Hard work in the Sewards
Sunday Mike and I planned to head down to the Adirondacks to hike Seward mountain. It didn’t start off on a very auspicious note as I picked Mike up at 5:30 in the pouring rain. While it was raining here the radar plots suggested it would shortly stop raining where we were going so we loaded up and hit the road anyway. Sure enough, the rain eased off as we crossed the border and there were even a few clear skies as we approached the trailhead outside of Tupper Lake – things looked positive!
I hold a bit of a love/hate relationship with the Seward range. I love its remote nature – truly a wild part of the Park. Of course that same wildness makes it a challenge to get to/from and the trails are seldom used making them tough hikes. We had decided to do a loop hike of Seward mountain. The Seward range does not have any official trails to their summits maintained by the Park authorities. Most of these “trailless” peaks have an official, “lightly maintained” herdpath to access them. A herdpath is not formally constructed or maintained but it is recognized by the Park wardens as “the” way to climb these peaks. The herdpaths are maintained by the 46r climbing club… butthis is done only rarely compared to official trails. This means the herdpaths can have a lot of blowdown to negotiate and can be a challenage even at the best of times. By providing (or accepting) an unofficial – official (if you will) path, the Park stewards provide a unique approach to these summits to concentrate the foot traffic(because people will climb them path or not), limit the development and damage caused by multiple bushwhack paths, prevent (or at least reduce) the number of rescues required for lost hikers in untracked wilderness and yet maintain (at least to some degree) the wilderness quality of these corners of the park.
Seward mountain has one official herdpath but over the last few years a second (even more unofficial) herdpath has been developed. The cutting and maintaining of this 2nd path is probably illegal but walking on it is not. The second path meets the ridge partway along between 2 of the three peaks on the ridge. With 2 paths to the ridge we decided to make a loop. We would climb the official herdpath up Seward and then walk along the ridge to Donaldson and pick up the unofficial path down before returning to the car on some woods roads thus making a circuit. Clear as Adirondack mud?
We arrived at the car park and headed off on the Blueberry footpath (an official maintained trail) that proceeds at somewhat great distance around the base of Seward mountain with zero change in elevation. It continues into the wilderness but on its way it takes us to the official Seward herdpath. Fortunately there was much to talk about (NHL draft day anyone?) along this otherwise boring section of trail so the time passed quickly. Finally we arrived at the official herdpath and started up. The path started out gently but soon enough it started to climb. It was filled with good “stick to your ribs” ADK mud and at times was little more than a bushwhack as we plowed through dense scrubby pine. As I was beginning to think this would be only mildly difficult the trail started up…. steeply up….. then very steeply up. It climbed steep rocky slabs covered with water and occasionally jumped into deep flowing streams which forced caution on every step. It was unrelenting and kept climbing steeply beyond all reason until we found ourselves into the clouds (where did the sunny skies go? Arggh!) and a gentle rain started to fall. Finally, after a last cliffy clamber up to the ridge, we came to the summit disk – fully treed with no views (and none possible inside the cloud. Quick photos were taken and then we started off to Donaldson and the route back to the car.
The path to Donaldson was much easier than the route up and in no time we arrived on the summit where the clouds had parted and Seward was now clear(sigh). More photos were taken and we quickly moved on as now – with the rain stopping – the blackflies started to devour us (or at least me as Mike had long pants, sleeves and a bug hat so he felt no ill effect to the flies). The walk down the unofficial herdpath off the ridge near Donaldson was much nicer than the way up the official herdpath. It was graded much more gently with only a couple of short scrambly bits. It became clear why this unofficial path has become the preferred route up the Sewards. Even with all the rain the trail had only slight muddy sections – a real delight. Eventually we bottomed out on the old woods road and made the long trudge back to the car. We hiked for 10.5 hours and about 23km– long day made longer by the challenging (but fun) conditions. Some days the peaks come easily while others they make you work for every step. I guess that’s why they don’t just hand out 46r badges to anyone.
Sunday Mike and I planned to head down to the Adirondacks to hike Seward mountain. It didn’t start off on a very auspicious note as I picked Mike up at 5:30 in the pouring rain. While it was raining here the radar plots suggested it would shortly stop raining where we were going so we loaded up and hit the road anyway. Sure enough, the rain eased off as we crossed the border and there were even a few clear skies as we approached the trailhead outside of Tupper Lake – things looked positive!
