Sunny 46

Best of all, Dan had the day off and needed these last three mountains in order to complete his Winter 12ster. I was excited to be hiking with another human after a couple of months of just Sunny and me. Sunny was elated to see him and greeted Dan with his usual calm, placid demeanor. I would have followed that sentence with a winky face emoji and tongue out emoji, but such things are not apropois of a serious blog post.

Crossings over the col and down by the lake feature these bridges. presumably for snowmobiles. The maps of the region do not indicate this as a snowmobile trail, however, so it must be for ranger use only.

We came to the col about 8:30am. Left takes you to Fivemile, straight takes you down to the other side of the mountain to the lake, and right takes you South to Fifth Peak. We hung a right and started climbing again almost immediately.

The hike to the summit did have some 15% grade sections and a short 20% grade section, but it was managable. Dan and I took little breaks as we climbed each section. We had plenty of daylight; there was no resaon to taunt our bodies into injury.

It seemed like a great spot to camp, barring the usual threat of rattlesnakes in other seasons, that is. It gives me the heebies just thinking about waking up to one of those.

Like much of the terrain on this range, there were cliffs, but they seemed to always quickly smooth out as long as you hiked in the right direction. Generally, the idea is to jog in the direction that the valley below is ascending.

Descending into the first col was steep and, in some spots, icy. We were glad to have our spikes. A lot of the descents along the ridge to French featured better than -20% grade with some -30% according to the maps. Of course, this is only an average and the real story is told by the pictures.

After climbing a bit, the trail curled around the second of the PUDs on the East side. Although the ups and downs were difficult, it was still a very lovely ridge walk. In many cases, ridge trails (including many of the ones in the High Peaks) are situatied along the middle of the ridges they traverse. By contrast, the Tongue Range here in the Southern ADK spoils hikers with views along a large percentage of the journey. That feature gives this hike a unique flair.

Sunny was still having a great time chasing after all kinds of smells. We saw canine and feline tracks up there, as well as some deer. Dan and I weren't struggling by any measure, but the climb up to French from the last col was just a bit laborioius. It's a good thing it was so pretty.

The grade on the ascents was nothing compared to the grade on the descents. I felt like these would have been easier to climb up than down in this weather. The blowdown up French was managable.

To be honest, the camping on French Point would be really nice on calm days. Today, Dan suggested we take our summit break in the col betwen the two peaks on French because the weather coming in brought a bit of a breeze and it wasn't very comfortable.

Having a fire here on a calm morning would be something. One of the things I'm realizing I love about winter hiking along Lake George is that the motorbot noise polution is almost negligible. In the Summer, it's damn near constant. Aside from Sunny's bear bell, the calm of this hike was great for the brain chemicals.

Looking across, it seemed like a lot more than 300' from the col, however the trail bent right along the ridge a bit and we hoped that it followed as close to the top of the ridge as possible so we wouldn't have to climb back up as much.

It was really cool to do these Southern Adk hikes in the winter with the bare trees affording a deep view of the woods. Sunny was still full of piss & vinegar.

Dan had visions of his wife's cooking dancing in his head. I really wanted to get home for Quinn's hockey practice. I'd considered bushwhacking down First Peak and Dan actually brought it up earlier in the hike. With him there, I was feeling very confident about successfully navigating down. I did have some concerns about hitting heavy blowdown from last year's tornadoes, but we could always go around if we did.

At the end of the day, as bushwhacks go, this wasn't exactly the most dangerous to attempt. The grade was reasonable and getting lost was laughable considering all you had to do was head downhill until you found the lake. Were I alone, I may not have attempted it, but with another human companion, it seemed like a fun experience to have.

We started down at around 12:15pm.

Sunny was ready for a heckin' bushwhack. We'd followed the scent of another hiker and their dog to Fifth Peak, but they'd turned back from there. Following the trail for Sunny had been hit or miss the rest of the hike, but he didn't do too bad. During the bushwhack, he stayed between Dan and me for the most part. 

We went down a channel on the East side of the mountain. I think we'd have probably been better off, distance-wise, a little farther North according to the map. However, the terrain itself seemed pretty rough, so this way worked out fine.

The terrain was step-like. We hiked down one ledge, traversed Northeast as best we could, then found the next place to descend another ledge. Some of the ledges were quite tall and steep, but they always smoothed out to a reasonable descent if we jogged North enough.

I did try to get some shots of the taller cliffs, but the scale of them didn't allow for a very good shot. Just know that there are a couple of spots where you absolutely do have to jog North before finding a spot to head downhill.

If the brush on this side of the moutnain was impassible in other seasons, we saw no evidence of it. All in all it was a fun descent. We were all in pretty great spirits.

This scramble near the end of the descent was the most messy one we had to tackle, but it was still managable. The final map did calculate average grades of -20% to -40%, but it was all very managable when using your brain to pick the right path. Still, I probably wouldn't want to climb up it.

Dan advised me to head North around it whenever possible whenever avoiding an obstacle. I did my best to do so, though there were some instances where it was just easier to bend South for a bit, then jog back.

At any rate, according to AllTrails, we had turned a 3.4 mile hike to the point and back to a 1.2 mile bushwhack, shaving 2 miles off the hike. 

This one tree was the most challenging blowdown remaining on the trial. There's a herd path going around it, but you can also go over or under it as you please.

The trail crews have done a hell of a job cleaning this up. The trail is very passable thanks to their efforts.

I think I wouldn't terribly mind just hiking this trail to the point and back someday. It's not difficult, but has some good elevation change which would be nice for the exercise. It is, however, less fun after hiking three mountains and a bunch of PUDs.

At great length, we came to a spot where we could hike on the lake. We removed our spikes (which had already outlived their usefulness to be honest) and set off.  Dan taught me about ice safety along the way which I appreciated.

We crossed the lake at the throat of the Northwest Bay Brook. There were some ice fisher folk out there doing their thing. We made our way carefully across. We climbed up from the shore at a fishing access point and road walked back to the car, finishing at about 2:30pm.

I'd brought the wrong cord with me on this hike, so my phone died and the map isn't complete.  I am very grateful to have hiked these mountains at the perfect time, thanks to both Wendy and Dan. I'm hoping to hike the Northern Tongue soon, also hopefully with a friend. I plan on snowshoeing Buck later this year on a bluebird day if possible.