2nd Annual Labor Day Trip

With all my travel going on this year, I was getting kind of burned out and decided to just stick close to home and head back to the Adirondacks for the second year in a row. I decided I wanted to hike Mt. Marcy which is the tallest mountain in New York. I planned out my trip and was all set to go when Dad casually mentioned to me on Wednesday that I may want to double check to see if everything was still open because of the hurricane. Why wouldn’t it be I thought, because I hadn’t heard anything about the Adirondacks on the news; it was all focused on the Catskills and Vermont. Well I searched for “Hurricane Irene”+”Adirondacks” on Thursday morning and discovered that the entire Eastern half of the Adirondacks was closed because of damage. Not only was the trail bridge over the Marcy Dam wiped out but the road to the trailhead had collapsed and trapped 30 people on the other side! So I had a few hours on Thursday to completely re-plan my trip. I wasn’t too upset though because my main goal for the weekend was just to get away and do some camping and hiking.

I left after work on Friday and drove over to the eastern shores of Oneida Lake where I camped at Verona Beach State Park. I got there with just enough time to set up my tent and enjoy the sunset over the lake. It was a very nice spot.

Saturday I headed up into the mountains my first hike was Bald Mountain which is just outside of Old Forge. It’s a short hike up to the Rondaxe Fire Tower.

It's an interesting view because you have a good view of the Fulton Chain of lakes (8 lakes that are connected)

I really liked this hike because the views were great even without climbing the tower. It was just starting to clear up as I reached the summit so the pictures are pretty cloudy but by the time I got to the end of the hike, the sun was out.

The trail was interesting because it was across some slick rock When I got back to my car, I rolled the windows down, cranked up the tunes and drove off towards my next stop. I made a quick stop in Long Lake to check out the float planes. I sat around for a bit waiting to see if one would take off but they didn’t so I continued on. I drove through Tupper Lake and headed east until I hit the trail head for Panther Mountain. It’s only 1.4 miles round trip so it was a quick hike. However, the views were really not that much from the top.