Porter Cascade traverse
The weather looked good on Saturday so Mike and I headed down to the Peaks to get in another hike. This time we opted for a non-list peak… too many list peaks of late so it was nice to do a hike just to explore some new trail and enjoy the day – no real agenda no fixed summit to bag. I decided I’d stay down on Sunday to take in the Ironman competition so we drove down in separate vehicles… which of course means we could try a traverse. We weighed our options, bounced a few ideas around and settled on Porter and Cascade. Porter and Cascade? Aren’t they “list peaks”? Indeed, but both Mike and I had them checked off. With 2 cars we could take the lesser used approach from the Keene valley, traverse these two peaks and then drop down the short, direct trade route to the Cascade pass where we would leave the second car.


Hazy Keene valley
With Mike’s car in the Cascade pass and we drove around to the Marcy airfield in the Keene valley to get to the other trailhead. The climb from the Keene valley has an extra 1000ft of climb and is a significantly longer approach which is why it is seldom used but the trail is a good one. From the parking lot we started to climb, and then climbed and climbed and climbed some more. The day was hot and muggy which seemed to sap my energy faster than normal – glad this wasn’t one of the marathon hikes I have left on the “list”. Once we got to the first summit of Blueberry mountain we were both pretty beat but this mountain had a treat for us. As its name suggested it was covered with wild blueberries – snack time! Also along this summit ridge we came across one of the largest high ridge erratics I have ever seen. I of course had to climb it and fortunately didn’t snap both my ankles as I lept off.

No time to rest for long though as we still had more climbing to do. Here the humidity gave way to actual rain… then some sun (which pumped up the humidex to new highs) and then more rain. As we crested Porter the rain was coming down in sheets (no views) so we didn’t stay long but instead ducked into the trees for a little cover. Fortunately as we walked the ridge to Cascade the sun came out and we enjoyed some good summit time. It was still a little hazy and the clouds (and birds) were blowing around above us but on a day like this you take what you can get.

Cascade is a relatively easy peak to get to on the main trail from the Cascade pass and as a result a lot of non-hikers come up to try out high peak hiking… and today was no exception. Converse high tops and high tech running shoes, denim to basketball shorts, overstuffed packs to no pack at all… the tourist crowd has all the bases covered but anything that gets people up to enjoy the high summits is a good thing.

Finally we started down and as we did it started to rain again… I moved faster wanting to get off trail without getting too wet… but of course forgot that it was Mikes’ car in the pass… so I had to wait for him to exit the woods(with his keys) before we could load up and drive back to my car. It wasn’t too long though and soon we had cleaned up and were enjoying a beer and a burg on a patio in Keene as it had cleared up nicely in the evening. Good hike and a nice traverse.