Neil
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Ausable 4, Saddleback and Jay Mountains, New York State, USA. 11 miles, 13 hours.
I tore out the door at 4:15 am on Thursday (45 minutes late because of human error in setting my alarm) and roared off down the street on my way to making a snowshoe delivery in the Adirondacks. I was so certain that my friends would need them for their hike in the Hurricane Primitive and Jay Wilderness areas that I decided to show up at the TH and loan them out.
I was lucky in that HighonLife was waiting for me (I was now only 20 minutes late having made excellent time) at the Brookside Inn in Upper Jay. I was going to give the snowshoes to her so she could pass them on the ADKJack who was waiting at the Trailhead on Hurricane road.
She said that since I was already in the area I might as well join them on their hike. As it turned out I had a winter pack all set to go and a second pair of snowshoes so I said, “Why not?” and we left my car up at the trailhead for Jay Mountain and drove around to Hurricane Road near Elizabethtown.
The TH is at the end of this road, about 2 ½ miles and 1000 feet up from Rte 9N and Jack was there waiting. He was afraid to get out of his vehicle due to a bear encounter.
“Here’s the snowshoes you’ll need today Jack! I got out of bed at 4:00 just to bring ‘em to ya”. I proudly held up a pair of MSR Evo Ascents and got busy attaching my Northern Lite snowshoes to my pack.
There was maybe 2 inches of snow on the ground.
“Thanks anyway Neil but I don’t think I want them. They’ll be much too heavy on my pack all day” said the 6 foot 2, 200 pound Jack. “Suit yourself but there’s over a foot of snow where we’re going. Maybe you should have your head examined by a qualified professional. I’m sure there’d be nothing to it.” Anyway, at 7 am. Jack, Nancy and I began hiking to that wonderful little mountain - Ausable 4, which sticks out like an outgrowth on the ridge that runs from the road between Lewis and route 9N to Hurricane. The south side is comprised of 500 foot cliffs so when you stand on the summit you have views that will take your breath away. I have approached Aus 4 from the west, the east and now the south, which was the toughest approach yet.
Our route went directly north from the road through a corridor of state land, 100 yards west of the parking area, across Jackson brook and avoided Ausable 4’s cliffs by heading up the gully which is SW of the summit. The snow was deep and the slope was steep but the snowshoes created steps that held nicely when you pushed upwards. It felt like full-on winter and a chilly wind was moaning.
Between the deep snow (sometimes knee deep), the southern exposed interlocking, snow-clad spruce trees and the terraced cliffs we spent an hour just to make the last couple of hundred yards to the summit. I was soaked to the bone and stepping out into the full blast of the wind sent me scurrying back for cover and a jacket. My flimsy nylon pants dried out almost instantly in the sun and wind.
Next on our list of objectives was Saddleback, which was far, far away, 2.67 mi to the north. Getting onto Aus 4 had taken a full 3 hours so we jettisoned the plan to follow the ridgeline northeasterly and headed straight north down to lower elevations and open hardwoods. That was a smart move. The snow depth remained at about one foot all the way to the road where we arrived at noon and took a 20 minute break. En route we had continuous views of Saddleback’s south summit area, all snow-covered and lit up wedding-cake-white by the late morning sun.
At 12:30 we began the 1300 foot climb through grey birches on south facing slopes in deep snow. It was roasting hot and the sweat poured off my face. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky and looking back we got expanding views from whence we had come. It took 2 hours to make the south summit and the views from the open rock were even better than those from Ausable 4. The wind was howling so out came the winter garb. We traversed to the North summit and as we crossed through the tiny col we were seared by the hot sun. We still had one more peak on our list so we descended the north ridge and veered north-west into the drainage between Jay and Saddleback. After taking on water at 3000 feet elevation we began the 600 foot ascent. I remembered Jay to be deceptively difficult from a summer whack 5 years ago and the second half of yesterday’s hike was even tougher. 300 vertical feet from the summit we hit a wall of cliffs and after detouring right we had to side-hill upwards across blowdown covered slopes, arcing around the cliffs to get at the final approach to the Jay’s summit ridge. What you see on the map is not what you get on the ground. We were uncertain of the summit’s location now, having gotten pushed around. Thanks to the law of up and logical reasoning we topped out 50 feet to the east of the cairn. The final 45 minutes of hiking seemed to go on forever, every time we thought were at the top we saw more mountain above us.
The walk out along the ridge was beautiful in the early evening light but we couldn’t relax just yet.due to having to break trail through a foot of snow and staying on the trail. (luckily, some cairns were visible). We managed to follow the trail around to the beginning of the steep descent off the west side of Jay and to our delight there was a set of tracks that came up and stopped at the first viewpoint. We had figured that we would be unable to stay on the herd path and thought we would be bushwhacking out under headlamp glow so this trail was a real godsend. Whoever made it must know the herd path really well because in spite of the snow he stayed right on it the whole way. (We checked in the register and it was someone from Jay).
