Sunny 46

   Spring has officially sprung in the Adirondacks and after a few little hikes, it was time to start climbing some High Peaks. I was very interested in getting the bushwhack up to Dial and Nippletop before the foliage got too thick and while the temps were reasonable.  I was worried that the traffic and parking would be difficult to deal with on the holiday weekend, but I had no issues whatsoever. Sunny and I woke up at 3am and made it to the Round Pond trailhead early enough for a 6am start. Rant There are a few High Peaks that are especially difficult with dogs. Some are hard because of the steep approach, others due to the location of a conservation easement called the Adirondack Mountain Reserve where dogs are not allowed. I won't profess to know everything that entails. I do believe that the surrounding area should be accessible to everyone and I think this rule is overly onerous. Private takeover champions have exalted the trails adjacent to AMR as "prestine" and a...

  Spring is officially here behind the Blue Line and it is well past time to start working off that Winter 15. I decided a shakedown hike up Ampersand would be a good idea. It seemed to have decent elevation gain and distance to make it worth five hours in the car. If it were a weekend, we'd have tried to get a second mountain in, but much like our trip to Crane a couple of weeks ago, I decided to take it easy today. Ampersand is in the far Northeast corner of the High Peaks region, so it's about two and a half hours from my house. I set my alarm for 4:20 and we arrived at the trailhead at 7:15. Fortunately, we did get a pretty good night's sleep, so we were bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for our hike. Sunny was impatient as usual. "Let's go, Dad!" I was expecting this part of the ADK to still be fully brown, but green was popping out all around us (I'd say about a week or two behind the Capital Region). Our family has really been feeling the allergies hard...