Post Sunset Moonrise Over the Adirondacks Crane Mountain

I'd moan about how hard landscape photography is, that if you're standing on a wind blown summit at sunset it means you have to hike back in the dark...but I confess, I'd have it no other way. I love hiking at night! In fact so much so that following this wonderful scene, which didn't end with this photograph, I didn't turn on my headlamp until I reached the slab below the pond outlet, just shy of half way back. Much of that time the 3/4 moon cast a shadow in my path as I walked through the forest. Hiking by the glow of the moon is really very peaceful, even more so than via headlamp, and it's nice to get lost in the solitude of the softly lit darkness.

Darkness though is what makes November a depressing month in this part of the world, the sun only shines about 30% of possible daylight hours, and daylight is only about 9-10 hours at the start of the month. The positive is that provided you can see the sun, you don't have to wait 18 hours between nautical twilight's like in the summer. Photography is best done at the ends of the day, and November is temperate enough that spending an entire 10 hour visible light day outdoors isn't all that hard most days if you get a sunny day. Or you can time a sunset blitz hike like this ascent of Crane Mountain, and still be home in time to eat dinner at a reasonable hour, rather than midnights like you do in the summer!

I have a few "local" places where I can gain some reasonable elevation since moving to Saratoga County a few years ago, although I do miss my 30 minute drives to challenging 3,000ft+ single summit days in the Catskills, 90% of the time I'm glad to be at the foothills of the Adirondacks even if it means the same drive gets me only 1500 foot single summit days. Crane Mountain is not only a favorite semi local hike (about ~55 miles and 50 minutes) but it's a favorite hike overall in the Adirondacks. Barbara McMartin once said it was among the most beautiful summit views in ALL the Adirondacks, and although I never found the distant views to be amazing, I've always loved the general challenge of the rugged trails and steep cliffs that make Crane Mountain.

Crane is not only a great hiking mountain, but it's home to a hot bed of new Adirondack rock and ice climbing route activity. In the last 10 years Crane has seen dozens of new rock routes and tens of ice routes, some of the ice is 3-4 pitches in length.

In the trail register many people complain of the sparsely marked trails, and the first time hiker might have to be careful, more so after dark. The mountain sees at least a few dozen hikers and climbers a weekend, creating a well worn though still rugged foot trail. Though with a little care, a map, and just basic route finding skills you should be able to figure it out. Although I know the mountain well now, it was just as poorly marked the first time I hiked it!

Unfortunately, hiking isn't all glorious sunsets, moonrises, and pleasant walking via the glow of the moon. About 1/3 of the way down the very steep outlet trail, I took a pretty decent fall on one of the many sections with deep dry leaf cover over roots and slabby ragged boulder piles. This time of the year dry leaves have become waxy, and the combination of dry waxy leaves and steep descents make it like walking downhill on ball bearings. I took a jump down from one boulder into a crevasse between two boulders and the next thing I knew I was on the ground several feet below my target with my elbow and arm bleeding. The arm will heal, but I lost Black Diamond Flicklock pole when my feet came out from under me and the pole snapped in defense of my fall. One of the reasons the Flicklocks are great poles, and hadn't yet made it to the graveyard of poles in my garage, is unlike most poles with expander nuts, the expanderless Flicklocks hardly ever (perhaps never) collapse. The downside is they are made from thin gauge aluminum and are the only poles I have ever owned that I have bent...over and over and over again! They are easy enough to rebend, but at $90 a pair, I wish they were just a bit more sturdy!

Alas, it was a small price to pay for an almost summer like mid autumn day in the Adirondacks.

Anything Caney Can Do, I Can Do Better...

...so Colvin told me after our trip to New Hampshire. I reminded him that he had only hiked in the snow and that Caney was probably the best rock climbing canine I'd ever seen.

Two weekends ago was Colvin's first entirely dirt/rock hike up little Buck Mountain on Lake George. The 6 mile hike was technically about as easy as hikes get, with at most some rooted wet trail, but mostly soft dirt and duff. I've actually lobbied to have it renamed Cinderella Mountain since it's directly across Shelving Brook from Sleeping Beauty Mountain. Regardless, other than sore paws from the previous weekend on the granular snow, followed by a 10 mile walk week, and then 4 miles of roller blading on Sunday, Colvin did just fine.

