Search the Community

After 6 years, 27 days of hiking, hundreds of rugged ADK miles and tens of thousands of feet of elevation gain, I finally reached my last summit on Haystack to become an ADK 46'R! I had been patiently waiting for a break in the continuous thunderstorm forecasts and made the decision to go on Saturday afternoon. To make this finish even sweeter, my close friend Jenny (#8022) surprised me with a call only hours before leaving Saturday night saying that she and her friend would love to join me. What an incredible surprise! We hiked all night (starting at 11:30 pm) and after breaking treeline I could have sprinted over Little Haystack and up to Haystack's summit! However, I wanted to share that moment and together we enjoyed a spectacular sunrise and jaw-dropping summit views. In fact, I'd rate Haystack's views and grueling 18 miles RT as the best I've experienced of all the 46ers.Normally I would share a more detailed story about the hike itself, but this day was all about my 46'R journey and the motivations behind it. I wanted to prove to myself that I could do this. I wanted to say "Thank You" to those in our military (since I could not serve) who provide the very blanket of Freedom that allows us to enjoy our Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. I wanted to stare down and conquer fear and self-doubt by hiking nearly all of the 46 peaks solo, including several throughout the night with no sleep. I wanted to enjoy each mountain a certain way and patiently planned each hike to ensure success. And I wanted to share these amazing experiences with those who couldn't be there or those who might also be inspired in the same way that others inspired me. Ultimately, I completed the 46'R because of a very difficult reminder that Life is too short. Tomorrow isn't promised to me or any of us. What we do today and who we share our time with is what truly matters most! I appreciate all of the time everyone gave me in support of reaching this day. I may have completed my 46'R journey, but this isn't the end, it is only the beginning.

Anyone else here heard of this huge debate going on about how to classify the new Boreas Ponds acquisition up in the Adirondacks? It's a tract of land that was formerly owned by a paper company and was recently turned over to the state (via The Nature Conservancy). I think the APA put out several proposals, all of which included allowing some measure of motorized access, but many of this state's environmental groups got angry that there was no option for excluding all motorized traffic (which would require a full-on wilderness classification). More on the land and surrounding discussion here: http://nysnowmobiler.com/2016/08/boreas-ponds-wild-forest-or-wilderness/ and http://www.adirondackalmanack.com/2016/11/boreas-ponds-paddlers-perspective.html#comments So what do hunters here think of this?

After nearly 30 miles of hard hiking and two nights of relaxing camping, I am now set up for the grand 46er finale on Haystack! What a perfect weekend in the ADK's! Day 1: I returned to the Upper Works lot to hike Marshall. What a huge difference to be hiking this trail with a light day pack instead of the heavy full pack I had on my last trip! I made great time to the start of the Herbert Brook herd path and started right up. While unmarked, the herd path crosses the brook a dozen or more times and proved easier to follow than I had been warned. I made the summit about 3 1/2 hours from the trailhead and spent a few minutes taking pics of the limited views. Truth be told, my bathroom has more square footage than Marshall's treed-in summit. Good thing there was no one else around. The best views were below summit - a stunning up-close view of Iroquois and Shepard's Tooth. With plans to car camp on Corey's Rd about an hour away, I soaked in the view then quickly headed back down. As I signed out, DEC Ranger Jameson pulled into the lot and we talked for good 20 minutes. I told him about a family I met that had a bear encounter the night before. Also, I mentioned the unapproved bear can left in the Herbert Brook lean-to. He confirmed that the bear activity is really high right now due to limited natural forage and what I will paraphrase as "camper stupidity". He told me of multiple examples of unprepared hikers venturing into the High Peaks just to check the box towards a 46er patch with ZERO wilderness preparedness, skills or concern for safety. With only two Rangers patrolling the entire Eastern High Peaks region, these guys have their hands full. Apparently, changes are coming to help alleviate the impacts from the increased volume of hikers. I threw on flip-flops and started the drive up to Corey's though Long Lake and into Tupper Lake. I had packed a celebratory dinner of pork tenderloin and rice then enjoyed a Stewart's hot fudge sundae for dessert. After icing down my cooler, I made the final drive to Corey's Rd and scoped out a camp site. I pulled into one of the primitive sites and noticed an eroded truck trail running down the back side of this site. This wasn't on the map so I decided to check it out. Much to my surprise, this dropped down to another camp site right on Ampersand Brook. Yahtzee! This hidden gem would be home for the next two nights. After enjoying a fire and some snacks, I hit the sack and dozed off only to be woken up by a lone wolf howling in the distance. Amazing end to the day. Day 2: Rest day. Another beautiful weather day on tap started with hot coffee, breakfast burritos and bacon. After cleaning up, I decided to go check out the surrounding area. First up was a trip back into Tupper Lake where I found Big Tupper Brewery. Their Summer Ale and IPA are both very good and the novelty t-shirts an absolute riot! Next up was a drive to different points along the lake. Gorgeous. Between Tupper and Long Lake, I've got to come back up sometime soon. Next up was a quick stop along Rt 3 to buy more camp fire wood for the night. $5, what a deal. I continued east back to Saranac Lake and stopped at the DEC public boat launch. The launch provides access to 87 island camp sites on Saranac Lake. How cool is that, you can rent out your own island! Needless to say, demand is high and these sites are reserved months in advance. Heading back to camp, a grey fox darted in front of my Jeep on Corey's Rd. A cool sighting, but still not the black bear or moose on my wish list. Upon arriving back, I learned that a friend had to scratch his plans to make the trek up from PA to join me in hiking the Sewards. Bummer. The night continued with a good camp dinner, cold brew and, of course, some s'mores. Then a pair of ladies from Ottawa staying up at the site in front of mine stopped down to say hi. They had just hiked Seymour and would also be hiking the remaining Sewards the next morning. Faye had completed the 46 twice already while her friend Kim had just finished her 46 on Haystack the week prior. It was looking like I might have company on the trails after all. Day 3: The morning started much earlier than expected when a moose started calling in the stream behind me at 3 am! By the time I woke up enough to process what I'd heard and throw on a fleece, flip-flops and grab my Surefire, the moose had moved on. Ugh. It was a chilly morning so I quickly crawled back into the sleeping bag. By the time the alarm started beeping at 5 am, I wasn't in any rush to jump up and break camp in time to meet Faye and Kim at the trailhead. Once packed up, it was time to head up to the Seward parking lot. Even at 6:45 am, the lot was full with cars now parking along Corey's Rd. I signed in at 7:11 am and started the hike in. By ADK standards, the Blueberry trail and Calkins Brook Truck trail are about as tame as it gets. It only took an hour to make the 3.3 miles to the start of the herd path up to Donaldson. No sooner did I reach the rock cairn marking the start of the Calkins Brook path then a large black blur was headed right for me. A bear?! Thankfully, no. A huge jet black great dane named Jack had enthusiastically decided to come say hi. Boy did that get my heart rate up! His owners quickly called him back and the whole meet & greet was over in seconds. Good doggie. The Calkins Brook trail runs almost 3 miles and I made the top 2 hours later at the same time as another hiker named Derek. We were both solo hiking SDE and decided to hit Seward first together. Derek set a quick pace and I pushed it stay with him. After a quite a bit of elevation loss and gain, we finally made the tiny treed summit then dropped down a bit lower for a quick break. It wasn't long before we started our way back to Donaldson that we ran into Faye and Kim who had started early and were about to finish on Seward. Thankfully, they reported that the ridge trail from Donaldson to Emmons, notoriously muddy, was actually bone dry. Sweet! Back to the S/D col for a quick stop and then we made the 5 minutes rock scrabble up to Donaldson's summit. There were already a half dozen hikers standing here on a summit resembling a medium-sized area rug. One nod to Derek and we agreed to keep moving to Emmons. While on paper this looks like an easy ridge traverse, in reality the herd path weaves its way below ridge line and through a very narrow lane of pines. You may as well call me Groot after having 8000 branches scraping and jabbing across my face, ears and legs for the full 1 mile traverse. Forty-five minutes later and I was standing on the summit of Emmons, my 45th High Peak! Nearly 100 years ago the first 46ers stood on this very spot. Humbling. Emmons offered some decent views and the ridge trail especially has some great views of Long Lake. After snapping some pics, the only piece of business left was for Derek and I was to head back to Donaldson. The summit party had cleared by the time we returned. We were able to enjoy great views of the entire High Peaks region and a well-deserved rest. If not for the hot afternoon sun and need to get back to the parking lot at a reasonable time, this could have been a decent summit to linger on. Derek again set the quick pace back down and even with a break to filter fresh water, we still made it out in just 3 hours after leaving Donaldson. Derek now has 5 more to go before he completes his 46er journey. For me, only Haystack remains.

