Last year, Chelsea, my study buddy from college, and I decided to take on the challenge of becoming Adirondack 46ers.
If you don't know what that is, well you're missing out on one of the greatest things New York has to offer. The Adirondack Park is roughly 2 and a half hours north of Albany and consists of mountains, lakes, and little cities. One of the cities, Lake Placid, is also home to the 1980 Winter Olympics. A random fact to help you understand how large this park is, The Adirondack Mountains are the same size as Yellowstone, Yosemite, Grand Canyon, Glacier and Great Smoky Mountains national parks combined. In the Adirondacks, there are 46 peaks that are over 4,000 feet in elevation and if you hike them all, you become a 46er! The development of technology began to show that some of the peaks aren't over 4,000 feet, but they decided to keep the designated 46 peaks the same.
Last year, my dad and I hiked Cascade and Porter which is an extremely popular hike. After hiking my first 2 peaks that day I asked Chelsea, "Why don't we do all 46?". So, this year we started the journey into our 10 year goal to complete them! We did some research and decided Table top and Phelps would be a good start and a way to show us how prepared we are for these hikes. Table top is considered a "trail-less peak". That being said, it isn't a marked or maintained trail, but there is a pretty defined trail from the traffic of hikers going to the summit.
After my bear experience, which you can read about in a previous blog post, I was a little nervous. The lady at the Adirondack Loj said they usually don't bother day hikers, but if we were backpacking we had to have bear proof canisters. We paid our $10 fee to park, got ourselves ready to go, signed our name in the book, and started our adventure to Table top summit.
It was an easy trail until we arrived at the Marcy Dam (pictured above) where after that we were rock jumping for awhile. A few backpackers passed us so we talked with them. They encountered a man who was about to complete his 46 in 16 days! He backpacked the entire time and took 3 days of rest...absolutely incredible.
We had done some reading and decided to do Table top first, but we almost did Phelps first. There is a trail marker indicating Indian Falls to the right and Phelps to the left. We should have realized we needed to go to the right, but we didn't. A few guys hiking down thankfully told us we were headed the wrong way. While hiking down with them, they told us how they encountered a man during one of their hikes who has done all 46 peaks 101 times...our jaws dropped.
Going up to Table top, Chelsea noticed a terrible pain in her right pinkie toe and her mole skin she bought the day before came in handy! We stopped and sat near the water and fixed up her toe.
Hiking up to Table top was a little frustrating since we weren't sure when we had to turn off for Table top and get off the Marcy trail. According to many articles, people said they missed the sign! Mount Marcy is the highest peak and a 14 mile hike. Needless to say, neither of us wanted to hike it on accident. There were a few trail runners who said in between their gasps for air that it is up ahead, and they were right! The trail is really narrow so we walked out with a few scratches from branches, but they were well worth it once we arrived to the summit with our hearts pumping.
After chatting with other people at the summit, taking pictures, and enjoying some snacks, we began our decent down Table top to then climb Phelps. From the turn off, it is only 1 mile to the top of Phelps, but rest assured, it is the longest and probably most difficult mile of the hike. You begin climbing 1,200 feet in this one mile. Chelsea looked at me and said, "I am seriously rock climbing!". She was right, we practically were! As we were climbing my Garmin died...the last I saw was 8 miles and we knew it was going to be a 12 mile day. At the top of Phelps you are rewarded with a beautiful view, a great place to enjoy a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a freeze dried ice cream sandwich (Chelsea saw it at the store and thought we should try it out, it really wasn't bad).
On the way back down, we encountered an older man hiking alone and decided to stick with him the rest of the way. He told us about the hikes he has done and different things to pack if we decide to try backpacking. We all could feel how tired our legs were and we began to get very thirsty since our 2 liters of water ran out about 2 miles from the parking lot. We said goodbye to the guy we hiked down with and decided we needed to jump into a lake somewhere. The people at Adirondack Loj recommended Cascade Pass which was on our way home. It was very relaxing, but cold!
We left there and went to the Adirondack Pub and Brewery in Lake George. On the ride down we looked at the menu and already had our order prepared before we got to the restaurant. This restaurant has a great outdoor patio and if you ever get the chance, stop in!
Once we got back to the apartment, Chelsea and I poured ourselves tea and got out some ice packs before falling asleep after such a great, beautiful, and exhausting day. 2 down, 44 to go.