Dial & Nippletop — 46 Hiking Highs

This was the second annual hike for the four of us. David got to our house around 5:30 p.m. and we stopped at Powers Pub for a nice outdoor dinner before heading out. Ben met us at the lake house at 10:00 p.m., we went to bed, hoping for better weather than the late-day rainstorm that was forecast. We got up at 5:45 a.m., left the house about an hour later, parked at the Ausable Club lot and hit the trail at 7:35 a.m. David had an extra pack to lend Ben, who’d forgotten to pack one. It also turned out he’d not packed food! Luckily, the rest of us had plenty to share. We signed in at the Adirondack Mountain Reserve (AMR) gate at 7:45 a.m., where the guard warned us about several recent bear and cub sightings.

We headed up the Lake Road, and less than a mile past the gate, we turned off to the left, to head up the H.W. Leach Trail. This portion was somewhat steep and climbed up the shoulder of Noonmark Mountain that burned in a big fire in 1999. 17 years later, we’d expected to see conifer regrowth but were surprised to enter a young birch forest here. Just before 10 a.m., we hit a wonderful viewpoint looking east to the Great Range and enjoyed this for a few minutes (with one other group), before heading on. Bear Den Mountain was a bit imposing, as a large mound right in front of us, but we made it up and over just fine, hitting its summit around 10:50 a.m. We continued down the southwest side, noting lots of interesting mushrooms along the way, then up from the saddle to the summit of Dial Mountain at noon. The summit was basically a giant boulder. And another group of three was there when we arrived. We snacked and took some photos of more great views of the Great Range on what turned out to be a beautiful day below the clouds (so far!).

The sign says it all

Nice stairs built on the Leach Trail

Young birch forest on Noonmark Mountain in the area that burned 17 years earlier

At the top of Dial Mountain

Great views to the west from Dial Mountain. Note the “flag trees”, with branches all on one side due to the strong, predominant winds.

Eager to not lose much time, we left the summit around 12:10 p.m. and continued. A few people passed us along the hike (we never overtook others) and found that the 2.1 miles to the next peak was not as difficult as the hike we’d just done up Dial. There was a steep initial descent from Dial of about 150’, then a steady ascent up several hundred feet. Several people warned us about the steep Elk Pass Trail that we planned to take back. As we got to the junction with Elk Pass, the weather rapidly changed; Winds came in, clouds thickened and lowered into a fog, and a mist was in the air. The last 0.2 miles wasn’t difficult , but I was disappointed to hit the open summit at 1:45 p.m. in total fog. This was supposed to be a great viewpoint, and we couldn’t see anything but white fog. Regardless, we reveled in our success and had lunch there, appreciating the respite and otherworldly sheer whiteness of the air. We were the only ones around, stayed for 20 minutes, and headed down just as it started to get cool and rainy.

Ben at the top of Nippletop—Nothing to see here today!

Yeah… nothing.

The first mile of descent was quite steep (though not as bad as our descent of Algonquin last year) and we enjoyed the fog-shrouded ponds—one eerily about two feet above the trail. We continued a steady descent, until the junction with Colvin at 4:20 p.m. This is where a pair of women who’d passed us on the way up, were coming down after also having hiked Blake and Colvin! Yes, they completed four mountains in the time it took us to do two! We bow in homage… The clouds lifted, and I’d hoped to take a detour to Indian Head and Fish Hawk Cliffs, but some of us were quite tired, and I got vetoed, so we proceeded past the two spots where those trails came in, and took the next left down the cut-off trail to get down to the Lake Road faster. We had a long walk back on the road (with 600’ of descent still to go), but finally made it back to the sign-out at 6:53 p.m. and the car at 7:10 p.m. for a total of over 11.5 hours of hiking this 15-mile loop.

Just past the campsites on the Elk Brook Trail, a pond oddly lies about 2 feet above the trail, and just a foot or two away from it

Spruce and spiderweb

It was a fun hike, but exhausting! We headed straight to Schroon Lake, had dinner at Pitkins, then stayed the night at the lake house, had brunch at Deer Crossing in Chestertown and headed back home. David and Ben left for home at 2:45 p.m.

Dial Mountain and Nippletop