Colvin Range

June 11, 2011

My first solo hike in the Adirondacks. Awoke at the Rooster Comb Inn just after 05:00 and ate breakfast on the porch. Woke Katharina up and she gave me a lift to the trailhead, and since was not parking dropped me off at the start of Lake Road. I signed in at the gatehouse and then started hiking down the East River trail. A section of it had been completely washed out in the spring run-off, but flagging tape led off through the woods around this section. As I hit the first bit of climbing, my legs were screaming at me... I guess the 300 or so kilometers I put on my bike this week is going to let me know today. The trail along the river was much more pleasant than Lake Road with lots of little waterfalls, canyons, and interesting flora. At the Gill Brook trail I headed upwards. Again this was very pretty with lots of pools and another really neat waterfall. I met a group part way along and took a picture of them for them, after which they took a picture of me for me. They were headed to Blake as well. I sped on ahead and after about three hours found myself on top of Colvin in the fog. I took a couple summit photos, crammed some food into my maw, and then began the descent towards Blake. It started pouring rain. It was very warm so I did not bother with rain gear and promptly got soaked. The descent was steep with a couple of ladders down some of the slabs. After a 600 foot descent there followed a 600 foot climb up to the summit of Blake, my 35th Adirondack high peak. There was no view here, even if it had not been pouring rain and foggy. I took a couple summit photos, shoved some more food in and turned back. At this point I am four hours into the hike. Another hour to return to Colvin, at which point it stopped raining. I went out to a lookout just before the summit, changed into a dry sweater and sat down to enjoy my lunch. As I was finishing up it started raining again. Another group arrived and I started to head down. Some of the scrambles I had encountered on the way up made for some tricky down climbing. I considered pulling out my rope for a hand line in a couple spots, but got away with just careful footing. I ran into the group that I had passed in the morning at the Elk Pass junction. They had bailed on Blake because of the rain. One of the women was lamenting that she would never be dry again. I re-assured her that it was no problem, she was getting both a shower and a hike in at the same time! She did not seem to agree with me. The cloud ceiling was at about 3000 feet, so I decided to go over to Fish Hawk cliffs to get a view. This was very nice and I got great views of the Lower Ausable Lake and Indian Head. I hiked over to Indian Head and enjoyed the views here as well. Back down via Gill Brook and then the bypass trial to Lake Road. I was fairly tired now, and knew I had a long walk in front of me so I stuck to the road (with the exception of a short side trip to the Flume) for the rest of way. Arrived back at the gate house at 15:15, saw that Katharina and the kids, who were planning to have met me up on Indian Head, had checked out at 13:00, so I could not get a ride back with her. I walked back to Keene Valley, which took just under an hour. Would have been a nice walk if there was a little less traffic. There even was a waterfall along the way. Arrived back in the Inn after a 9.5 hour day. Another woman staying at the Inn had finished her 46th peak today so we celebrated with Champagne. I toasted my 35th peak as well.

The gate of the Adirondack Mountain Reserve