This past weekend we did a creek bushwhack along Stony Creek and Tenant Falls on Saturday, and Sunday we went to Crane Mountain.

Crane Mountain is a favorite mountain of mine. It's not far from home via the pleasant to drive winding backroads, it's a fairly short circuitous route with multiple options, and an easy bushwhack up a second summit (also with excellent views). And of course it's mildly technical in a few isolated sections, while much of the middle section of trail is a fairly rugged vertical streambed boulder hop. The summit of Crane has some of the best views in all of the Adirondacks, and the
mountain is covered in steep vertical cliffs that yield rock and ice climbing routes of all difficulties. Crane Mountain Pond is also one of the highest altitude bodies of water of substantial size within the Adirondacks.



Crane Mountain is easily Colvin's first technical rock hike. There are several very steep sections requiring great care for human hikers with some use of hands. There are also two ladders, the first is about 5 feet high, and the second is about 15-20 feet.

The difference right now between Caney and Colvin as trail dogs is that Caney was very pragmatic about problem solving even at a young age. He was a very good athlete, but just like human climbers, often the best athlete isn't the best climber. Climbing is about problem solving, it's a puzzle with a little gravity thrown in for good measure. Colvin is a superior athlete, but like novice climbers with great athletic skill, he thinks he can power through everything.

On the first very steep technical section, which required using our human hands, Colvin attempted to just jump up and into the overhanging sloped boulders. The result was not so good! He lost his footing and fell several feet, luckily he didn't hurt himself. I lowered the rope to Aimee, she clipped him in, and I hauled him up.

I was certainly hoping for him to flash that first technical section, but it's very easy for me to forget that Caney wasn't necessarily a natural climber, he did take a while to get the confidence to climb challenging terrain better than many humans. Colvin already displays confidence and comfort on the trail, but he definitely lacks the learned skills of technical climbing.

Last Sunday, before we left for Crane, Aim had tweaked her back but was going to give hiking a shot. By the time we'd hiked for a little ways she realized while it was awkard ascending, going down over the rough trail was really going to be agonizing. I wanted to get Colvin as much time out as possible, perhaps even try the first ladder, so Colvin and I hiked up and additional 10 minutes to get past the next 2 hard sections.

Of the two hard sections, the first is a 15 foot fairly steep (near vertical) wall with some lower angled ramping paired with good foot and hand holds, while the second is a 5 foot ladder.

Colvin didn't have any problems on the vertical wall going up or down, but to my surprise, he was surprisingly accepting at giving the ladder a shot. I thought this was odd since he didn't even want to go up the steep loft stairs at Grey Knob. Hopefully this is just a sign of his growing confidence on the trail as he gets more experience.

In any case, he ended up trying to "dyno" the ladder in a few quick bounds, rather than climb it. The result of course was a dog missing the rungs and getting stuck. Thankfully (and unlike Caney) he does tend to listen when he is stressed or excited. I told him to stay, and he relaxed without panicking and throwing himself off the ladder (believe me, if it was Caney he'd never have calmed down). I was able to then give him a boost from above via his Ruff Wear Web Master harness.

The good news of course is he definitely has the desire to climb the ladder, and honestly, Caney was at least a few years old before he willingly climbed his first ladder. It wasn't till he was well aged that he would climb them without prompting. For Colvin to not hesitate is a promising first step. I'm sure as he gets a bit more trail savy, and learns to "climb" up obstacles through problem solving rather than brute force, he will do just fine. When you consider Colvin's progress, it is very impressive considering he has barely hiked 40 mountain trail miles, and only 8 total over only rock/dirt.

I always get a kick when I notice most dog training books consider hiking a non competitive K9 activity, I have to disagree. If you take your dog on challenging trails, it becomes equally competitive as the sport of human rock climbing. Bearing in mind that even if your dog is an agility champion, only you are aware of this achievement. On the flip side, your dog always knows the satisfaction of completing a tough section of trail and continuing on the hike, which then makes the hike itself a continuous reward.

