Nippletop and Dial Mtns

We arrived at the Ausable club trail head at 7am. It was just Derek, and I on this excursion. It was December 16, 2006 and we began our trudge up the Lake road. There is often complaints about this road, as it seems to go on and on and just seems like a monotonous trudge. I will say it is nice at the end of a hike to travel back down it as it really requires no thinking of where to plant your feet, unlike the trails where you have to step over rocks and roots. So basically you just put it in overdrive and motor down to the gate. If you are lucky you will see deer. The deer in here know they are safe and very relaxed.

We arrived at the trail to Elk Pass at 8:16 am. Shortly after this junction we met up with an injured hiker that had a dislocated knee. She was in good spirits and was being helped by 3 other hikers in her party, they did not need our help so we continued on, that was around 11:00 am. There are sections of this trail that are steep, icy, a lot of rocks and roots. Just below the ridge trail junction you start to come out of the trees and are afforded some beautiful views. We got to the ridge trail junction at 11:55 am where we met up with a friendly Canadian solo hiker, it was afterwards that I would learn that this was the famous PinPin from the forums.

We arrived at the summit of Nippletop at 12:18 pm, we again had very little views as it was over cast and snow squalls. It wasn't a total loss as the sun was begging to come out, and we did enjoy a few breaks in the clouds that provided limited views of the Lower Great Range. While we were enjoying the views we were joined by Cedarvale, Randomscooter, who both helped taking our pictures and provided some feedback on the trip over to Dial.

Shortly after our visit we were off to summit Dial Mountain, what a wonder ridge walk it was over. It was all gradual rolling terrain, a nice jaunt. We arrived at Dial Summit at 2pm on nobody else around. It was very relaxing to enjoy the peace and quite. We didn't stay long, and were soon on our way over to Noonmark shoulder. This is where the trail goes and skirts Noonmark Mountain, and then drops down into the valley. We arrived back at the Lake road at 5pm, at 515pm we were signing out at the gate where we ran into the injured hiker and her party.

Another fabulous day out with my son.

Giant Mountain

We arrived at the parking lot of route 73 at Chapel pond at 830am and signed into the trail head registry at 834am. It was just Derek and I on this warm November day. It was the day before Thanksgiving and there was no snow on the ground, today's high temperature was expected to be in the forties. This used to be unusual, but seems to be the norm now, weather wise.

We meander our way up to the first lookout just below the washbowl and arrived at 09:19 am. We were passed by one hiker and her dog there, and soon passed her and the dog as they turned around before second lookout. Funny how that happens.

We arrived at the fake summit at 1130 am, its not much further from here to the summit, but you can get discouraged with false summits, because if you do not know any better the summits are there, just being illusive.

We started to come across ice from underground spring runoff, but managed around it. We had a very beautiful day, not a cloud in the sky. We had flushed several grouse between the cols which was really cool.

We came out on the out cropping just below the summit, I had slipped and fell just below the junction for Rocky Peak, Crushing my finger and abrasion on lower right back, thankfully no broken bones since we had not seen any other hikers.

We arrived at the junction for Rocky Peak at 1245 pm.and reached the summit of Giant at 1:00pm.
Was surprised to find a hiker relaxing in the sun at the top, he had come in from New Russia, he was from Syracuse, nickname on the forums is Mastergrasshopper.

We did not do Rocky Peak because we did not think we had enough time, not to mention energy since this was the first hike since early spring, not in shape.

Arrived back at trail head to sign out at 4:40 pm.