Winter is just around the corner in the Wilmington Notch
With brown grass showing on the ground in town and parkways of glare icy in the park I packed up my gear and headed to Lake Placid on Monday. The drive down didn’t inspire much as I passed through Saranac Lake and Lake Placid which only showed a light dusting of snow in the woods. Heavy clouds engulfed Whiteface and the Wilmington notch but I popped back into snow free terrain as I drove into Wilmington itself. Up to the ARSC parking lot and still only a dusting of snow…. But still the black clouds loomed up on the mountain itself. Loaded up and started up the Marble mountain trail. The first mile is along an old rope tow treadway from the long abandoned “Paleface” ski area. Its grade is straight, consistent and contained only small patches of ice to slow my progress. As I got to the top the ice patches grew bigger but still had a few dry rocks to navigate over the ice. I passed a group from Montreal putting on “les pointes” just blow the summit but I was still making good progress with bare boots so opted to continue.
Winter on Table mountain - and the snow hides the glare ice
Above the Marble mt. summit I could see the dark clouds looming above and pressed on for the next climb up Table mountain. Again the climbing was pretty easy going but sections of ice were getting bigger and more difficult to negotiate. Still, for some reason unclear to me, I pressed on bare booting as I always seemed to be able to find a bare rock here or a branch there to navigate an icy slope. Finally, on the summit of Table mountain I was in the clouds and winter greeted me. Icy winds whipped the trees and a steady (albeit light) snow was falling. The snow served its purpose of hiding the icy spots so I finally stopped and put on the spikes. Don’t know why I had waited so long as – with the spikes in place the walking became more akin to a stroll along a summer side walk. Ice, hidden or otherwise, became a non-issue. Took the herdpath over to Esther (a sub summit of Whiteface) and made good progress although the temperature and windchill took a decidedly wintery turn. The herdpath is narrow and while there wasn’t much snow, each tree I pushed past left me coated in hoarfrost. Summited Esther in good form though and took some photos and had some eats. No views today but still a pleasant place to sit for a spell.
Wintery col on the way to Esther - no trouble crossing the bogs today
At this point I decided not to carry on to Whiteface. I had a dinner appointment back home and the winds were really whipping over the trees here so I knew that the exposed summit of Whiteface wouldn’t be too pleasant. Instead I turned back down the trail and greeted a good number of groups (all Quebecois) coming up behind me. Kept the spikes on until almost back down to the base of Marble mountain and the icy patches were trivial to navigate. Finally took them off when the trail was all but ice free and – with 100m or so to the car – found a good patch of ice to take my first and only grand “feet over head” wipe out of the day. Nothing damaged thankfully and, after carefully checking to see that nobody was around to see it (okay, dignity intact), made my way up to the car to end the day. A nice hike today and good to find winter is alive and well… somewhere.
Can you guess the prevailling wind direction through the trees?
2 comments:
Crampons or microspikes
Microspikes but I was lucky there wasn't much difficult ice. Other trails in the Adk aren't reporting as lucky. I carried crampons but didn't need them.
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