Saranac 6er Relay

A few weeks ago a group of my hiking friends and I completed the Saranac 6er Relay in Saranac Lake. You may be familiar with the Saranac 6, a group of mountains in Saranac Lake. If you hike them all you earn the 6er patch (kind of like being a 46er). However, on Oct. 13, the town of Saranac Lake held a relay in which teams of 6 could hike the mountains (one mountain per person). We got a team together and headed up North. We rented a cabin at Whiteface KOA, which turned out to be perfect for our group. We drove up Friday evening, arrived at our cabin at around 7:30, unpacked, and walked a short distance to a local pub for dinner.

After dinner we went to bed relatively early, we had an early wake-up call to be at the center of town to start the relay at 6am. We arrived, took our photos with the Bell (you ring the bell when you finish the Saranac 6). Once the starting gun went off, we hopped in the car and drove to the first trailhead: Baker Mountain!

Since I was the first hiker to go, I hiked entirely in the dark. It wasn’t too bad since the previous weekend we had hiked Baker (full report to come, eventually), so I knew which trail to take and about how long it would take me. I hiked quickly, since it had rained the night before and it was very wet. The trail was also covered in slippery leaves, so had the trail been dry I would have been able to hike faster. I got to the summit in about 25 minutes, grabbed the cannister at the top and punched our card. Then it was time to go back down. This was my first solo hike in the dark, which was a little freaky because I kept questioning whether or not I was on the trail. I had to pull out my gps app a few times because I did get off trail once or twice. Thankfully I never got too far off track.

The total distance was about 2 miles with about 1,000 ft of gain (I’m guessing–I forgot to start my watch until I was halfway up the mountain). It took me about 50 minutes to complete. I ran to the car to meet our next hiker, Alicia, and got into the car and drove quickly to the trailhead of St Regis Mountain.

From there we each hiked our mountains, St. Regis,  Panther, Haystack, McKenzie, and finally, Scarface. The weather was pretty crazy, it even snowed a little bit. It was beautiful up there since it was peak foliage!

Everyone hiked faster than expected, so we finished just before 6pm, just under 12 hours!

We headed back to the cabin, showered (such nice warm showers at KOA!), and cooked dinner. Our teammate Francis is an amazing chef and cooked up some delicious steaks for us. Amazing!

Overall it was such a fun weekend. We had a blast hanging out together and hiking while remaining a little competitive! Definitely doing the Saranac 6er Relay next year!