September 28th, 2018
Today we woke up at 3:15am! We wanted to start the hike before 5am since we wanted to get in 3 peaks today (Algonquin, Iroquois and Wright.) We drove through the dark and saw 22 deer on our way to the trailhead. We arrived at the Adirondack Loj at 4:30ish, force fed ourselves bananas and organized our bags. We were on the trail around 5am.
We were the first people to sign in for Algonquin today so we knew we’d be alone on the trail. It was our first time hiking in the dark. It was pretty easy to see with our headlamps but the further in we went the more and more I was becoming scared of running into a bear or something. Luckily the first hour of the trail was straightforward so we didn’t have to worry about going the wrong way or anything.
The sun finally came up around 6:45 and we reached Macintyre falls. We had a quick snack break and took out our poles since things were getting rocky.
Shortly after the falls the trail started to climb more and got a bit more challenging. There were a few big rock scrambles and it had rained a lot the day before which made things slippery.
We huffed and puffed our way up the rocks and we were starting to be passed by a few people.
We finally reached the junction to Wright Peak and we decided to keep on heading up towards Algonquin. It was pretty busy by the junction and it seemed to be a popular resting point. Our goal was to do Algonquin and Iroquois and see if we had energy for Wright.
When we looked behind us the views were getting pretty impressive. We noticed it was getting cloudier the higher we went which was not what we were expecting.
Things were getting steeper and we got slower. The rock slabs were slippery and we had a few near misses. Falling down this slab would be scary and embarrassing!
The higher we climbed we realized we would for sure be in the clouds on the summit. Oh well I guess! We got past the tree line and climbed up the rock face for what seemed like forever.
We could see a bit through the clouds but when we got to the summit it was fully clouded in.
Although there were no views the summit was still really pretty with the alpine vegetation and it was pretty cool to be on the 2nd highest mountain in NY.
We bundled up, took our summit photos and attempted to eat our lunch. It was FREEZING and super windy. The hike up took us longer than we expected so we debated whether or not we would attempt Iroquois. We were getting very cranky so we decided to leave it for another day which means we will be doing Algonquin again too. At least we can see the view another time.
We began to make our way down to the junction to wright. If we had energy we thought we would tackle Wright Peak as well.
As we started to climb down, the clouds started to blow over (SHOCKING.) The trail was starting to get pretty busy at this point so we had to do a lot of stopping and maneuvering to let people pass on the sketchy rock slabs.
We made it down the slick rocks and felt pretty decent when we arrived at the junction. Other hikers were talking about how amazing it was so we figured we would just do it. It didn’t take us very long to get to the top but the rocks were again, very slippery which scares me. I always imagine falling and not being able to walk or something which makes us pretty slow.
We got above treeline and started the long climb to the summit. It is a really cool experience but seems to go on forever.
We made it to the summit and tried to take another break. It was even windier than on Algonquin and was starting to rain. The summit was amazing and the view of Algonquin was really cool.
We took our pointing photos and began the long trek back to the car.
The hike back wasn’t too bad aside from the falls we had. This slowed us down a bit and caused us to be even more careful of where we were stepping! The trail was getting super busy so we were just thankful to be on our way back. We saw some super unprepared people with jeans and tote bags (??!?!?!?!). Hopefully they made out ok as they did NOT seem to be enjoying themselves.
We soaked in the last of the views and took a break to finish up our bacon jerky (which is amazing.)
After Macintyre falls the trek back to the car seemed endless. What felt like a couple of minutes on the way up felt like hours on the way down. Our feet were killing us when finally a sign appeared which meant we were super close! We raced over the little bridge when finally the sign out appeared.
We immediately took our gross shoes off and hobbled to the information centre for a coffee and bathroom break. We drove to our campsite in Wilmington for our last camp night of the year.
Total hike time: 10 hours!
Mileage: 11miles
Elevation Gain: 3720 ft
Until next year, ADK’s ;(
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