Bill Ingersoll - 50 Hikes in the Adirondack Mountains

IN THE ADIRONDACK
MOUNTAINS

FIRST EDITION

Bill Ingersoll

THE COUNTRYMAN PRESS

A division of W. W. Norton & Company

Independent Publishers Since 1923

AN INVITATION TO THE READER

Over time trails can be rerouted and signs and landmarks altered. If you find that changes have occurred on the routes described in this book, please let us know so that corrections may be made in future editions. The author and publisher also welcome other comments and suggestions. Address all correspondence to:

Editor, 50 Hikes Series

The Countryman Press

500 Fifth Avenue

New York, NY 10110

Copyright 2019 by The Countryman Press

All photographs by the author

Maps by Michael Borop (sitesatlas.com)

Map data provided by The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation

All rights reserved

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, The Countryman Press, 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10110

For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact W. W. Norton Special Sales at specialsales@wwnorton.com or 800-233-4830

Series book design by Chris Welch

Production manager: Gwen Cullen

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available

The Countryman Press

www.countrymanpress.com

A division of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

500 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10110

www.wwnorton.com

978-1-68268-303-3 (pbk.)

978-1-68268-304-0 (ebk.)

Contents

I ts hard to believe that I have been in the guidebook business for nearly twenty years. I began as a young, inexperienced hiker in 1997, fresh out of college and completely blown away by this concept called wilderness. I made a couple embarrassing mistakes before I realized that some of the information I neededspecifically, where to go and the best way to get therehad been collated for me and published in book form. I read all of Barbara McMartins guides, and in 2000 I became one of her assistants. The first book with my name on the cover came out in 2001, and there have been many more since then.

ON THE TRAIL TO PEAKED MOUNTAIN

Being a guidebook writer has given me the pretext I needed to systematically explore every region of the 6-million-acre Adirondack Park. Granted, I probably wouldve found the motivation to do that anyway, but the books have challenged me to become the most knowledgeable person I can beand they have provided an outlet for sharing that knowledge with others.

You can search online for information on a hike, and the collective wisdom of the Internet will inundate you with a virtual mountain of trip reports and photo blogs. But the act of flipping through the pages of a printed book will provide you with answers to questions you never knew you should ask. While looking up a reference to, say, Indian Pass, you may also accidentally learn about Long Pond, a completely different adventure in a part of the park youve never visited before. Suddenly youre planning two adventures instead of one.

For me, writing 50 Hikes in the Adirondack Mountains was an opportunity to revisit dozens of old friends: the West Canada Lakes, Crane Mountain, Gothics, Winding Falls, and more than forty other places that I have come to know well over the years. Looking back at the list of the fifty hikes, I see only four that were completely new discoveries for methat is, trails I had never hiked before. Ill leave what those four were to your imagination.

By writing this book, I am giving you the inside scoop on some of my favorite places. Id hate very much to return and find them trashed by careless and thoughtless people. These are my friends, spots Ive come to love, and I am entrusting them to your care. Treat them with the respect they deserve.

The process of revisiting these friends (and getting acquainted with some new ones) has been fun. In this book youll see photos of two of my canine companions: Lexie, who lived to be a sixteen-year-old adventure dog; and Bella, the young pit bull I adopted in 2017 to share my travels. I was also joined on the trail by my good friend Greg Smith, as well as by members of my Adirondack Wilderness Explorers meetup group: Gary Kapps, Kalie Wolmering, Ed Hart, Sherrie Bishop, Jeffrey Levitt, Craig McGowan, and many others. Janelle Hoh joined me on a number of adventures while I was scouting routes for this book, and her companionship and trail knowledge has proven to be especially welcome.

It is my hope that these fifty hikes become more than just scenic destinations for you. May you also come to regard them as friends, taking a special interest in their future.

I n your hands is a guide to fifty hikes in New Yorks Adirondack Park. It is not a ranking of the fifty best hikes, or a listing of my fifty favorite hikes, or a guide to the fifty biggest mountains, or anything of that nature. This book is not a catalog of superlatives but a menu of ideas, intended to introduce you to a wide variety of adventures distributed throughout this wilderness park.

This is a book about the largest state park in Americaone that is larger than many national parks. At six million acres in size, the Adirondack Park covers an area as large as several states, with natural environments including quaking bogs, pristine lakes, and alpine summits. This is a lived-in park, with dozens of hamlets and thousands of year-round residents. It is a place to reconnect with nature, climb a mountain, paddle to an island, backpack without crossing a road for a weekend or a week, and discover hidden places that few people choose to see.