Tuesday night I drove up to Keene Valley for another (planned) sunrise hike to Basin and then Saddleback. Starting out under the full moon from the Garden lot at 10 pm, I made good time to JBL and up to Bushnell Falls. Then I entered a section of the Phelps trail that looked like it had been hit by an artillery barrage. I lost count of all the downed trees that I limboed under, climbed over or hiked around. This part of the Phelps trail and the Shorey Short Cut were a full blown obstacle course of downfall, mud, rocks, roots, slick bedrock and scrambles. With less than a mile to go to make summit, I pushed the pace hard, but missed the actual sunrise by 10 minutes. Still, this was just as rewarding for me as it was physically and mentally demanding. It was the sports equivalent of "leaving it all on the field". I'll post some pics, but they won't do this trip justice. The infamous Saddleback cliffs are no joke! They aren't quite vertical, but man, one wrong move and you're done. I don't know why any sane person would actually choose to descend the cliffs rather than ascend and not look down. Either way, you better bring your A game. These peaks make it 35/46 for me. The loop hike was about 16.5 miles, but it took me over 17 hours to get back to the Jeep. The push up to Basin absolutely smoked me only halfway into the hike so I needed to take generous breaks from there on. Once home I slept for 12 hours straight. Everything is sore, but I can't wait to do it all over again on the next hike.

A couple years ago, I backpacked with my gf to a spot behind Marcy with the goal of getting up early and making the summit for sunrise. Even though we were treated to breathtaking views all alone on the summit, we missed the actual sunrise by a bit. I've been wanting to do another sunrise hike ever since then, but let too many excuses get in the way. Well, Saturday afternoon I saw a gorgeous sunny forecast for Sunday and made the decision to go for it on Algonquin then summit Iroquois and maybe Wright on the way home. Leaving the house at 10:45 pm got me to the Loj by 12:50 am. After getting squared away, I signed in at 1:20 am with the goal of enjoying a hot coffee on Algonquin's summit at sunrise. The trail up is easy to follow and was a hard packed mix of snow and ice. Boots were fine the first couple miles in then I put the spikes on. There is a junction where the paths to Wright and Algonquin split at 3 miles. It was now 4:15 am and I was feeling pretty good about making the summit in plenty of time. This is pretty much the point where I had wished that I had had some sleep and done a whole lot more cardio. The final half mile up is steep! As the tree line thinned out, I could actually see this huge massive gray dome against the clear black sky. It wasn't a cloud. Nope, this was the summit and I was nowhere near it. Legs cramping, lungs burning and winds blowing hard, I kept moving at a hobbit's pace to make my goal. No way was I going to miss this. I finally stepped onto the summit with 15 minutes to spare. I normally like to take a lot of pics, but the frigid winds were so brutal that the camera battery went nearly dead, my cell wouldn't start up and my hand with just a glove liner on was frozen numb in less than 5 minutes. No way to brew coffee either. And then in a moment none of those things mattered as I was treated to the most beautiful sunrise I've ever seen. Hope you enjoy the few pics that I was able to take. Iroquois was much more forgiving and Algonquin's summit was "warmer" the second time passing over to return home. For me, this was an epic hike all around. Only 13 more 46ers to go. Anyone else here complete the 46 or working on it?

