers).

After taking a moment to check out the campsite near the register, I hopped in the car and took off. As I drove, I decided to tack on a repeat of Mount Gilligan.

Mount Gilligan

Kailee and I climbed Mount Gilligan in a downpour on the Indigenous People-Columbus Holiday. Surely, there would be no problems with a solo hike on a beautiful late Autumn day.

Gilligan offers some nice
views on the way up.

I charged at Gilligan at a fast pace, determined to make quick work of the "Little Buddy."

About a third of the way up.  I felt a *Pop* *Pop* in my upper legs.

Cramps... Paralyzing cramps... Pushing it at Poke-O had gotten the better of me at Gilligan.

It was to time to rehydrate and stretch. Within a few minutes of doing so, things felt much better and I was able to get to the Summit without further issues.

For a smaller mountain, Gilligan has a pretty fun trail. Visibility was zero on my last visit. This time, I was granted a thoroughly rewarding and serene gaze at the Sun preparing to set behind the gorgeous Giant Mountain Wilderness. An excellent conclusion to a fun day of solo hikes!

An easy yet very rewarding view of the Giant
Mountain Wilderness from Gilligan.

Poke-O-Moonshine & Gilligan

Both Poke-O and Gilligan have greatly benefitted from the work of volunteer and support groups. 

The Friends of Poke-O-Moonshine have done a lot of great things with the mountain's two trails. You are guaranteed a rewarding hike no matter which route you take. The Observer Trail offers a nature experience and the Ranger Trail offers wonderful views of the Champlain Valley. The Ranger Trail is located on Route 9 in Deerhead. Visit www.pokeomoonshine.org for more info!

Gilligan is a privately owned mountain maintained by CATS. You can't go wrong with a CAT trail. They are so well marked and maintained that you feel safe the entire time. Gilligan is located on Route 9 in Elizabethtown. Check out http://www.champlainareatrails.com for information on Gilligan and many other great trails in the Champlain Valley!