Introduction
Few people start hiking the Adirondack Mountains with plans to hike all 46 High Peaks. I certainly never expected it myself. I’d done plenty of hiking in the region for over a decade prior to my first High Peak (Whiteface Mountain). After I did that hike, I thought I was way out of my league, I’d been crazy for doing it, and I wouldn’t do a hike like that ever again. No one was more amazed than I was when I agreed to go hiking again, up another peak, with the same group the next year. The first few hikes were rough for me, I was not used to this kind of distance, scrambling, and elevation combined. These excursions were in mid to late autumn, when there’s often rain, snow, and ice in the mountains, the potential for very cold temperatures, and a lot of wind. To top it all off, my first two hikes offered practically no views, since the summits were enveloped in the clouds.
These are not gentle strolls in the woods. Adirondack hiking can be punishing—it’s wet, it’s rocky, it’s rugged, and it’s muddy. Somehow, I got the bug. I truly believe that at first it was just the comradery of spending time in the woods with like-minded lovers of the outdoors. I also liked the challenge, and truth be told, I was eager to start seeing some views after feeling like I got cheated on my first two summits. I already knew what kind of views were possible from past experiences with shorter hikes in the region like Mount Jo, “The Nubble” on Giant, and Mount Van Hoevenberg.
With each new hike in the High Peaks, I’d pick up some new terms and bits of information. I’d start using terms like col, cirque, and arete. I came to understand trail maintenance features like rock bars, and ladders. I’d learn that “trailless peaks” do, in fact, have trails; they’re just not maintained. I learned to identify what qualifies as a fordable stream, and “If you think that’s mud, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet!” and “Yes, that’s the trail!” I learned that just because it looks like you’re approaching the top of the mountain, don’t expect it to be! I learned about the krummholz zones, flag trees, and the delicate alpine regions atop 16 of the High Peaks. I learned the names of the mountain ranges and came to be able to identify many of them and their peaks by shape, which of them should be hiked together, and which had nasty reputations. I came to love the hiking culture in these mountains, and the fun of being in this unique club of “people in the know” that you pass on the trail and ask you how many High Peaks you’d done so far and which ones you had left to go, while sharing their own status and unique insights of the peaks still to come. Most critically, I learned a great deal about gear, safety, and preparedness (see recommended list of gear), and grew to love hiking poles. I learned how important it is to trust the people you’re hiking with and listen to their insights, and that it’s okay to bail on an attempt at a summit—sometimes it’s just not in the cards for that day, and you should listen to your gut. It seems that regardless of how much you think you know, there’s always more to learn. Thanks so much to those who continued to give me guidance on all these things along the way.
Although I didn’t start out expecting to hike all these peaks, I like to journal my adventures, and had done some short write-ups after even my first few hikes. I started doing these on paper as short, bulleted items, without much detail about the hikes themselves, but just general thoughts and comments on the trips. In the early years, I read over the trail descriptions in my well-worn and beloved Adirondack Trails: High Peaks Region 13th Edition guidebook by the Adirondack Mountain Club and I read James R. Burnside’s book Exploring the 46 Adirondack High Peaks. Eventually, I realized that the trail conditions change over the years, and that some of the material I was reading was out of date. I started reading a lot of blogs, which helped tremendously to prepare me for what was to come. Special thanks to the authors of 46 Ups and Downs and Moms on Mountains (no longer hosted online), whose blogs I read constantly in preparation. I found these so helpful, that I began to record more nuanced details about my own hikes, including notes about how long it took me to get from one point to the next. I also started recording my notes digitally. It’s for these reasons that the summaries of my hikes tend to get lengthier and more detailed for the later years. Although I have gone back and added some more detail to the initial hikes.
I began just going out for hikes in the mountains. At some point, I had done enough that I figured I’d try to hike half of the 46. Then, I did more. By the time I’d passed the 30 mark, I thought I may actually do all of them. By the time I’d finished 35 peaks, I was committed. When my daughter Sam was 13 and son Alex was 10, we started adding a High Peak hike to our annual camping trip. Sam did a handful, but Alex really got the bug. As he got older, he started joining me on more and more of these hikes. Eventually, he too wished to complete all 46, and did a bunch of hiking with his friends to catch up with me. What a thrilling experience it was for the two of us to complete our 46 together. I only did a handful of peaks in any given year, so my entire Adirondack 46er experience took just under 20 years. I started at age 35 and finished about a month shy of my 55th birthday. I was happy to get them all in before I moved away from New York’s Capital Region. I was also proud to have done all of these as day hikes. Although I thoroughly enjoy camping, it was a fun challenge to do each of these without spending an overnight somewhere in the backcountry.
One of the issues that I struggled with on several of these hikes was my fear of heights. I’ve had this fear since I was a child, and sometimes I think it’s getting worse with age. As my friend Wendy (who’s afflicted with the same condition) once emphatically summed it up, “I do not have an irrational fear of heights! I have a very rational fear of falling and dying!” Well said, Wendy! Keeping that in mind, psychologically, I had a very hard time on some of these hikes, in locations where others may have no problem at all. Ledges especially freak me out. I have persevered, however, and luckily for me, I’ve had hiking companions who have been able to help talk me through some spots along the way. A very special thank you goes out to my son, Alex, who is the one who has talked me through the largest majority of these “tough spots”. Credit also goes to him for coming up with the name of this blog. We were hiking our final High Peak – Mount Haystack, and he said, “Hey Dad, if you ever write all of this up, I have a great title for you… The Man Who Hated Heights but Loved Mountains.” That pretty much nailed it. As difficult as it was for me to get through portions of some of these hikes, I always reveled in the experience of being out there with friends and/or family, hiking through the mountains, and taking in the glorious views, when they presented themselves. With that, links to the descriptions of my experiences can be found on The Mountains page and on The Hikes page, where they are organized differently, and hopefully they will be of help to others planning to venture out on some of these hikes. If nothing else, it’s been a great way for me to organize my recollections of some wonderful hiking adventures.
Just for fun: I’ve chosen the name www.46hikinghighs.com for this website, since I love the triple entendre: “Highs” certainly refers to the High Peaks; it also refers to the euphoric feeling of being out in nature with friends, enjoying the scenery, and the satisfaction of hitting the summit; and finally, it refers to the fact that I’ve had to deal with my fear of heights on many of them.