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Mallet Pond State Forest, Aug 29

Andy | August 29, 2010

Mallet Pond State Forest is a smaller state forest (2,584 acres) across the valley from the Burnt-Rossman Hills. While smaller, it is still rugged and remote, with rough dirt roads, two ponds, camping sites, and public lands to explore. Many of the roads around it are poorly marked and heavily posted, however if you follow the below map, and drive up to Summit on NY 10, and take Sawyer Hollow Road to Rossman Fly Road, it’s not as bad to locate.

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Rossman Fly Road. This is from the intersection, as it head down into the valley where Rossman Pond and Mallet Pond are located.

Rossman Pond. There are a series of hunting campings and private houses located along the other shore. The state only owns about 1000 feet of frontage along the lake, basically enough for a campsite and a parking area.

Campsite at Rossman Pond. This is one of the many informal campsites in the area. None of them have designated markers, and don’t comply with state set backs, but as witnessed by the wear and tear on the grass, and mention in the Unit Management Plan, they are well used and recognized as such.

I drove down to Mallet Pond Parking Area. Unlike Rossman Pond, Mallet Pond actually has a sign showing where it is. There are no other signs for Mallet Pond from here on down, but the road is easy to follow to the pond.

Gate at Mallet Pond. There is a gate 1/2 mile from Mallet Pond. Normally I don’t like gates and keeping the public from driving down to their lands, but Mallet Pond is kind of nice being so remote for camping, fishing, or wild life observation. Rossman Pond, which you can drive right up to, has no such gate.

Path Down to Mallet Pond. It’s handicap accessible and if their wasn’t the gate, you could drive all the way down to the pond.

Mallet Pond. It certainly is a beautiful little pristine pond, a ways off the beaten track.

Campsite. For being the “party” lake for SUNY Cobelskill students, it was remarkably clean and well upkept. Maybe those farm kids actually take care of the land. Actually, most of the lands around here are well upkept, in part thanks to Ranger Tom Edmons too.

Pond from Campsite. It certainly was a pretty little campsite up on the bank.

Cattle Skull. This cattle skull was hung up at the campsite on a tree. Cool! It appears to be from a dehorned cow, and the lower jaw is missing. I’m guessing it was brought on up by a SUNY Cobelskill Ag Student.

Butterfly. Pollinating a wildflower along Mallet Pond.

Mallet Pond. Standing up on the embankment of the dam.

Mallet Pond Dam. The earthen dam that makes up Mallet Pond is about 30 feet high. You wouldn’t know it unless you look at it from a top the dam.

Goldrod. Walking along the eastern side of Mallet Pond.

Edge of Mallet Pond’s embankment is made up these large flat shale rocks, and lined with them to discourage erosion over it’s massive earthern dam.

The upper pond is Rossman Pond, with the campsite right by the parking area. The lower pond is Mallet Pond, which you have to hike down to. Both ponds have undesignated but popular campsites.

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Camping at Mountain Pond, Aug 14

Andy | August 14, 2010

Mountain Pond is located about 2 miles North of Paul Smiths College on an old routing of NY 30. It is in Debar Mountain Wild Forest, with 2 large campsites on the pond, 3 smaller ones on or near the pond, and 10 other along Mountain Pond Road. It’s little used due to it’s remote location, and easy to even get one of the large sites on the lake on the weekends.

Old NY 30 Signs. Along Mountain Pond Road/Old NY 30, you can see the road signs dating back to the 1960s or maybe even earlier, prior to modern alignment of NY 30.

Campsite 4. Here is the view of Campsite 4 from Old NY 30/Mountain View Road and down by the lake. A nice campsite, big, roomy, and private, although the much smaller Campsites 5 is fairly close.

Making Up Blueberry Cake Mix. Here I’m the Blueberry Cake Mix, and getting ready to add the Blueberries I picked up at Moose River Plains. Should be real good.

Baking in Dutch Oven. That sure smells good, doesn’t it. I put the pan that the mix was in dutch oven up on rocks, so it didn’t burn the bottom of the cake, and made sure to add adequate coals to the top to keep things cooking evenly.

Mountain Pond in the Evening.

First Rays of Sunshine. I purposefully picked this campsite, and parked my truck so that the first rays of the sun, would come through the truck cap, and wake me up around the crack of down (around 6:35 AM this time of year).

