MacNaughton

Apr 23, 2022

Border finally is open again, though not in time for winter ascents. But hey, it is still winter in the ADK, so Paul and I decided to get some training in for the summer backpacking season. Our plan was to hike a loop from Upper Works counter-clockwise around Duck Hole, stopping for a brief side trip to summit MacNaughty since I needed it for my spring round, and Paul had never been up there.

Paul picked me up at 05:00 and we drove down through the empty border crossing, onwards on empty roads, finally arriving at Upper Works about 08:30 to a nearly empty parking lot. We hitched up our packs, said hello to a group of four from Ithica who were heading to Colden and struck out on the trail. It was snow covered right from the beginning, but we bare booted it all the way to Preston Pond. Here the snow got substantially deeper, so we donned our snowshoes and climbed up to Hunter Pond at the base of MacNaughton Mountain. We headed into the bush for a bit and found a suitable place to set up the tent, then sat down for a quick lunch before turning our snowshoes upwards to climb the mountain.

Thin snow cover at the trailhead.

A very pregnant tree.

Snowshoes needed as we get higher.

We left the trail angling northward over a ridge and then contoured into a gully that lead upwards on the mountain. The woods started out open as we passed some cliffs and miniature icefalls, but then they closed in making our progress fairly slow. As we entered the gully we actually found some signs of a maintained herd path and tried to follow it for a bit, but this quickly proved to be nearly impossible. We continued bushwhacking upwards in the best way possible through the dense bush. At one point the stream opened up into a mini slide section with some cascading waterfalls and we were able to ditch the snowshoes for a bit and climb up this on bare (but wet) rock. This unfortunately did not last very long as we encountered deep pools of water which forced us back into the woods.

Icefall marking the start of the whack.

Mini slide to climb gave a brief reprief from the thick forest on either side.

We tried routes on both side of the creek, but the woods were dense everywhere slowing our progress to a crawl as we slithered through the branches and stems, catching our snowshoes continuously on fallen debris. The terrain and vegetation kept trying to lure us back into the creek where things appeared open, but this was treacherous with fragile overhanging snow ledges and deep cauldrons to fall into. Finally we got high enough that I decided to just shoot a bearing for the summit. We pushed through the trees for a bit further and then noticed that the woods opened up to the right. It was a bit off of our bearing, but the direction still was upwards and we were now finally able to make some decent progress. These open woods remained so and we even managed to adjust our track northwards as we got higher, until we finally popped up on top of the eastern summit. A quick traverse west along the ridge brought us to the summit sign and we celebrated with a shot of Jameson as it started to snow lightly on us.

The view through the bushes on one of the thinner sections.

Summit!

View down to Wallface Ponds

We followed our tracks downwards, hoping to find a better more open route, lower down, but where our tracks finally plunged from the open woods into the dense bush, there did not seem to be any obvious better option. Resigning ourselves to the devil we knew, we simply followed tha same route all the way back to camp, ariving just in time for the 18:00 dinner bell. Cooked up some supper and then crawled into bed.

Lots of rock hopping in snowshoes.

Home sweet home.

Apr 24, 2022

It rained a bit overnight, but by morning the sky had cleared. We ate a quick breakfast packed camp and continued up the trail towards Duck Hole. This section of trail was quite pretty, and as we descended the snow got thin enough to remove the snowshoes for a while.

Backcountry museum exhibit along the trail.

A pretty view as we travel around Duck Hole.

The Cold River dam had been breeched by Hurricane Irene several years ago, and arriving here we witnessed the destruction as we were greeted with a fairly high water flow. A suitable rock hop could not be located so we switched to water shoes and forded the frigid stream with the water just up over our knees. A somewhat sketchy scramble up loose boulders got us back on the trail and then we were back in snowshoes for the climb up to Bradley Pond.

Fording the Cold River. We both decided that this river was appropriately named.

This next stretch of trail was gets my vote as the worst trail in the Adirondacks. Lots of blowdown, overgrowth, and deep pools of water had us bushwhacking along beside the trail almost as much as we were walking on the trail. At one point we came to a trail marker at the junction of several substantial streams. The trail seemed to just disappear here. We searched left, then right through the bush to no avail. Finally I took out the map, oriented myself with the compass and put the hypothesis forward that this rushing river in front of us was actually the trail. We whacked along it for a short bit and sure enough, we found a trail marker on a log which was under the surface of the running water. We continued bushwhacking upwards, following the path of least resistance catching occasional glimpses of the trail markers in the river. Finally the flow turned off elsewhere and we got back on the trail, travel easing a bit until we arrived up at Bradley Pond.

Paul demonstrating proper rock shoe technique.

We were pleased to see footprints here, even if they were waist deep postholes. It meant that the trail would be broken out down to the Santanoni trailhead. We had lunch at the leanto and then started downwards. Once we intersected with the Panther brook herd path, the postholes were smoothed nicely by a fair amount of snowshoe traffic and we could now scoot along quickly. Snowshoes came off at 750m as the snow had mostly disappeared, and then it was a simple walk all the way back down to the parking area. Not even that much mud and water on this stretch! The new trail routing is working nicely.

The parking lot was empty and we dropped our packs. Paul volunteered to jog up the road to get the car so I sat down in the sunshine to dry my feet and read for a bit. Stopped at Hotel Adirondack in Long Lake for well earned burgers and beer to fuel the drive home.

End of the journey.

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