2011-2012 Ski Season Preview

With ski season less than two months away, I checked in last week with many of the region's downhill ski areas to find out what's in store for skiers this winter. My preview of the 2011-2012 ski season appears here on Adirondack Almanack.

I ended up with much more material than I could use in the Almanack article, so I'll be posting a series of "outtakes" from my interviews here over the next several weeks. The first of those should be up within a couple of days.

As ski season gets closer I'll also have a nordic preview, so stay tuned...

Cliff Mountain: 08/11/2011

We had a bit of a backlog of trip reports to clear, but the following is a short fifth report in a series on women hiking the High Peaks. To keep things moving, I agreed to write this report, even though I wasn't along for the hike. -Jeff

Marcy at the Lake Colden outlet dam

The original plan for this trip was to climb both Cliff and Redfield in a day, since both peaks use the same approach. Four hikers (Beth, Marcy, Judy and Judy's friend) met early at the Upper Works trailhead to begin the long hike via Flowed Lands and Lake Colden to the Uphill Brook lean-to, located just below the start of the herd paths to Cliff and Redfield at around 3200’ elevation.

Remembering 9/11

I may not have been the very last American to learn of the attacks on 9/11, but it felt that way. I was in the middle of a trip to climb the Grand Teton, and learned the news at about 9pm that night, in the dark, at our campsite on a remote, windswept saddle below the Grand Teton, at 12,000 feet elevation. A full account of that experience can be read here, though it’s really more of a mountaineering story than a 9/11 story.

Because of our remote location, only the sketchiest of information reached us at all, leaving far more questions than answers. By the time we made our way back down to civilization, nearly two and a half days had elapsed since the attacks, and uncertainty had grown into full-on worry about family, friends, and the world beyond the trailhead.

DEC to reopen some High Peaks trails

Phil Brown is reporting in his Adirondack Outtakes blog this evening that DEC will reopen many of the trails closed following Hurricane Irene tomorrow. Important highlights include:

• All trails from the Adirondack Loj trailhead, Garden trailhead, and Cascade Mountain Trailhead, among others, will reopen.
• All trails accessed from the Adirondack Mountain Reserve trailhead remain closed.
• All trails in the Dix Mountain Wilderness area and the Elk Lake trailhead remain closed.
• The Roaring Brook and Ridge trails in the Giant Mountain Wilderness area remain closed due to the continued closure of a section of Route 73.

Note that the above list is not comprehensive, please refer to the DEC advisory published in Phil's blog and linked above for specific openings and closures. The DEC's High Peaks Trail Information web page will also be updated as trails are reopened.

Colvin and Blake Mtns: 08/27/2011

It’s always a treat to hike through the Ausable Club / Adirondack Mountain Reserve lands in Keene Valley. Although there are restrictions prohibiting camping, swimming, off-trail travel and dogs (sometimes overzealously enforced), and parking is more than a half mile from the trailhead, the benefits are worth the trade-off: easy access to the interior via the Lake Road, and well-maintained trails through some of the most beautiful old-growth forest in all of the High Peaks.

When Beth and I left home Saturday morning, we had intended to hike Nippletop, but kept open the option of hiking Colvin and Blake instead. The approach is the same, with the trail splitting at about the 5-mile mark in Elk Pass: Nippletop to the left, Colvin and Blake to the right.