Getting Out and Stretch. That’s my rig with all the messy camping gear and sleeping stuff around, as I first awake in the morning.

Sunshine. Sparkling on the pond, first thing in the morning. Real purty.

Ropes. These are the ropes and bungee cords I use to secure the kayak on the roof. Seems to work well on the kayak blocks.

Gear All Packed Up. Now just to get the kayak up on the roof.

Here is a map of the camping area.

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Owls Head Mountain Firetower (Long Lake)

Andy | August 11, 2010

There are at least three different mountains in the Adirondacks known as Owls’ Head due to their small rounded peaks, with broad cols for shoulders. This one is the one near Long Lake, that has a 30 foot LS 45 Aermotor Firetower on top of it.

Sargent Ponds Wild Forest Kiosk. This is where you sign in, so they can have an idea on trail use, and make it easier to find you if your lost or injured.

1/2 Mile In. The trail crosses this downed tree.

Boardwalks. Parts of the trail cross marshy areas on board walks, like these constructed on the first 3/4 mile of the trail.

T Intersection. Make a left at one mile, to go up Owls Head. The other direction takes you to the Lake Eaton State Campground.

Grown Over Steel Trail Marker. It looks like in 1982, the state experimented with these imprinted steel trail markers along the trail, long since largely grown into the barks of the tree.

Views as You Ascend. This is looking backwards, towards the Sargent Ponds Wilderness, Lake Eaton, and the timber lands between here and Tupper Lake.

Observers Cabin Ruins. The cabin the fire warden lived in years ago, is not located on top of Owl’s Head, but below it on the shoulder. It’s a 1/4 mile hike to the top, and you accent about 200 more feet, up the pointly little head. The cabin was probably located here, so the warden could meet visitors, and escort them to the top.

Well Worn Trail. Part of the trail is well worn, and is on open rock face. The good news however is with the lush tree cover, you don’t have to worry about acrophobia up here.

Reaching the Tower. You can’t see the fire tower until your almost on top of it, due to the heavy trees that surround the summit of the mountain, except for the bald portion where the tower is located, open to views to the south and east.

Survey Marker. It says it was placed in 1942 by USGS. It’s right below the fire tower proper.

Fire Tower. The fire tower is a 30 foot LS 45 Aermotor tower, pretty typical for NY State. It’s one of the short little towers, like also seen on Rondaxe Mountain in Eagle Bay.

Forked Lake. This is looking south from the summit towards Forked Lake Campground and possibly Racquette Lake. The mountain in the distance is Wakely Mountain, one of the other fire towers originally used to pin-point fires in the Adirondacks (it takes two towers to locate a fire through triangulation).

Long Lake. This is another picture of Long Lake, a little bit farther north, with the shoulder/col of Owls Head visible in the foreground.

North. In the distance is Saranac Lake and Lake Placid, with Whiteface just beyond it. Not the clearest or nicest of days, but still visable. In the foreground is the col/shoulder of Owls Head.

Blue Mountain. Blue Mountain is another fire tower / mountain that is visible from Owls Head. Located about 10 miles away, in the foreground are Minnow Pond and Mud Pond.

Sargent Ponds Area & Timberland. This portion north of NY 28 Corridor and Fulton Chain of Lakes is relatively flat, wild, and many portions privately owned as timberland.

Float Plane. Owls Head is not the quietest mountain out there. Throughout the day, tourist float planes for hire, fly on and off Long Lake, just to north of mountain. They fly quiet low, as they are making the decent back to Long Lake.

Long Lake Village. While hazy today, you can see village of Long Lake quite well from the tower. It’s always crazy there, and I try to avoid towns whenever I’m in the Adirondacks.

Fire Tower Corner. I always like pictures of the angles and construction of the fire tower. While common after climbing so many, fire towers have a lot of character in their structural steel.

Tower Cabin Closed. It’s unfortunate but the tower’s cabin on this tower is closed, as it’s used for communications equipment.

Sitting on Mountain. Just sitting back and looking south from the open rock face a top Owls Head.

Old Telephone Poll. Descending the trail off Owls Head, I saw several of the old telephone poles, heading up to the former Ranger’s cabin. Some have been cut down, and used to control run-off on the trail, but others still remain.

Here is a map of the hike.