Chaos On Crane and Oooo Sable In The AMR

Busy weekend for me in the Daks.

Seems like I hiked a lot more than 15 miles over 2 days. I shot over 8GB of images over that time (lots of brackets of 16MB images), most in poor lighting and after a few days I've finally made some progress.

Saturday was a great easy hike in the Adirondack Mountain Reserve, which is publicly accessible private land owned by the Au Sable Club.

After leaving a few minutes later than I intended, I met John and Joanne at the parking area a few minutes after 9am and we headed for some of the most spectacular (and most accessible) scenery in the Adirondack lowlands. Lots of waterfalls and chasms, streams and rivers. Just a beautiful place.

We kinda hit the lighting just wrong, and our overcast day turned a bit too sunny for even the usable diffused light provided by cloud cover. It was still very dead out there, as the trees hadn't even begun to bud. It looked like what I affectionately call the skeleton forest. Black flies and bugs were non existent which made the day ever more enjoyable. Great day though and lots of fun to just kick back and talk photography while taking our time, even if we didn't have the best lighting.

My partners left me at about 4:30pm, and I headed about a mile up trail to Wedge Brook and Wedge Brook Falls. I noted a few spots I'd like to hit with better lighting on the way down, and got to the falls. Beautiful place but despite spending an hour playing around I left with nothing that I liked. On the way back I shot a few frames of the East Branch Ausable River and some spring runoffs down the gorge walls.

After a few more shots on Gill Brook and the Ausable River, I got back to the car around 8:30pm and was back home by 10pm.

Sunday, Aim, Caney and I headed for Crane Mountain. Our last trip there in 2000 or 2001 ended in Caney losing his pack around the lake. I listened to Aim and didn't carry snowshoes and the spur trail was covered with 4 feet of snow making the 1 mile hike an incredible post hole fest. Lesson learned from that experience...when in doubt carry snowshoes even in April, and DO NOT PUT THE KEYS IN YOUR DOGS PACK!!!!

The 2008 Crane adventure was quite nice, although covered with blowdown from the uncharacteristic ice storms we had this winter, and the trail was at times poorly marked, lots of route finding, and some bushwhacking to get back. For an easy 3.5 mile hike we ended up hiking about 5 miles and it felt like much more. Overall great day but the black flies were out, and lightly biting at times on the hike up. On the return they mysteriously disappeared.

One disheartening thing about Crane Mountain was the trash situation around the pond. Typically the southern and western Adirondacks seem to suffer more from irresponsible and just downright lazy disgusting people who feel that it's too much effort to carry out the stuff they brought in.

Unfortunately, this attitude is contagious and trash left behind signals to the next user group that it's OK. Then things go out of control and the DEC is forced to make changes that affect everyone.

I'm hoping to organize a work crew to go in and clean this area up. Anyone reading this who is interested should drop me an email. I figure 4 or more people could circle the lake in an afternoon, disperse some of the poorly built campsites and partially burned wood, burn any burnable trash and pack out the many plastic bottles, and bits of broken glass.

To anyone reading this looking for information on campsites (and I know you do because of I see your search strings to get to my site) please have some respect for yourself. Yes for yourself, and pack out what you bring in. Keep in mind that the trash you leave can only end up 2 places, in the forest, or in the pond. And that in either place it will remain there pretty much permanently.

While one bottle, one wrapper, one cigarette butt might seem harmless, the cumulative effects are not. And it's pretty selfish and just plain disrespectful to literally destroy someplace that you, and others that follow you, obviously thought enough off to expend your sweat and energy to hike into.

The 6.5 million acres that forms the Adirondack Forest Preserve might seem inexhaustable, but if enough people carelessly abuse it out of nothing more than laziness, we will be left with nothing but a giant wilderness landfill.

Give a hoot, don't pollute.

technorati tags:Adirondacks, ADK, Daks, Hiking, Camping, Crane Mountain, Crane Mountain Pond, Au Sable Club, Adirondack Mountain Reserve, Adirondack Forest Preserve, park, Ausable River, Rainbow Falls, Gill Brook, Pentax, Limited, K10D

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