MacNaughton

March 9, 2019

MacNaughty... my nemesis. Having had four unsuccessful winter attempts, and two summer succeses, I know your approach probably better than any other high peak in the ADK. This day, I finally unlocked the secret to stand on your head in the season of snow.

After an aborted attempt two weeks ago, not due to anything that the mountain had thrown against us, I figured I never would climb this beast. Eric sent me an email and asked if I wanted to do an "honest attempt" on this mountain in a wirlwind single day tour from Ottawa. I said what the heck... my track is probably still there, conditions were right, and it was worth a shot. Grant joined in on the fray, and then we decided that we might as well make a weekend out of it and try to get a quick ice climb in on Sunday before the weather turned.

Grant picked me up at 04:00, and we met Eric at the Limoge carpool half an hour later. Packed Eric's Prius to the brim with our gear and somehow manged to still fit Grant into the back seat under the packs. Gave the friendly border guard some work to find the third person in the car. Travel went quickly on the empty roads and we figured we were in great time to secure a parking spot at the Loj. Old Military Road had other plans for us. We rounded a corner, temporarily were blinded by the rising sun, and BANG! The right front wheel found an invisible pothole and basically killed it. We limped the car along trying to find a place to pull over, and found nothing safe for quite a while. Finally a private driveway appeared and we pulled in at the end near the street. Unloaded a million packs onto the snow, spent some time trying to find the jack (hidden under the front seat), and then figure out how to actually extract said jack from under said seat. Once that puzzle was solved we had the spare on fairly quickly and were back on our way, even more cramped as we now had a broken wheel added to our gear pile. Thank you to whoever owns that lonely driveway on Old Military Road... we owe you a beer.

Death of a wheel.

Arrived at the Loj with still some time to spare, as it was only about 60% full at 08:00. Strapped the snowshoes onto our packs and hoofed along the Heart Lake trail and up Indian Pass trail. The snow started to get deeper so we put the shoes on and continued to Scott lean-to where we took a quick break. At Scott clearing the broken trail stopped, and from the dam we could faintly see impressions of my track from two weeks prior. As expected, nobody had been up this way, but nevertheless this track provided an easy, solidly packed ascent up to Scott swamp, which was the termination point of my last adventure.

Well packed out Indian Pass trail.

Leaving the trail onto Scott swamp.

Having been foiled before trying to follow the official trail, I was having no part in that this time. We decided to stick to the ponds and swamps, and this worked very well. A short bushwhack in mostly open woods brought us to Scott pond. We then proceeded to link up the remainder of the ponds, each with a short bushwhack between until we arrived at upper Wallface Pond. Here I finally laid eyes on my winter nemesis. Having never have gotten this far before we decided to sit down in the sunshine and study it for a while while enjoying a sandwich.

Glorious trail breaking across the ponds.

MacNaughton, in all her splendor, as viewed from Upper Wallface Pond.

Setting a bearing on the middle summit we left Walface ponds, and except for a tricky area with 3-4 meter deep stream crevases which required a bit of a detour, pretty much stayed perfectly on line with easy travel all the way to the summit ridge. I kept expecting the mountain to throw some additional challenge at us, but alas I believe MacNaughty had conceeded defeat as we scampered onto the middle summit, and then traversed the ridge over to the sign. Five hours to the top from the parking lot, and the mission was finally accomplished. We sat down for another sandwich to gaze at the lovely MacIntyres, and then after a brief discussion of whether to add Wallface peak to this perfect conditioned hike (looked tempting), ultimately decided that burgers and beer at the Lake Placid brewery was a better second summit.

Climbing the steeper slopes of the middle mountain.

Lovely open slopes on the upper mountain.

Summit at last.

The traverse back across the ponds was glorious, this time having a fantastic view of Algonquin and friends as our backdrop. The snow got a little sticky, but did not impede travel time too much. As we reluctantly left the ponds back to the trail we planned another break at the lean-to. My stomach was growling, but I figured it was not too far so I would wait it out. As we climbed through the pass above Scott swamp I suddenly found myself feeling sluggish and somewhat stupid though. I realized I was bonking... have not done that in a while. Ate some sugar, continued on slowly, and fifteen minutes later I was feeling good again. Ate my last sandwich at the lean-to and hiked out at high speed. We left the snowshoes on all the way, even though the snow got pretty thin as we approached the Heart Lake property. We decided to cross the lake to the Loj instead of the trail, which gave us some nice views in the setting sun. Met the first souls we had seen all day at the Loj, basking in fading sun on the firepit benches. We finished up after a nine hour day. Hit the pub for our second summit, and after seeing the weather forecast for Sunday, we decided to drive home, not wanting to experiment with a mini spare tire in snowy winter driving conditions.

Beginning our descent back down to Wallface ponds.

Following our track towards home.

Nice of the Mac's to join in the view.

Crossing Heart Lake in the fading sunshine.

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