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| Cascade's rocky summit |
The Legendary Johnny Rocket and I had big plans this New
Year’s. The Rocket came up to the
Adirondack Loj on Monday. He climbed
Colden yesterday. I wondered if he would
be up for the challenge of going to Marshall from the loj. Marshall is best approached from the
south. Turns out Chris Hiker would not
be up for the challenge after the drive from Vermont and an upset stomach. This ends my streak of climbing a new 46er at
13 years.
While staying at the loj, Johnny Rocket met Caroline from
NJ. She was interested in hiking with
us. We decided to do Cascade and
Porter. Cascade is one of the most
popular mountains in the Adirondacks and for good reason. It’s short (at just over 4 miles round trip)
with great views (Great Range, Lake Placid, etc.) and has some ruggedness (the
last 100 feet require some scrambling).
It’s the perfect introduction to the Adirondack Mountains and the
46ers. These two made for a great first
two winter ascents for Caroline (though she has been up both Marcy and Iroquois
which are not a picnic).
We started around 10am after some breakfast at the loj. The temperature was around 10 degrees so it
was cold. Fortunately, I brought my
balaclava. It did not take me long to
lose the trail. There was a broken in
trail that led up a brook, but it dead ended.
Johnny Rocket cruised on by. I’m
not sure how I missed it. Though the
trail was mostly packed snow, there were plenty of ice patches making
microspikes essential. They were a great
pick up. Not sure why I waited this long
to buy them.
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| Caroline and The Rocket packing up |
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| Lots of ice along the way |
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| The Rocket lives!!! |
The trail up Cascade does not allow any rest. It’s uphill the entire way, but I remember it
being steeper. I’ll take that. Soon we made it near the summit with the
first views of the day. Algonquin and
Wright Peak stand close by with Wright’s slide clearly visible (remember that
VPo?). Lake Placid and Whiteface are
visible to the north. The ski jump can
be seen.
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| Colden, Algonquin and Wright |
The hikers on their way down let us know the summit is
incredibly windy. This is to be expected
since the upper 100 feet of the mountain is exposed with no trees. The wind was quite strong and made worse due
to the cold temperature. With the
windchill, the temperature had to be below -10 degrees F. That’s no joke. The balaclava kept my nose from falling
off. The frigid temperatures did not
keep me from enjoying the views. Almost
all the 46ers are in view: Giant, Dix, Nippletop, Marcy, Skylight, Haystack,
Colden and Algonquin. Close by are
Porter and Big Slide.
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| Into the trees and toward the summit |
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| Giant |
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| The bare rock summit |
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| The Great Range and Johnny Rocket |
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| Whiteface in the distance |
After taking some quick summit shots, we scurried down to
the col with Porter. Only problem is
that I blasted by the junction with Porter.
A couple of hikers on their way up confirmed my error. We discussed whether to turn around or just
head back down. We turned around since
it was still early.
The route to Porter is mostly through a forest of evergreens
with some views along the way. Most of
the trees are covered in ice and snow.
It’s so beautiful this time of year.
While talking to Caroline, I learned about
Cyclocross. It’s simply amazing I never knew about this
before because it’s totally up my alley.
It has a great creation story. In
the early 1900s during the winter months, road cyclists would race each other
from town to town to stay in shape. If this meant riding
through some farm land and having to carry their bikes over a fence or two, so
be it. Without doubt, I plan to do one
of these this coming year.
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| A path through the evergreens |
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| Big Slide |
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| Looks like a bird? |
We reached the summit of Porter relatively quickly. From Cascade, it’s a gentle ascent to its
summit. The views from here are similar
to Cascade’s, but Porter does not provide a full 360 degree of views. Today that was fine, since the summit did
provide some shelter from the wind.
Another great New Year’s Eve hike courtesy of Johnny Rocket.
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| Cascade from Porter |
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| On the way down |
