Two down, one more to go. That’s it, and the ADK Fire Tower Challenge will be complete. I drove up to Old Forge for the day to bang out two (relatively) easy fire towers. Bald Mountain/Rondaxe was the first to be done, at around 8:30 in the morning. The parking lot, on Rondaxe Road, was only about halfway full when I got there. By the time I finished, it was packed. I mean, zoo-like. The trail to the tower is about a mile. The first couple of hundred yards is a typical Adirondack trail. Once you go up rocks, you’ll be on rocks the entire time. It was a lot of fun, and not very long. At the top, you can climb the tower, but there are great views of the lake without even climbing. It was a little more than a half hour to the top, less than a half hour on the way down.
Upon reaching my car, I drove to the Stillwater mountain trailhead, down Big Moose Road. After a hard right turn, the road becomes dirt and gravel. At least it wasn’t rutted with potholes. However, it was almost eight miles from the point of the turn onto dirt to the trailhead. Again, the trail was about a mile long, the steward up top said 1.2 miles. My GPS said it was less than that. This was a typical Adirondack trail, nothing to write home about. There are no views at the top without climbing the tower. I didn’t. A quick uneventful descent ended my day. There was nothing left but the ride home.
Here’s a view of the lakes while going up Bald Mountain:
