Nippletop Via Elk Pass (and Dial Mountain)
We enjoyed an unusually comfortable hike up the icy Elk Pass to Nippletop for our December Adirondack weekend.
Sean Carpenter – Photographs and Work
Personal Photography and Work
46 High Peaks of the Adirondacks
We enjoyed an unusually comfortable hike up the icy Elk Pass to Nippletop for our December Adirondack weekend.
Upon finishing this 18.5-mile, 5,400-vertical foot hike, I reflected that these three mountains are really just hiked together by peakbaggers.
It helps that the weather was perfect, and that it’s been a dry summer so mud and water were eminently avoidable. But it’s also a lovely and wild forest, you just have to look 10 feet off the trail to see it.
With autumnal weather finally arriving, I jumped on an opportunity for one more Adirondack hike. Keeping with this year’s theme, I carved out a plan to hike two new trails, alternative approaches to Mounts Colden and Marshall.
My plan was ambitious, so I stayed overnight at the interior Johns Brook Lodge (JBL), cutting 7 miles round trip to and from the car. Seeing no morning rain, I started on a loop over Gothics and Sawteeth to Haystack via the Warden’s Camp.
It’s rare enough to enjoy long, difficult, multi-peak hikes; it’s rarer still to hike one with a friend and mentor. To then hike seldom-used trails in the Adirondacks with beautiful weather made it a near perfect day.
I encountered my first other humans at the summit of crowded Porter Mountain. I stopped for a brief photo and quickly headed back the Range Trail towards Blueberry Mountain. On the way, there was a perfect rock outcropping offering views of Porter and Cascade, after which I continued towards Blueberry.
Our new aspiring 46ers enjoyed their third High Peak in three days, ultimately logging 30 miles and almost 10,000 vertical feet of climbing in the process. Each day was simply perfect for hiking, cool with a mix of sun and clouds.
Instead of the quick 3.8 miles to Big Slide, for which we didn’t pack lunches, we started Dial an hour later and didn’t finish until after 5.
Kathy and I were incredibly proud — two new aspiring 46ers with Mount Colden as their first ever High Peak. Way to go!
We had previously hiked Mount Skylight in 2012, the year we started tackling the 46 High Peaks in earnest. It was our hardest hike. Ever since, we have been looking to go back. This hike was our primary target for 2015. Then we both got injured. Well, so what?
Back in 2012, we hiked Sawteeth in conjunction with Gothics in our first Adirondack traverse. Gothics was the star of that hike, with its (in)famous cable route and sprawling vistas. Sawteeth was a half-mile out-and-back-again tacked on somewhat as an afterthought.
Wright Peak is a slightly lower summit on the way up to the popular Algonquin Peak in the MacIntyre Range. Looking for another relaxing day (and having summited Algonquin twice previously) it was chilly as we started, but not nearly as cold as the previous day.
Our first time up Phelps, we climbed the north side of the mountain to a socked-in and windy summit. This time, we took the marked trail from Marcy Dam and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky.