Gothics & Armstrong — 46 Hiking Highs

After last September’s failed attempt at Armstrong, I made a date to try it again. I’d called John to see if he would join me, as we hadn’t hiked together in almost 10 years. I remembered John as a confident hiker who was good company, and he was happy to join. Although I’d initially planned to try the same route that David and I tried last year, I flipped the script 2 weeks earlier, and opted to hike over Gothics this time. In fact, I’d even hiked it with John back in 2005. I’d remembered Gothics as a difficult/scary hike, but realized that was 18 years ago, and only my 3rd High Peak. Maybe it wouldn’t be as bad as I remembered with the additional two decades of experience I now had. I’d made parking reservations online at the Ausable Club lot, and John and I drove up with my wife Beth and overnighted at the family place up north. This gave us more time in the morning, with just a 40-minute drive to the trailhead.

We arrived at the lot right at 7, startled to find it was almost empty, on what appeared to be shaping up to be a beautiful, cool summer weekend day—a rarity this season (which featured extreme heat and numerous heavy rainstorms). The Lake Placid Ironman was the next day, so that may have impacted things. We readied our gear, started our hike up the road at 7:15 a.m., passed the inn, and signed in at the AMR trailhead gate at 7:30 a.m. The temperature was in the upper 50s and the air was generally dry, with just some slight morning humidity. We made quick work of the first 4 miles up the Lake Road, and down to the bridge that crossed the Ausable River just below the dam, with Mount Colvin majestically looming in the south. Distance-wise, the hike was already more than halfway over!

Very shortly after getting past the dam, we came to the Rainbow Falls branch trail. We passed that, intending to hit it on the way back. I was intent on making it to Armstrong as quickly as possible. On the way up, John showed off his birding skills and kept pausing, holding his finger up for quiet, and listening to birds to identify them by sound. Since I’m an amateur birder, it was kind of fun, getting to learn the new bird calls. I realized just how much more I had been focused on High Peaks hiking over the past two decades than John. I’d reminded him about which hikes we'd done in the past, what they were like, and which trails we had taken. His recollection of them was foggier. At 8:53 a.m., we got to the overlook of the falls, and just took a quick stop to take in the tall waterfall. By 10:20, three hours into the hike, we got to the junction with Sawteeth. About 20 minutes later, we got to a big slab of steeply sloping rock. I remembered this rock! This was the first point that I recall that made me nervous on my last ascent of Gothics. I recalled it being slick. Although dry now, I still had a good deal of trouble getting traction on it, because it was so steep. Then, John noticed that there was a side trail to the immediate left that bypassed this. “Wow! Well, that's a lot easier,” we both laughed. We continued upwards at a steady pace. This route climbs to the top of Pyramid Peak before heading to Gothics. I’d hoped to make it to the top of Pyramid before resting but was tired and asked for a quick break, so we stopped for a minute or so. I took a glance at my AllTrails app and laughed. The summit was only about 200 feet ahead!

A nice path, shortly above the lookout over the falls

Aha! The steep rock slope I remembered from 2005

But wait… There’s a trail to the left of it!

We hit the Pyramid summit at 11:30 a.m. but did not take the 20-foot-long path to the viewpoint. I remembered the view as stunning, but also intimidating, and didn’t want to do anything that might mess with my psyche, before getting to our goal. We could stop here again on the way back. I also remembered the descent into the col between here and Gothics as a treacherous one. Not so! It was almost easy. Once again, I was pleasantly surprised that my past experiences were not indicative of how I felt this time around. Here, along the ridge connecting the summits, there was more mud than there had been in any other places along the entire hike. In general, this hike was surprisingly dry, given all the rain that we’d had over the past several weeks. At 12:20 p.m., we hit the junction with the Range Trail, and headed right. Very shortly after, we came upon a very large bare-faced rock that was tricky to navigate. It wasn't so much intimidating as it was complicated. There was really no handhold or foothold along the top half, and no clear way up it. I went first, basically laying on my stomach against the rock, and very slowly wiggled/slithered my way up about a foot or two, until I could grab a low group of branches. From that point, I was able to pull myself further up. It was a little dicey, but not too bad. John followed me, doing much the same. I was starting to get quiet because I was having some butterflies in my stomach in anticipation of the ledge that I remembered was coming up. It turned out that was completely uncalled for! There was no scary ledge at all! I had no problem going all the rest of the way to the summit. I think there may have been some newer vegetation growth that helped psychologically. Regardless, I really had no problem with this, and was very pleasantly surprised. We got to the summit of Gothics Mountain at 12:28 p.m. It was a beautiful day, and Gothics had astounding views. We took a couple of very quick pictures, marveled at the great views to the east and west along this ridge, and at the ski jumps far down in the distance, then continued onwards, knowing we could take in the views again on our return trip.

The top of Pyramid is at the end of this trail immediately to our left, but we intentionally bypassed it on the way up

John standing in the same spot that terrified me, where I’d photographed John H & Jeff 18 years earlier… it didn’t bother me at all this time

Top of Gothics

Just one slice of Gothics’ great views

The trail descended through a narrow little pass in a lovely green, low dwarf spruce forest, that we brushed our way through. John disappeared again for a few minutes. I was getting used to this. He’d stop to listen to a bird call every now and then. He caught back up with me and was incredibly excited. He’d just found a new “Lifer” bird (a new one for him). It was a Bicknell's Thrush—a very rare find. He was thrilled. We kept going, then, it happened… As we started descending a bit further, I somehow slipped, and impaled myself in my right armpit. A vertical snag about ¾ of an inch in diameter pierced my skin. I was in a great deal of pain and scared, fearing I may have very seriously injured myself. I was afraid to look under my shirt, and just held on to my arm pit for a few moments. John said that there was not a lot of blood coming through my shirt, just a bit of streaking. That was extremely comforting, so I urged us to continue.

