Macomb, Carson, Grace, and Hough Peaks

Yesterday, 1ADAM12, NUMNUM, Son of NUMNUM, and a gentleman whom we shall fondly refer to as "Other Craig" set off from Elk Lake a early o'clock with the Dixes in our sights. As with any proper hike, one person started off the day with the sentence, "Oh $%!^, I forgot (insert critical piece of equipment here)." This time, it was my turn. I forgot my nice shiny orthotics. After about 4 seconds of contemplation, I said, "Whatever, my feet will just hurt."

We set off and made pretty good time to herdpath, and were at the base of the slide shortly after sunrise. While the others flew up the slide, Adam and I took our time (and about 400 pictures). Since this was my first slide climb, I didn't want it to end. I was zig-zagging back and forth just to let it all sink in. For anyone who hasn't gotten to do the Macomb slide yet, do it. It is just plain awesome.
As we progressed up the slide and back into the woods, we started noticing something off in the distance. All the really big peaks were completely covered in snow! We got off the slide, and all of a sudden, 3 inches of the fresh stuff! I believe I started dancing at this point and the first many snowballs of the day was thrown (Adam hitting me). At the summit of Macomb, we realized the level of cold and wind we would be seeing for the rest of the day.

After a short time, we set of for Carson. We met up with a group from St. Lawrence U, and I was very nice to them figuring I'll get the opportunity to laugh when the hockey season rolls around. In the blink of an eye, we were at the base of the boulder field. Once again, climbing this field was a blast! We ducked into the trees and hit the summit.

We then set off for Grace, where things started getting a little muddy, but not nearly as bad as it could be. When we got above the trees on Grace, the wind was whipping around, and we dried off in about 3 seconds. My feet started to hurt, but there was no way I was letting them get to me today. A little vitamin I, and I was ready to go!

Back to Carson, and we made our way up and over Pough and on to Hough! This was by far the steepest climb of the day. It had a really nifty ledge shortly before the summit, and the rock at the top leaves you WAY over everything around you. We had been pondering whether or not to do Dix, and we made the final decision that we were losing too much light, and we were starting to run short on energy.

We made our way back down to the Hough-n-Pough col and worked our way back down to the marked trail via Lillian Brook. We made it out shortly after sunset (yes we're slow and proud of it!) and all in all, it was an epic hike.

Whiteface & Esther Mtns.

We had started out at the Science Center at 6am. It was still dark so we used our head lamps, it was a nice and cool morning, at about 47 degrees. We got to the first lookout (Marble mtn?) just before the junction from the trail coming up from the Wilmington reservoir in time for the sunrise.

I opted for this route and mountains because I was just getting back into hiking after having been operated on in April. I had two vertebrae in my neck fused due to a disc impingement on my spinal cord. The Doctor cleared me for day-pack hiking and this seemed like the best group of mountains to return on.

We took a 15 minute break before heading up to Lookout Mt. We arrived at the junction with the trail to Esther Mt. at 9a.m. where we took another break before heading onto Whiteface, we opted to do Whiteface first because we thought we would need the most energy for that, as it turns out we were right. A little more than halfway from the trail junction we came across some construction that apparently Whiteface is doing. They have a couple excavators moving some big rocks for some reason.

We arrived at the road wall at 9:50a.m.and followed it around to the left arriving up by the road shortly thereafter. We took a quick breather before climbing up the ridge trail to the summit of Whiteface Mt arriving at 10:20a.m. We lounged around on the rocks, had lunch and then walked the road back to the trail.

We arrived on Esther Mt summit at 1:10pm and stayed until 2pm. We then left and arrived back at the junction at 2:40pm, took a break and then headed down the mountain to the science center. While on the way down we were met by two men, one of them was wearing stilts, I don't know why, thought it was very odd. We arrived back at the parking lot at 4:30pm.

It took us 10.5 hrs to do this hike, not bad for being away from hiking for several months, it was difficult for me, as I was clearly out of shape!