I hold a bit of a love/hate relationship with the Seward range. I love its remote nature – truly a wild part of the Park. Of course that same wildness makes it a challenge to get to/from and the trails are seldom used making them tough hikes. We had decided to do a loop hike of Seward mountain. The Seward range does not have any official trails to their summits maintained by the Park authorities. Most of these “trailless” peaks have an official, “lightly maintained” herdpath to access them. A herdpath is not formally constructed or maintained but it is recognized by the Park wardens as “the” way to climb these peaks. The herdpaths are maintained by the 46r climbing club… butthis is done only rarely compared to official trails. This means the herdpaths can have a lot of blowdown to negotiate and can be a challenage even at the best of times. By providing (or accepting) an unofficial – official (if you will) path, the Park stewards provide a unique approach to these summits to concentrate the foot traffic(because people will climb them path or not), limit the development and damage caused by multiple bushwhack paths, prevent (or at least reduce) the number of rescues required for lost hikers in untracked wilderness and yet maintain (at least to some degree) the wilderness quality of these corners of the park. 
Seward mountain has one official herdpath but over the last few years a second (even more unofficial) herdpath has been developed. The cutting and maintaining of this 2nd path is probably illegal but walking on it is not. The second path meets the ridge partway along between 2 of the three peaks on the ridge. With 2 paths to the ridge we decided to make a loop. We would climb the official herdpath up Seward and then walk along the ridge to Donaldson and pick up the unofficial path down before returning to the car on some woods roads thus making a circuit. Clear as Adirondack mud?
We arrived at the car park and headed off on the Blueberry footpath (an official maintained trail) that proceeds at somewhat great distance around the base of Seward mountain with zero change in elevation. It continues into the wilderness but on its way it takes us to the official Seward herdpath. Fortunately there was much to talk about (NHL draft day anyone?) along this otherwise boring section of trail so the time passed quickly. Finally we arrived at the official herdpath and started up. The path started out gently but soon enough it started to climb. It was filled with good “stick to your ribs” ADK mud and at times was little more than a bushwhack as we plowed through dense scrubby pine. As I was beginning to think this would be only mildly difficult the trail started up…. steeply up….. then very steeply up. It climbed steep rocky slabs covered with water and occasionally jumped into deep flowing streams which forced caution on every step. It was unrelenting and kept climbing steeply beyond all reason until we found ourselves into the clouds (where did the sunny skies go? Arggh!) and a gentle rain started to fall. Finally, after a last cliffy clamber up to the ridge, we came to the summit disk – fully treed with no views (and none possible inside the cloud. Quick photos were taken and then we started off to Donaldson and the route back to the car. 
The path to Donaldson was much easier than the route up and in no time we arrived on the summit where the clouds had parted and Seward was now clear(sigh). More photos were taken and we quickly moved on as now – with the rain stopping – the blackflies started to devour us (or at least me as Mike had long pants, sleeves and a bug hat so he felt no ill effect to the flies). The walk down the unofficial herdpath off the ridge near Donaldson was much nicer than the way up the official herdpath. It was graded much more gently with only a couple of short scrambly bits. It became clear why this unofficial path has become the preferred route up the Sewards. Even with all the rain the trail had only slight muddy sections – a real delight. Eventually we bottomed out on the old woods road and made the long trudge back to the car. We hiked for 10.5 hours and about 23km– long day made longer by the challenging (but fun) conditions. Some days the peaks come easily while others they make you work for every step. I guess that’s why they don’t just hand out 46r badges to anyone. 
3 comments:
Well done guys! Looks like I missed an epic adventure. I'll have to catch you on the second pass.
PS: I just checked ebay, apparently you can't buy these 46er patches either. No way but the hard way.
Epic is correct. Muddy, wet, overgrown, buggy, rocky, steep...fun!
There will be more chances... Mike is already working on his double 46r credit so he has to go back for Emmons (2nd time) and I don't think walking back and forth over the summit of Seward counts for 2 summits ;-)
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