August 18: Trail Junction   Miles Today : 16.2 Total Miles : 16.2

I left the town beach this morning just before sun-up as I was awoken early by raindrops. Not the best way to start a backpacking trip. Come to find out, the town “beach” is really just a sandy bank along a small river with a lifeguard stand in the middle. Pretty sad, and no wonder that no one came by and bothered me last night.

I headed from there to the Elk Lake trailhead where I proceeded to sit in my car and go over my itinerary as rain bounced off the windshield. It was not a persistent rain, however, and soon enough I was taking my first footsteps into the High Peaks of the Adirondacks. The first order of business; Dix Mountain, a 4000 footer that was over six miles away. Piece of cake, I thought to myself as I powered up the trail. Most of the 4000 footers in New Hampshire have only a three or four mile trail to the summit. Surely, with six miles, this will be a piece of cake. When will I ever learn not to taunt the mountain?

This trail was anything but a piece of cake. First, the trails in this area are very confusing. In addition to the marked and maintained trails, there are several private trails as well as numerous herd paths. This makes for a lot of unmarked trail junctions. I don’t really know what the deal is with the private trails, but the herd paths are rough trails leading to the summit of “trailless” peaks. Needless to say, these types of trails are not listed on the map. Still, route finding would be a little easier if the official trails were marked better. The only thing to confirm that you are on the right trail is an occasional plastic button reading "New York State Trail Marker".

All that being said, it is not all the hard to find your way in here, but it does require a little bit of extra attention. As for the condition of the official trails, well that is another matter. Most of the park is wilderness, and there are not a lot of roads, so keeping the trails in good shape is difficult. Downed trees slowed my pace all day, but mostly this place is just plain ole rugged. It is more rugged than New Hampshire and Maine, in my estimation, which is great, but it sure is tiring. That and the fact that the trail builders must have had a unique sense of humor while they were constructing this things. The trails today, at least while climbing, were all comparable to the winter route of Lions Head. I was grabbing onto trees just to keep from tipping backwards.

OK, so long story short, the climb up Dix just about killed me. I was not ready for this at all and the toughness of this area really caught me by surprise. The view was worth the pain, however, as I got to the summit and was wowed by this place. These are big mountains, many close to 5000 feet, and you can really see just how rugged these mountains are. Slides and long granite slabs dominated the view. The clouds were whipping by but they were high up so most of the view was preserved.

The way down Dix was another adventure and it took quite a bit longer than I expected. Near the bottom of the descent, the trail pops out of the woods and onto a long granite slab that continues down and goes almost all the way to the summit in the other direction. Amazing. Some hikers here were actually planning on heading up this slab as far as possible, and then bushwhacking over to the true summit.

After 10 miles, I arrived at the lean-to that I had originally planned on camping at. However, it was only 1:00 and there was no one here to talk to so I drank some water and pushed on. My secondary destination, about three miles away, was NoonMark Mountain. While it is not a 4000 footer, this peak was just fantastic, complete with a full 360º view. The best part was the view of the Great Range, a string of six peaks laid out on a very rugged ridge. It seemed almost close enough to touch. I found a great place to sleep up here, and there was even some water, but it was still only 3:30, the wind was whipping pretty good, the clouds were thick and I was already cold. It is no fun to camp up high if you are miserable.

So I kept moving, only to find bad news. The trail that I had planned on taking is actually on private property and no dogs are allowed. Without a car, though, I was pretty much stuck so I just hiked in and moved as quickly as I could through this area. Actually, I might actually still be in that area, which means that I am committing two violations right now. Not that I am proud of this or anything, but I am really in a jam. I read the guidebook before I left, but nothing about these regulations was mentioned in the trail description section. However, at the beginning of each section was a small blurb about the area and the various regulations. It was here that it mentioned about this area of private property. I should have read the guidebook a little more closely.

If that isn’t bad enough, the SKY IS CLEAR! How that happened, I have no idea, but I can see clear sky above my tentsite. I would have stayed on top of NoonMark had I known the weather was going to do this. Camping down here will be worth it, though, if I have a good day on the Great Range tomorrow. Rain is supposed to move in later tomorrow, but I am less than two miles away from the first peak so hopefully I can beat out the bad weather. Now, I need some rest.

-Chomp

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