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Pillsbury Mountain Firetower

Andy | July 31, 2010

Pillsbury Mountain Firetower is located at the edge of the Jessup River Wild Forest and the West Canada Wilderness. To reach there, you have to drive North of Spectulator, and take about 6 miles of fairly smooth logging roads through International Paper’s Perkins Clearing Easement.

Hiking Bridge Across Miami River. Not that th Miami River really deserves to be called a river, but on the trail up the Pillsbury Mountain, its particularly small.

Taking the trail Up Pillsbury Mountain. It’s about two miles long, and not a difficult hike, although you do gain about 1200 in elevation.

About a 1/4 mile before reaching the tower, reach marshy and thick boreal forest that the trail passes through, with some re-routes to avoid the muck kicked up over the years.

Approaching Fire Tower.

People Die Here. I kid you not, that’s what the cabin says when you first get here. Combined with the creepy fire tower top, it’s kind of neat.

Tower Cabin. That sure looks scary, doesn’t it? Now I understand why people die up here, probably with a secret DEC Forest Ranger, who hides up there, shooting at people he or she doesn’t like. Or maybe not.

The tower is pretty conventional with normal looking landings, a rangers cabin, and a clearing for a helicopter to land in an emergency.

The views from the tower are quite great. Looking east thru the Jessup River Wild Forest.

Snowy Mountain to the North. If you look carefully, you can see the tower up top of it.

South towards Lake Pleasant and Spectulator.

Moose River Plans and West Canada Creek Wilderness from Pillsbury Mountain Fire Tower.

North towards Cedar River Flow and Wakely Mountain. If you look carefully, you should be able to see the Wakely Mountain Firetower from here.

Map of the hike.

View Pillsbury Mountain in a larger map

Rocky Mountain (Inlet)

Andy | July 25, 2010

Near Inlet, NY there is a small ledge above Sixth Lake, that is a popular short hike with views of Sixth Lake and surrounding lands. The views aren’t as good as Rondaxe/Bald Mountain, but still are an interesting, half hour hike.

Rocky Mountain Trailhead Sign. Which is great they tell us the elevation of the mountain, but what is the elevation of the parking area? While I know the hike is only an ascent of 400 feet, why couldn’t they just tell us that fact? Silly DEC!

The Rocky Mountain Trail while short, is fairly steep, with a few places being almost a scramble.

The views off Rocky Mountain are somewhat interesting, but not spectacular as those from Rondaxe just a little ways down the road. Forth Lake is the closest lake, and the one you get the best view from her.

You have many good views of NY 28, such as this one widing down southernly toward Eagle Bay.

A top Rocky, you can see how this mountain got it’s name.

The ridges in this part of the Adirondacks, remind me a little bit farther south around Good Luck Cliffs and NY 10.

Here is a map of the hike.

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Wakely Mountain Firetower

Andy | July 22, 2010

On the afternoon of Thursday July 22nd I hiked up to the Wakley Mountain Firetower. The weather wasn’t perfect, but it was still quite popular, passing several hikers and families visting this tower. The views are pretty good, but probably not as good as Pillsbury Mountain or Snowy Mountain to the south. The nice thing is it’s a 5 minute drive from Cedar River Flow and pretty close from Moose River Plans too, and provides a great overview of the Plains.

You can print the above map, by clicking it, to be taken to a high resolution (500 DPI) that will print nicely on a laser or inkjet printer.

When you first start up the mountain, you pass a “Warning! Road Washed Out” sign. This sign is at the parking area for Wakely Mountain, to warn drivers that they won’t get very far on Wakely Mountain Road, since the DEC has basically abandoned it.

Washed Out Road to Wakely Mountain. I honestly don’t expect the DEC to fix this road, but instead will make people walk the entire 3 miles up the mountain, because that keeps the eco-facists happy.

The End of Wakely Road. That said, you’d be hard press to get a vehicle this far, due to the wash out at the earlier marsh.

As you climb, you pass this big boulder On side of Wakely.

The first two miles of the trail are pretty flat, a small incline that increases above 400 feet in elevation over two miles.

Marsh Along Wakely Mountain Trail. That’s Payne Mountain, not Wakely Mountain in the background.

The Final Mile. You might think the previous two miles of the Wakely Mountain trail where easy, rising maybe 300 feet, until you hit the last mile, as indicated by this sign. It’s another 1200 feet on up for that last mile.

The trail up Wakely Mountain is badly eroded due to heavy use and neglect by the DEC.

