mavs00
New member
After spending Saturday (8/20) at the VFTT BBQ at Peak_bgr's house, and imbibing on WAAAAAAYYY too many beers, we changed plans for Sunday and took a nifty little ADK100 bushwhack trip up Morgan and Wilmington Peak (which may someday be a ADK100 peak) detailed -HERE-. After that effort, we came down and had a nice "family" dinner with Spence, Maddie, Brian and the elders (Brian & Maddie's folks) and a great campfire after. That left Monday as an open day of hiking.
Through the "beer induced" haze of Saturday's party, I vaguely remembered talking to Neil and him describing his recent trip up Saddleback/Jay and his regaling me with stories of wonder about the views. I did this exact traverse in June, but our day was socked in with low clouds so we saw nothing, A brief "family discussion" determined that a trip up Jay's open ridge was in order for the day.
We arrived at the trailhead at a very reasonable 9:45 AM and were walking by 10:00 AM. WOW, I came down this route in June and I'd remembered it as reasonable. Well, going up, it was quite steep and pretty direct. The first 1.5 miles (1800') was burned through in about 1:10 hours and we soon were on the early rocks of the long and mostly open summit ridge. The next 1:30 hours were pure heaven as we headed up the next 1.5 miles into constant views and amazing vista's. We were even serenaded by 3 Peregrine falcons that had obviously nested in the cliffs nearby. They approached to with 20-30' at one point.
All to soon we reached the summit and had to turn about-face and head for home. The beauty of it was that we still had plenty of views in front of us as we descended. There were pretty low clouds (5000-5500') most of the day and periodic rain showers seen in the distance, but we never had rain and had a fair amount of sun the whole day. Words cannot describe the day as we were just strolling along and enjoying ourselves. I'm truley blessed with my family of ready made hiking partners.
An uneventful descent put us at the car at about 3:15 PM and we headed back to Peak_bgr's to pick up our stuff and head home. What an amazing hike. It's not easy and feels WAY longer than the 6 miles (2300') it is, but the effort is really worth it. I can't believe we were so dumb to have done it on a "bad day" the first time.
I was able to get some "killer photos" and have them posted in my -GALLERY-. In the meantime, here's a taste - Whiteface with persistant clouds up top.
Through the "beer induced" haze of Saturday's party, I vaguely remembered talking to Neil and him describing his recent trip up Saddleback/Jay and his regaling me with stories of wonder about the views. I did this exact traverse in June, but our day was socked in with low clouds so we saw nothing, A brief "family discussion" determined that a trip up Jay's open ridge was in order for the day.
We arrived at the trailhead at a very reasonable 9:45 AM and were walking by 10:00 AM. WOW, I came down this route in June and I'd remembered it as reasonable. Well, going up, it was quite steep and pretty direct. The first 1.5 miles (1800') was burned through in about 1:10 hours and we soon were on the early rocks of the long and mostly open summit ridge. The next 1:30 hours were pure heaven as we headed up the next 1.5 miles into constant views and amazing vista's. We were even serenaded by 3 Peregrine falcons that had obviously nested in the cliffs nearby. They approached to with 20-30' at one point.
All to soon we reached the summit and had to turn about-face and head for home. The beauty of it was that we still had plenty of views in front of us as we descended. There were pretty low clouds (5000-5500') most of the day and periodic rain showers seen in the distance, but we never had rain and had a fair amount of sun the whole day. Words cannot describe the day as we were just strolling along and enjoying ourselves. I'm truley blessed with my family of ready made hiking partners.
An uneventful descent put us at the car at about 3:15 PM and we headed back to Peak_bgr's to pick up our stuff and head home. What an amazing hike. It's not easy and feels WAY longer than the 6 miles (2300') it is, but the effort is really worth it. I can't believe we were so dumb to have done it on a "bad day" the first time.
I was able to get some "killer photos" and have them posted in my -GALLERY-. In the meantime, here's a taste - Whiteface with persistant clouds up top.
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