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Hiking Poke-O-Moonshine – 5.1.21
Last weekend Jordan and I drove up to the ADK to do a nice hike to celebrate my birthday! Poke-O-Moonshine is one of the Adirondack Firetower hikes, so it’s been on my to-do list for awhile, but it’s so far North it was never really on my radar until recently. At only 1.5 miles one way with about 1200 feet of elevation gain, it’s a fairly easy hike. We started the hike at around 4PM. Usually I like to start hiking earlier than that but we know the hike wouldn’t take that long and we had a lot of daylight left. The views from the trail were awesome!! Near the…
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Hiking the Black Mountain Firetower Loop – 9.20.20
Yesterday my friend Frank and I drove up to the Lake George area to hike Black Mountain, one of the Lake George firetowers. It was a chilly yet sunny day, perfect weather for hiking! Some of the leaves were even starting to turn. The last time I attempted to hike Black was back in July—4.5 months after ACL surgery—which proved to be too much for my knee. We never made it past the Lapland Pond lean-to. However yesterday was a much different story. It’s crazy how much of a difference 2 months can make. Granted, the hike isn’t difficult, but it is the longest hike (in mileage) I’ve done since…
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Hiking Mount Arab Firetower – 9.7.20
On the way home from our camping trip on Labor Day weekend, Jordan and I hiked Mount Arab, located right outside of Tupper Lake. I decided on this hike for a few reasons: it’s one of the mountains in the ADK Firetower Challenge that I haven’t hiked yet and it’s also part of the Tupper Lake Triad challenge. Before the hike, Jordan and I had a delicious breakfast at the Lumberjack Inn, a Tupper Lake relic! My parents had brought my sister and I here while camping as kids, so coming back here was like traveling through time! Their pancakes are amazing! After breakfast, we drove to the trailhead, located…
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Snowy Mountain Firetower – 8.6.17
On Sunday, Jordan had the day off, so he and I went hiking with my friend Skyler. I managed to convince him to hike a firetower that had been on my list for ages, Snowy Mountain. Located in Indian Lake, about a 2 hour drive North from us, it was labeled as one of the more challenging firetower hikes. This was perfect since we wanted to hike something challenging that wouldn’t take 10 hours. We got to the trailhead on the later side, around 11:15, and started hiking at 11:30. The trail starts out very flat and continues along the Beaver Brook, making it an enjoyable hike. After about 2.5…
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Hadley Mountain Firetower – 6.3.17
A few of my good friends will most likely be finishing the 46 this year! Brendan and I were planning on hiking Dial and Nippletop today, but because it’s still mud season and the forecast looked grim, yesterday we called it; we decided to stay close to home and hike Hadley Mountain. We’re both sort of hiking the Firetower Challenge and Brendan hasn’t hiked Hadley yet! It was my third time up this mountain. I think we got our latest start yet–arriving at the trailhead at 4:30pm. We weren’t concerned, as it was about a 3.1 mi hike RT. We made it to the summit just under an hour! The late…