Cliff and Redfield

December 7, 2013

On Friday evening, Grant, Patrick, and I drove down to Newcomb and met Shaughn and Eric at the Cloudsplitter cabin. Got up just before 05:00 and were on the trail at Upper Works at 06:30. The trail was icy, so we wore spikes right from the get go. We hiked along in the dark under headlamp in a light snowfall, making fairly quick time over the flat terrain to the Henderson monument on Calamity pond where we took our first break. Shortly after we arrived at the Flowed Lands where we were rewarded with the breathtaking view of Colden before making our way around to the camping area at the base of Herbert brook. Pat and Grant settled into the lean-to while Shaughn, Eric, and I moved up the trail a bit to a tent site. We quickly set up, dumped gear, and then began climbing up the Opalescent river. Shaughn and Eric were planning to climb Skylight, so they sped ahead, while us older folk set a more relaxed pace. We took another quick break at Uphill Brook, and then began the climb up Cliff. The sky had the occasional blue patch, and we got fleeting views of the various peaks around before they clouded in again. The snow flurries were almost constant though. Just enough to keep yourself chilled, and light enough that it felt like we were hiking in a Christmas movie set. The cliff scrambles were icy, so we used the axes to get up these. The crampons in our packs would have been helpful, but we got by with just microspikes and careful footing. Route finding was trivial as there was a well worn snow trench leading the way to the summit. At the top, we had a quick lunch before carefully descending the ice ledges. At one point my spikes blew out and I arrested by grabbing onto a conveniently placed root. Should have donned the crampons I had been carrying in my pack... too late now as we were almost down. Back at the junction we started up Redfield, which is a fairly straightforward, but steady, long uphill walk. Nice view of Allen from the summit, but it was too windy to hang around so we descended quickly and decided to take a final break at Uphill lean-to to get some shelter from the snowfall. We arrived to find three full sleeping bags, so as not wanting to disturb the these folk we moved back to the trail and hunkered down in the snow under some evergreen boughs. As we were eating, out of the woods popped three guys who chatted with us for a bit and it turned out that they were the owners of the three stuffed bags in the lean-to. Oh well, I guess we should have poked at the sleeping bags to make sure there were people in them, and not just clothes! The rest of the descent went quickly and we arrived back at the camp just before dark after a 9.5 hour day. Shaughn and Eric had a successful day as well, climbing both Skylight and Marcy. After a supper at the lean-to, it was a fight to stay awake in the cool evening. We all hit the sack by 19:00 for a well deserved nap.

Crossing the Lake Colden dam.

Lovely view of Colden, both the lake and the mountain.

Grant and I on Cliff summit. The sign is still busted since my last visit, three years ago.

Patrick and Allen, summit of Redfield.

Summit of Redfield.

Nice view of Marcy when it was not fogged in.

Selfie taken on the Opalescent river bridge.

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