Huntington Wildlife Forest

4.03 miles

1012 feet of elevation gain

 

I set out as a goal for the year to finish the Adirondack Fire Tower challenge.  This was the last one!  I’m done, and I plan on visiting the other fire towers at some point.  But there is no more rush.

This day started off really foggy, in fact, I didn’t think I was going to have any views at all.  I was the first car in the parking lot; I had heard that this trail and parking lot can get busy, especially on the summer weekends.  At the time, being the only car in the parking lot had its advantages.

The trail was rather easy.  There was mud in a couple of spots, more than I would have liked,  But, it wouldn’t be the Adirondacks without mud somewhere.  I kept telling myself that.  In all fairness, there was a ton of rain this week, and it could have been a lot worst.  Much worse.  Since I was the first one going up, I had to break through all of the spider webs – I felt a little like Indiana Jones in the first scene of the first movie.

After a little more than an hour, I reached the top; and had it to myself.  There was a great view to the south. Not one for going up the tower, I went up to the first landing so I could get an even better view.  As I was the only one, I stuck around for a bit before heading down.  That’s when I saw how many people were coming up.  The trip down took me about 40 minutes or so and I returned to a parking lot that was full of cars.

 

 

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: