Sleeping Beauty Solo Hike | cairns&carrots

Last month when the weather was warmer I decided to get outside and hike Sleeping Beauty in the Lake George area. This was my first Adirondack hike back in 2008 (before I had a blog!) and I had been meaning to go back and hike it again. Since the weather was warm and it was a pretty short hike, I felt confident that I could hike solo! I parked at the Hogstown trailhead and walked the 1.7 miles to Dacy Clearing.

This road / trail is open to snowmobiles so there were a few snowmobilers driving up and down this road. It was pretty annoying. The snow was getting mushy and would have been a pain to walk in with microspikes so I wore snowshoes for the entire hike. There was probably a foot of snow off the trail.

I continued up the trail that leads to Bump’s Pond, eventually coming to a trail leading to Erebus Mountain on the left. I continued straight, hiking around the pond.

Eventually I came a trail junction. The trail went straight to Fishbrook Pond, but I took a right to go to Sleeping Beauty. It was about 1.0 from there to the summit. The trail never got too steep!

I had the entire summit to myself!

I ate a couple bites of my lunch and then headed back down. For some reason I wasn’t thrilled to be up there by myself. Hiking with friends is so much more fun! Instead of going back the way I came, I took a different trail back down Dacy Clearing. It was 1.1 miles down and a little bit steeper than the route I took up. It came out right on the snowmobile trail I had hiked in on.

The sun was shining! It was such a nice day. I didn’t see anyone else until I started descending, which was surprising. I think I saw maybe two people wearing snowshoes. Everyone else was post-holing their way up, ruining the packed snow on the trail. It’s so frustrating.