Descending through dwarf spruce on the northeast side of Gothics

Unfortunately, I had misread another blog, and thought it was only about a 20-minute hike to Armstrong from the summit of Gothics (which isn’t possible, given the distance between them). We’d been descending the entire time, since Armstrong is 344’ lower than the summit of Gothics, and finally came to the junction with Beaver Meadow Trail. That trail provides a much shorter route to Armstrong, but is steep, with many ladders and ledges, which is why I’d opted for our route instead. I was getting disenchanted, and we were both quite hungry, hoping to eat atop Armstrong Mountain, but the junction sign said the summit was still 0.4 miles ahead. Ugh! We decided to stop here and eat quickly. During our lunch, I decided it was time to finally look at my armpit. It was hurting a bit, but I still seemed to have full motion, and there wasn't a lot of blood. I took off my shirt, and asked John to look. At first, he thought it didn't look too bad. I took a picture to see for myself and got grossed out. The snag had clearly punctured my armpit and there was a decent-sized opening in my skin. I was amazed that there wasn't blood pouring out of it, and was sure I’d need stitches later (luckily, I did not). I slathered it with bacitracin and took pain meds. A solo hiker stopped, and chatted with us for a while, considering his options, and learning a bit about what we were up to. He moved on, and we kept eating, and assessed the situation, given my injury. John asked, “What do you want?” Without missing a beat, I looked at him and said, “I want Armstrong!” I was serious. I'd made it this far and did not feel that I was in any danger, and I really wanted to get to the summit of this mountain. So, after our break, we kept going.

25 minutes later, at 1:50 p.m., we made it to the summit viewpoint! I was relieved that I’d conquered this elusive mountain. A man and woman had also just arrived. We looked around for a marker or signpost but couldn’t find anything. Just to make sure we were at the true summit, we went a bit farther to ensure there was no higher ground, and confirmed with AllTrails that we were indeed there. We took in the spectacular views to the southwest of the ridge to Gothics’ summit, Saddleback (its name is apparent from here), and Basin & Marcy in the distance. We took photos at the summit, and each hiking pair took photos of the other (the other two kept getting so close to the edge, it was even making John nervous). We didn’t spend very long here since, at 6.5 hours, it took us longer to get here than we’d expected.

View from Armstrong’s summit—note Saddleback’s (just right of center) shape

Success! Armstrong checked off

At 2:00 p.m., we started our descent. Heading back along the ridge to Gothics was more relaxing, since we knew the route, and I was less concerned about my armpit, as the pain subsided, and there was no further bleeding. It wasn’t lost on me that I’d sustained an injury to my upper arm on “Armstrong” of all names. Around one corner, Gothics loomed ahead, taller than we’d expected, but it really wasn’t a very difficult re-ascent. We were back on top at 2:55 p.m., and spent about 15 minutes there, truly enjoying the excellent views all around (but especially to the east and west along this ridge). We were careful to stay within the rocks to protect the rare alpine vegetation. A middle-aged man with his 20-something daughter interrogated us about the conditions of the trails up ahead. We started off again and met up with a group heading towards us that we’d seen earlier. We asked where they were headed, and they said they were going to Pyramid, then back down. “Umm… you passed it a quarter mile ago!” They promptly turned around and headed in the same direction we were going. John and I marveled that they’d had to climb that big rock we clamored up unnecessarily. We were both concerned about how we’d tackle it and were shocked at how easy it was to navigate on the descent. In fact, the upper portion of the rock was much easier than the lower portion (the opposite of going up). At the junction with the Weld & Range trails, the same group asked us which way was correct. Wow, where would they have been without us?! We reached Pyramid Peak at 3:54, and this time took a few minutes to enjoy the views of the cirque below. I was much more comfortable this time than 18 years ago. It was quite windy up here, and we headed down.

View of Gothics, about a third of the way back towards it from Armstrong

Taking more time to enjoy the views from the top of Gothics this time

Perspective of the “ledge” that terrified me 18 years earlier. Not all intimidating this time – the vegetation helped a lot

The group we advised with Pyramid looming before them

On the way down, John hams it up atop the rock we “slithered” up in the other direction

The lower part of the same rock outcropping was more difficult on the descent

NOW we took the time to enjoy the amazing view from Pyramid, looking into the cirque with Basin Mountain’s sheer face on the left, then Saddleback, then the bare slopes of the southern flank of Gothics on the right

I’d generally been setting the pace (a bit slower than John would have) for the hike and spent almost the whole descent in the lead. At 5 p.m. we hit the junction with Sawteeth. It was a long way down, but the trails were in good shape, and John and I had good conversation. We decided to take the short detour to see Rainbow Falls, arriving at 6:15. It did not disappoint. The 150-foot falls were really inspiring. After some more photos, we headed to Lake Road for the long walk back, signing out at 7:35, and back at the car at 7:45 p.m. At 12.5 hours, it was a longer day than we’d expected, but it was great. We drove to Schroon Lake to celebrate our victory at Sticks and Stones, before returning to our base for the night.

Our final stop at Rainbow Falls

Gothics and Armstrong Mountain