Up the Mountain
The day started off chilly; we had hats and gloves on. They came off real quick, though.
This is definitely a Sasquach track and not a displaced rock.
The elevation gains begin early, but it's never terribly steep. There is a lot of exposed rock on this hike. I'd read that there were a lot of fires on this mountain in the past, so the soil is thin. That, coupled with the popularity of the trail, meant that much of the hike was basically a lumpy sidewalk.
Quinn didn't have much trouble with the bare rock covered with leaves on the way up, but he fell a few times on the hike down. It didn't help he was Naruto Running from time to time.
Quinn was having a blast climbing all the boulders. This made Sunny (and maybe Dad) anxious.
He practiced butt sliding.
A gorgous day on the side of Hadley Mountain.
We stopped to roll some acorns downhill a couple of times and kept eating Oreos the whole way.
Coats off. More boulder climbing!
After about 1.25 miles of climbing the drainage, you come to the top of the ridge and the trail bends North. The hike across the ridge is lovely, and a nice respite.
After a short .2 mile, it's time to climb again.
Almost there! He was a little cranky by this point because I told him the last climb was short. His idea of short and my idea of short are two different things.
On the Mountain
I actually completely failed to get a photo of the fire tower itself. The Hadley Mountain Fire Tower sits on a summit which has some trees, but is quite bald on the West and South sides. I think, for the most part, you can get great veiws from almost any direction except due North without climbing the tower.
The tower is in great shape. We actually met one of the restoration crew at the summit and he said he'd been up that mountain 68 times!
Quinn was very excited to climb the fire tower. He really wanted to do it himself, but I definitely couldn't allow that. The climb from the final landing to the tower cabin is a stable but somewhat scary ladder and I held him as he climbed it, much to his chagrin.
I waited until my knees stopped knocking before taking a selfie.
West, I think towards Silver Lake Wilderness and Sugarloaf.
North towards the high peaks. The gentleman who'd chatted with us about the fire tower restoration said there's a trail that will take you over to the other hump in the saddle and affords a great view of the fire tower itself. If I were by myself, I'd have checked it out.
South, featuring the Hudson River.
Quinn really has a much better time when there's lots of time to chill at the summit, so we stayed there for over an hour. We had some more snacks, threw some sticks over the edge, and chatted with people. Sunny got lots of pets and was very happy about this. Quinn actually asked if we could go into the fire tower one more time before we left. I acqiesced.
We checked out the trail steward's cabin on the way down. It is situated in the lee of the summit.
"House potty"
Down the Mountain
I tried to be patient about letting Quinn do some more climbing...
...and roll some more acorns down the hill.
We met tons of people on our way down mid-afternoon. Sunny got a lot of love.
It was a gorgeous day in the woods and Quinn was in great spirits most of the time. I did have to usher him along towards the end so we could make it to an engagement afterwards, but he didn't balk at that too badly. He was encouraged by the promise of another hour of tablet time in the car.
I think this is a great hike for littles. It's a little challenging, but has a lot of fun features and the payoff at the summit is well worth the work. GPS clocked this 3.2 mile hike at 4.5 miles, so your mileage may certainly vary.
That's 6 fire towers for Sunny and me, and 3 for Quinn. I'm looking forward to the next one. I must say I quite like these fire tower hikes and I can definitely see myself doing one of these every week in my retirement.
Afternoon hike at Hadley Mountain Trail.gpx (241.82 KB)