All right, so I'm new to hunting Turkey. I've spent the last 2 weekends up in the Adirondacks looking for them. I see these things all along Rte 28 during my numerous drives up to the Adirondacks, but I've never seen them on hikes and certainly never during any of my hunts up there. So what I am missing here? As I understand it (someone please correct me if I'm wrong), the general idea behind fall turkey hunting is to find a big group of them, break them and then hide out and ambush them as they regroup. I've heard bringing a dog along to help with the break up is sometimes helpful. I've heard calls are sometimes used as well, but they seem to be more relied upon in the spring season, when they aren't as grouped up. 1) So where do I look for Turkeys, especially in an area as big as the ADK's? I've spent some time going down old (no longer active) logging/hunting roads and trails. Sometimes I head off the trail to move through some brush in an attempt to flush anything out of hiding. 2) Is the weather and foliage optimal for fall turkey hunting? I've noticed that the weather this time of year is a bit warmer than usual. As well the foliage has only just now started to turn. In fact, when I was moving through the woods today, a lot of the foliage was not only still on the trees but still very green, making it very hard to see very far in any direction. With all the racket I make stepping on dead leaves, I feel like I'm bumping and scaring away any potential game well before I see them. 3) Should I be using a Turkey call, even for the fall season? 4) Do Turkey like moving in the rain? It's been fairly wet this weekend so far, almost a constant drizzle. Is hunting for Turkey in the rain worth it? I know some game species prefer to say put in rainy weather. 5) Is ambush or calling pretty much the only way to hunt Turkey? I've heard that Turkey have amazing eyesight as well as hearing. So head-to-toe camo and stealth seem to be essential. I just have a hard time sitting still in some place like the ADK's. It's a big area, and wildlife isn't nearly as abundant here as some people think it is. If I don't pick the right spot, I could be doing a whole lot of sitting without seeing a single animal (I know from experience). Anyways, those are just a few questions/issues I was trying to work through. I figure if some more experience Turkey hunters on this site offered some feedback, we might be able to get a helpful dialogue going for myself and other hunters new to Turkey.

