After I finished skiing at Whiteface on Saturday morning I had a quick bite of lunch in the village of Wilmington down below. I still had half a day and didn’t want to drive home right away. I thought maybe it would be best not to overdo the skiing by going back up Whiteface – even though the cloud cover had now lifted. Instead I headed to nearby Poke-o-Moonshine peak for a climb to visit another firetower. This peak is considerably lower than Whiteface and somewhat in its shadow (weather-wise) so there was only a small amount of snow on the trail – back to fall after a short ½ hour drive!
The climb is pretty steep (1200ft in a mile) though so it was a good afternoon workout. Care had to be taken in a few spots as the rocks were somewhat icy but for the most part the climb was straightforward. The tower sits on a mostly bald summit with a particularly nice view east to the Green mountains of Vermont. They were looking decidedly white as well so I guess high elevation peaks throughout the northeast got brushed by the same storm. After some time spent soaking in the views I started to make my way back down to the car. It’s getting dark really early these days.
This will probably be my last climbing of the season. It’s been a good year despite the sprained ankle and the broken fingers. I climbed 16 4000fters and 9 “firetower peaks”. That number would surely have been higher if I hadn’t been forced to take a 6 week “break” in the middle of the summer. I didn’t camp enough and I got perhaps a little too focused on the Adirondacks this year. These are items I can work on next year. Making the longer drive to Maine and New Hampshire will force me to camp a bit more so I’ll probably fix those up with one adjustment to my itinerary. Not that I won’t still come back to the Daks… but rather expand the range again to cover more ground. With luck Ottawa will start to get some snow this week and the ski season at home can begin in earnest. Time to get all my skis out and strip off the storage wax and get them ready to roll.
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