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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Sleeping Beauty Of Lake George

After getting squared away with the new car that killed a few weekends of potential outdoor adventure, I was ready for a hike this weekend.

Originally it was supposed to be beautiful Saturday and deteriorate Sunday. Thats ok, I can hike just fine in the rain but installing power outlets, and speakers just doesn't work in the rain. So after doing some mods to the new Adventure Mobile it was hike planning time.

With the weather forecast being wrong as usual, Sunday turned out to be another near perfect day. I didn't want to drive far or undertake a hard hike. So I had quite a few hikes in the Southern Adirondacks on the planning board.

Caney Bear hasn't been on a hike since the end of January when he got sick with kidney stones and a bladder infection. Which he promptly followed up with a bout of colitis (probably from stress following surgery) He is only about 6 weeks post surgery for the stone removal and only healthy for about 10 days. However, he is a Border Collie, and he is happiest when he is tired from activity.



Aimee Bear just awoke from a 6 month hibernation. During which time she slept on a bed that was not too hard, not to soft, but just right. Dreaming of room temperature days that were not too hot, not too cold, but just right.



I've never hiked Sleeping Beauty Mountain but I've always found the hiking around Lake George to be as scenic as anywhere in the entire Adirondack Forest Preserve. The thing I like about the Lake George area is that I never expect solitude, but if we find it it's a huge bonus.





The Sleeping Beauty trail head is a relatively short drive from home. It was also a great test for the Suzuki SX4 we just got. Usually 10 miles of dirt roads is something we dread. But the SX4 is perfectly at home doing 40mph down twisty loose gravel dirt roads. Throw in a few mud slicks, some ruts, and some tight elbow turns and you have the makings of a fun drive. Well a fun drive for me, not my passengers.

This time of the year is strange in that it's not very pretty but there also aren't any bugs, whom don't typically arrive till mid May. While the lack of leaves and brush creates a wide open forest, and uncluttered views, the forest no longer offers any protection from the sun. I've had my fair share of April sunburns over the years from late spring hikes. Sunday's hike was no different, 15 degrees warmer than forecast and no refuge from the sun.

Having checked the DEC website I knew we'd have to park at the Shelving Rock Road trail head as the Dacy Clearing road was closed because of mud. Usually it opens later in the year and cuts 1.6 miles off the hike.

The road to Dacy Clearing is a pleasant walk and only added about 30 minutes to the hike at a leisurely pace.



Along the way we passed quite a bit of stone work, perhaps from homesteads, and some of which was from the CCC of the 1930s such as the Bumps Pond horse trail.



Unfortunately, we could a switchback right below the summit of Sleeping Beauty and ended up bypassing the view points and going straight across the summit plateau without the views. By the time I realized we missed the summit we were just starting out descent towards Bumps Pond. Oh well, I wanted to see the pond anyway, so we kept going rather than backtrack through the abundant blow down that fills the trail between the summit and Bumps Pond.



I felt bad for myself, but worse for the girls that blindly followed us and also missed the summit.

Bumps Pond was a pleasant little high mountain pond. Not too large but big on scenery even this early in the year.



The hike out over the horse trail was fast and easy.



Overall it was 7.2 miles and 2700 ft gained and lost over 4 hours.

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Chasing Sunsets Above Lake George

On my day off for the holiday Monday I decided to change things up. Rather than shoot for a sunset, I'd sleep in and do an afternoon hike of a mountain on Lake Georges eastern shore.

While this area is amazingly close to where I live , really we've only done a handful of hikes in the region over the years. Lots of options on both shores and a short distance beyond including Black Mountain (done in 2001), Buck Mountain, Shelving Rock Mountain, Sleeping Beauty, Cat Head, Crane, and the Tongue Mountain Range (done in 2002). Since I'm headed back to the beautiful Tongue Range in a few weeks I narrowed it down to Sleeping Beauty or Buck Mountain.

photo: Aim and Caney on Black Mountain c. 2003 with Lake George in the background.

Buck Mountain is a 2300ft mountain on the lakes eastern shore, with near 360* views of the surrounding lakes and mountains. Although the 300ft elevation of the trail head gives this hike a respectable 4000ft gain/loss over 6.4 miles, the hike up is downright gentle by northeastern and Adirondack standards. Most of the hike, if not all of it would make for a very fine ski if there is enough snow, and the skiers did not mind the several stream crossings to be navigated. Only the last 200ft or so is very steep (more than a few percent grade with dropoffs).

So I got to the trail head about 2:30pm. After lacing my boots and then deciding with the wind that my little 2.5 tripod would fair no worse than my 9lb tripod, I was off.

I left the snowshoes, there hasn't been much snow, and with the warm spell and rain I was actually expecting more ice. I took my crampons, but never even considered using them.

On the hike up I passed what looks like a nice little rock climb on a detached boulder. I didn't get close, but I snapped a shot of it to remind me to come back. It was a 40ft+ right leaning fist crack that joined up with another fist to off width crack to reach the top of the boulder. There are also a few waterfalls along the trail. In spring I am sure this is a great little hike with kids, or for photographers looking for cascades and wildflowers. I stopped off at 2 of them which in the end probably cost me the sunset from the summit.

The guide book said this approach (the south) was more scenic, and had views, but unless they were specifically talking about winter, I don't see how you could see a thing with the trees in bloom. Not only that, but graded climbs are the pits, I like to feel like I am making progress and switch backs and wide trails make me feel the opposite.

That said, there were great views of the sunset, and it was a beautiful day. The summit is very nice, with great views of the 22 mile Lake George, Vermont, Massachusetts, and the central Adirondacks.

I just got a wind meter to play with, so no more guessing the summit winds after this post, but for this last hike we'll have to go with my guess. I'm thinking 10-15mph with 20+mph gust. Looking at the Glens Falls weather station I probably wasn't far off, and the summits are always windier. In any case, photography at 6*F (-14C) in 20mph gust isn't all that appealing. So I put on my down jacket and worked really fast to get something before I got too cold.

I'd missed the sunset, actually saw it through the trees, and darn it was nice. One thing about sunsets, unlike the sunrise which is anticlimactic, a sunset isn't over till I say it is. And if you are persistent, you can create some really spectacular images that even the naked eye can't see because of the subtleties of the light.

So I took about 20 images (ranging from 1/15s to 1/2s) with my camera on a tripod and a cable release to activate the shutter, while I blocked the wind from hitting the camera. After about 10 minutes we cleared out pretty quick.

I hauled down the descent of the steep rock to get warm, by the time we hit the trees (about 2 minutes) I was toasty warm.

On the hike out the light of the rising full moon was hard to miss. It was casting shadows so strong I was forced to use my headlamp to counteract them. I got to a point where I was thinking about some photo ideas I had which involved a moonlit landscape, a large moon (close to full), and my trusty headlamp. This is all experimental but the results aren't bad for 4 attempts.

The results (20 seconds, f/13, tripod, cable release, headlamp to "paint" light on the tree):

The rest of the hike out was uneventful, other than wishing I had a set of short fat approach skis/snowshoe skis to glide out on.

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