Came home Tuesday from the big ADK trip up to Moose River Plains. Really wish I could have stayed longer but a few issues caused me to shorten my trip. Only sighting was 2 doe for Dominick one of our new hunters. This is the entire trip so its more of a log than anything else. I arrived Wed the 11th and set up the entire camp including the cook shack, stove and steak down everything. I was exhausted and slept well. 11/12/15 Happy that camp was set up I went out to hunt for the day. I did my traditional stalk after hiking up the mountain with a slow still hunt the entire day. I covered little more than a mile in that stalk and with the rain it was quiet. Good sign of deer activity kept my hopes up. I exited the woods by dark and was only 400 yards from camp. Relatively easy day of hunting good tracks top of trail and in the area. No sightings. 11/13/15 Woke up to a tremendous downpour of rain and drips on my face! 100% humidity from the rain combined with the pot of water on the stove and the inside of the tent was wet from condensations and precipitation. Panic that the inside of the tent was wet I removed the water from the wood burning stove and hoped the rain would let off enough for me to put the tarps on. I packed the stove and reheated the inside hoping to dry it out. At first light the rain slowed and I was able to put both tarps on and secure the tent more. Happy the tent was ok by 11:20 am I was able to head out expecting one more hunter to arrive at noon. Upset I missed first light I figured it was time to check the swamps. As expected I found some nice rubs and what I thought was a scrap but later turned out to be a bed, kind of felt sorry for peeing in it, lol. As last light was close I stayed by the swamp hoping to see the culprit killing those poor trees. No sightings. Shawn made it up and I showed him the rubs, shortly after getting back to camp Mike and his nephew Dominick arrived. It was a nice early night and snow began to fall, I was in bliss! 11/14/15 SNOW!!! We tried to all hunt the swamp and see if anything was present. Dom jumped 2 doe heading in and Shawn saw multiple tracks. The spot I asked them to go down into had no tracks(From them!) and was about a half mile from camp that I hiked to give them some time. I found 2 sets of fresh deer tracks that looked like doe so I passed them to check what I thought was a scrape and turned out to be a bed, lol. At that point I left the swamp and headed up hill. After about 800 yards up I saw a hunter stalking below me. He sat about 30 yards from me and I tried to alert him with a doe bleet but I think his hat blocked his hearing. He sat for 5 minutes then headed up and back to my right so I kept on my path away from him and found another track and hunter with different boots going in the same direction. (They where going back from where they came in stalking the woods together.) As I pass both these hunters below all of us was a doe track but it was going in the direction they where in. I back tracked her for about 900-1000 yards she liked the thick stuff but walked on a foot trail for 300 yards. I left the trail and still hunted to my honey hole and then still hunted it until dark. No sightings. Greg and George arrive at camp and the Rush is played until midnight ARG. 11/15/15 With snow melting I figured I would pick up on a track and see where it would take me. Planning on heading up the back of this mountain I head in and find a nice doe track and it takes me back down into the swamp and across a river. Then it takes me up that side of the mountain. I jumped her one time and could see she saw me from a distance away. I slowed my pace on her and found one more bed. As snow was rapidly melting and would be gone within the hour 2pm I cut across the mountain for a river bed ridge and headed towards the road. I found more tracks as I cut across and headed towards the road because I was not sure if I would come out past the swamps. I came across an old logging trail headed in the exit direction and was on the road 15 min before dark. I headed to another pinch point and hunting till my buddy Shawn came down the road and the day was over. No sightings but this area held doe for sure. 11/16/15 Late night music did not help us get up early and a late start ensued. We tried to push this mountain the entire day with no luck. I heading up 4 ridges to about 2600 ft trying to basically push deer. With no snow it was fun tracking in the wet leaves hard but not impossible especially if the deer was bigger. I tried a few call sequences then at about 2 pm I headed to the back side of the mountain to explore a bit and still hunted down until dark. Some good tracks again but no sightings. RUSH again until midnight. With a sore throat and being run down a bit I determine its best if I let everyone else help me with the camp brake down the next morning. The morning conversation about the new invention called HEADPHONES did not go over well. Needless to say I will make a statement next year if music is keeping people up EVERY night. I got a real good grilling from my LI hunting partner Chris for not seeing any deer all week. I invited him next year and said I would set him up in a couple of sweet spots and he said ok! Not sure if he would do any better but I can't sit in a stand up in the ADK! Hope he comes next year, any serious hunter is always welcomed and Dominick and George are the two new guys, hope they come back again it was a pleasure having everyone at camp! Except that jerk Greg who kept playing the music! Just kidding, you know I love you like a brother and sometime just want to hit like one too! lol Fun trip, the porcupine looking rub threw me off a bit but I only saw pictures, funny that day I kept saying NO WAY! I was right. Had some cool bird sightings and had a moose in the area, now that was an easy track to follow, lol. Happy to see good tracks indicating a few deer traversing the area that survived last years winter. Good times with good friends!

Good luck to all the bow hunters tomorrow up in the Northern tier. Hope you get to use your tags!!! Be safe, hope to see some early success!

ADK I love you so and wish I was with you This land I am in holds no value to you Deer are considered pest so sad it is true Deer roam free in your land and survive your cruel wintering brew ADK I can’t wait to get back to you, hopefully with the entire crew To spend one more night in your cold winter chill And awake to snow covered mountains and frost covered hills This call of the wild sets my soul on fire chasing big bucks I know of nothing higher Other deer hold no light to you, ADK bucks I am after you I wonder if I will stop and lose my drive then nature enlightens me and gives me good vibes This land of the free recharges my energy, big bucks look out I will soon be in route!!! May you see many deer and have a buck come through May he be large and stand perfect for you May your arrow or bullet fly straight and hit its target true Look out big bucks I am coming for you Good luck to all you deep woods hunters! Be safe! 2 vacation trips cancelled so far, so much for scouting... If work cancels one more I will probably loose it, lol... At least LI gives me a taste and helps with my sanity... Ok time to pay the bills and hopefully get rid of this upset stomach! Hope to get out tomorrow!