The last mile up Wakely Mountain is a long one, especially if you start late in the afternoon as I did. You are treated with some limited views while climbing Wakely Mountain, but all and all, there isn’t a lot to see except steep trail (but no open rock face!).

Once you almost reach the top of the mountain, you come to the Wakely Mountain Helipad. This is used by emergency responders, providing quick access to the top of mountain, to either access the tower for observation, or to help those injured on top of the mountain.

Next to helipad is a trash pile. I was wondering how this trash ended up top of the mountain, but after thinking about it a bit, it probably was trash from the ranger’s cabin, that was dumped here some time in the past, and was dug up in the re-construction of the helipad.

Eventually you reach the fire tower, about a 500 feet from the Helipad. The Wakely Fire Tower is an interesting Aeromotor LS 25 tower, that originally lacked a staircase, but was added in the form of an internal ladder, for the convience of hikers and the fire warden alike. Prior to the 1919 addition of the “stairs tower within the fire tower”, you had to climb a ladder on the side of the tower, to get all 60 feet to the top of the tower.

Here is the original ladder you had to climb. They removed the lower flights to discourage people from trying to use the ladder, although the stairs themselves also lack any safety fencing, so it’s a bit scary if your not used to climbing towers.

A close up over the tower within the tower.

The firetower presents one with spectular views of the upper Moose River Plains, from the marshy end of Cedar River Flow to the Lost Ponds area, to around Wakely Dam and Wakely Pond.

To the east is the Blue Ridge Wilderness and Blue Mountain.

Looking down towards Indian Lake from the Fire Tower. There are many beautiful peaks to the south east.

You can also see the High Peaks from Wakley Mountain.

And the Fulton Chain of Lakes.

Cellar Mountain somewhat blocks the views to the west, as you look down to the plains, towards the ridges that follow along the NY 28 Corridor.

The tower’s foundation sadly is in bad shape and needs work. The cabin of the tower is also only accessible via ladder, if your crazy enough to do that. It lacks safety fences on the various landings. Hopefully the state will find the funds and resources to restore this beautiful and popular tower, even though it’s likely to be expensive due to the need to use to Helicopter in supplies and possibly ironworkers to restore it.

A Google Map of the hike…

View Wakely Mountain Firetower in a larger map

Giant Mountain

Andy | July 11, 2010

About three weeks ago I decided I wanted to go hiking in the Adirondack High Peaks. It was my first time hiking there, and it probably will be the last time I go up there for a while, mainly because of the absurdly bad fear of heights. A 120 mile drive from Albany, it took me about 2 1/2 hours to reach the trail head on NY 73.

The first part of the trail is steep (as is most of the trail), but with limited views.

After 3/4 mile of a hike, it opens up to a ledge with views of the Keene Valley.

Shortly there after you reach the Giant Washbowl, a mountain pond with interesting views, surrounded by mountains.

You also get a neat view of Nubble.

There are two primative campsites along Giants’ Washbowl with no facilities except some logs to sit on.

You cross Giants’ Washbowl on a log.

With the confirous trees surrounding Giants’ Washbowl you would have no idea what season it was from this picture.

Past Giants’ Washbowl, the trail gets steeper and goes through a series of switch backs as you continue to climb.

At about 2 miles the trail opens up to a series of open rock scrambles, where you walk along a ledge of sloped rocks. It did nothing for me.

Literally, the trail runs right along this sloped ledge. These open ledges just made me sick. I started to puke, with my fear of heights kicking in as as scrambled along this.

That and seeing the maggots swarming over this piece of dung right on the trail did nothing for me.

That said, the views from this ledge where spectular.

I continued to climb another 300 feet or so on the trail, when I decided to go back, but I did get a chance to get some pretty awesome pictures from up above.

On a rock ledge, looking down at Giants’ Washbowl.

And Noomatic Mountain.

Looking South-West towards Pharoah Mountain Wilderness.

Dix Mountain and surrounding range.

At any rate, this kind of hiking did nothing for me. I decided to descend Giant Mountain, and not spend much more time in the High Peaks Range for the foreseeable future. As much as I enjoy spending time outdoors, the High Peaks with their significant ascent and the open faces just is no fun. Just writing about this mountain and looking at the pictures makes me want to barf again!

Map of the hike:

View Giant Mountain in a larger map