Gorgeous Winter Hike on Northern Tongue Range
Another beautiful Monday in Winter dawned and it was finally time to wrap up the Tongue Range. The weather was forecast to be more than cooperating with temperatures in the 30s, mostly sunny, and light to no wind. It had been a bit of a long weekend and so I set my alarm for a leisurely 5:15am.
We arrived at the trailhead at around 7:10am. Sunny was very eager to be on the move as usual. I was taking too long for him and he yelled at me as I was taking one last picture of him before setting off. My plan was to hike out to Five Mile and back to the tune of 6.5 miles, about the same as doing the traverse, but with more elevation gain.
Car to Brown
The lower portion of the hike was still covered in 3 inches of snow at most. The trail itself was well-packed from hikers. We've only had a smattering of light snow events in this part of the state this winter, so the trails have been well-packed by hikers every time.
A view of the swamp between the first and second elevation gains.
Approaching the second elevation gain.
Sure wish I could read.
There were two or three instances of blowdown we had to hike around, but nothing terrible.
Trail maintenance.
The sun was really giving us its all today. Its rays lanced through the trees and made everything on the ridge cheerful and warm.
Here you can also see the state of the trail... well-packed and fast. It was an absolute racetrack today.
We were really moving the entire hike. AllTrails clocked us at a 25 minutes per mile pace which is really something for a ridge hike with no real flat approach. By comparison, our Seymour hike clocked in at about 27 minutes per mile with a very long flat approach, while we hiked the Dix Range with a 35 minute pace.
Sunny was full of piss and vinegar as always.
He probably hiked twice my miles today. He was having a fabulous time.
Approaching the summit of Brown...
The trail became more of a channel as we came to the summit. The snow was still well-packed.
Brown has fairly nice views this time of year despite the obstruction.
Brown to Huckleberry
Looking across the col between Brown and Huckleberry is similar to the view between the mountains on the Southern Tongue Range. The entire range kind of curves around the lake (well, the lake conforms to that curve, but you know what I mean). As such, the ridge bends West between each peak, so you can easily be bamboozled into checking your map for a difficult change in elevation. In reality, the trail is very well-designed. It doesn't often force you to lose more elevation that you need to. Particularly up here on the Northern part of the range, it stays pretty true to the ridge top with a little wind-block on the West side.
There are no views to speak of on the Huckleberry summit, but you do get a lean-to just before you get there. It's a fairly nice lean-to, but it does look as if there are a lot of mice nesting there. Apparently, the Tongue Range rattlesnakes are a lazy lot.
We stopped for a short break on the way up and a longer 20-minute break on the way back. Note the outhouse in the distance.
On the return trip, a small clearing in front of the lean-to did offer a distant view of the Dix range and Giant Mountain Wilderness. It must have been a banger day on the High Peaks today.
Sunny did form snowballs on the tops of his toes, but between his pads remained snowball-free thanks to his recent haircut and Musher's Secret. I still picked these off a few times during our hike. They really don't seem to bother him much when he's running through the snow; they're really only bothersome on hard-packed surfaces.
Five Mile
The turn-off to the Five Mile summit is marked with a cairn.
The steepness of the elevation gain along the ridge is far more managable than on the Southern part of the range. There's some effort, of course, and I did stop a few times to catch my breath, but it was quite an easy hike. As I said, we were flying. The only real steep section was climbing up to the summit of Five Mile. The views up there are poop.
Sunny and I had a hell of a time descending it, though. In fact, all of the descents during this trip were fun thanks to the fact that the snow was deep enough and packed enough that there was nearly zero rock litter to deal with. As a result, we cruised on the descents.
Not to be denied some kind of view, I hiked us South a bit further where a ledge overlooks the lake and Black Mt. The extra distance was about a quarter of a mile, but I thought it was worth it.
The true depth of the powder off-trail on Five Mile.
Sunny pondered the wisdom of chasing a bird off a cliff. Cooler heads prevailed.
For the entire hike, I wore my synthetic base layer, un-lined hiking pants, a synthetic tee, a light jacket, and this coif hat thing I got for Christmas. I added hand warmers to my gloves and I was perfectly warm the entire time, only changing into my puffy for the long break at the lean-to on our return trip. My heavy mittens have remained unused, but they're in the pack just in case.
Today, GPS insisted we hiked 8.78 miles with 1677' of elevation gain with a moving time of 3hrs 50 minutes. I'm not sure how accurate the mileage is, but I sure felt fast today. It was nice to get home early and relax before taking Quinn to hockey practice.
Despite the lack of unobstructed views, this was a great hike. I really enjoyed being up on elevation in the woods and I was happy to get some elevation exercise in, but without a lot of extreme steepness. I may return to this range again another Winter.
Sunny and I are now both Lake George 12sters, however we just need Buck in order to achieve the Winter 12ster. We're very much looking forward to doing that soon.