We got out at 8:20 without using headlamps. It was a long and very physically demanding day covering 11 miles in over 13 hours with continuous sensory stimulation and mental challenge.
Yes, we have pictures!
http://adkhighpeaks.com/neil/outdoor%20pursuits/aus4_jay/index.html
I tore out the door at 4:15 am on Thursday (45 minutes late because of human error in setting my alarm) and roared off down the street on my way to making a snowshoe delivery in the Adirondacks. I was so certain that my friends would need them for their hike in the Hurricane Primitive and Jay Wilderness areas that I decided to show up at the TH and loan them out.
I was lucky in that HighonLife was waiting for me (I was now only 20 minutes late having made excellent time) at the Brookside Inn in Upper Jay. I was going to give the snowshoes to her so she could pass them on the ADKJack who was waiting at the Trailhead on Hurricane road.
She said that since I was already in the area I might as well join them on their hike. As it turned out I had a winter pack all set to go and a second pair of snowshoes so I said, “Why not?” and we left my car up at the trailhead for Jay Mountain and drove around to Hurricane Road near Elizabethtown.
The TH is at the end of this road, about 2 ½ miles and 1000 feet up from Rte 9N and Jack was there waiting. He was afraid to get out of his vehicle due to a bear encounter.
“Here’s the snowshoes you’ll need today Jack! I got out of bed at 4:00 just to bring ‘em to ya”. I proudly held up a pair of MSR Evo Ascents and got busy attaching my Northern Lite snowshoes to my pack.
There was maybe 2 inches of snow on the ground.
“Thanks anyway Neil but I don’t think I want them. They’ll be much too heavy on my pack all day” said the 6 foot 2, 200 pound Jack. “Suit yourself but there’s over a foot of snow where we’re going. Maybe you should have your head examined by a qualified professional. I’m sure there’d be nothing to it.” Anyway, at 7 am. Jack, Nancy and I began hiking to that wonderful little mountain - Ausable 4, which sticks out like an outgrowth on the ridge that runs from the road between Lewis and route 9N to Hurricane. The south side is comprised of 500 foot cliffs so when you stand on the summit you have views that will take your breath away. I have approached Aus 4 from the west, the east and now the south, which was the toughest approach yet.
Our route went directly north from the road through a corridor of state land, 100 yards west of the parking area, across Jackson brook and avoided Ausable 4’s cliffs by heading up the gully which is SW of the summit. The snow was deep and the slope was steep but the snowshoes created steps that held nicely when you pushed upwards. It felt like full-on winter and a chilly wind was moaning.
Between the deep snow (sometimes knee deep), the southern exposed interlocking, snow-clad spruce trees and the terraced cliffs we spent an hour just to make the last couple of hundred yards to the summit. I was soaked to the bone and stepping out into the full blast of the wind sent me scurrying back for cover and a jacket. My flimsy nylon pants dried out almost instantly in the sun and wind.
Next on our list of objectives was Saddleback, which was far, far away, 2.67 mi to the north. Getting onto Aus 4 had taken a full 3 hours so we jettisoned the plan to follow the ridgeline northeasterly and headed straight north down to lower elevations and open hardwoods. That was a smart move. The snow depth remained at about one foot all the way to the road where we arrived at noon and took a 20 minute break. En route we had continuous views of Saddleback’s south summit area, all snow-covered and lit up wedding-cake-white by the late morning sun.
At 12:30 we began the 1300 foot climb through grey birches on south facing slopes in deep snow. It was roasting hot and the sweat poured off my face. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky and looking back we got expanding views from whence we had come. It took 2 hours to make the south summit and the views from the open rock were even better than those from Ausable 4. The wind was howling so out came the winter garb. We traversed to the North summit and as we crossed through the tiny col we were seared by the hot sun. We still had one more peak on our list so we descended the north ridge and veered north-west into the drainage between Jay and Saddleback. After taking on water at 3000 feet elevation we began the 600 foot ascent. I remembered Jay to be deceptively difficult from a summer whack 5 years ago and the second half of yesterday’s hike was even tougher. 300 vertical feet from the summit we hit a wall of cliffs and after detouring right we had to side-hill upwards across blowdown covered slopes, arcing around the cliffs to get at the final approach to the Jay’s summit ridge. What you see on the map is not what you get on the ground. We were uncertain of the summit’s location now, having gotten pushed around. Thanks to the law of up and logical reasoning we topped out 50 feet to the east of the cairn. The final 45 minutes of hiking seemed to go on forever, every time we thought were at the top we saw more mountain above us.
The walk out along the ridge was beautiful in the early evening light but we couldn’t relax just yet.due to having to break trail through a foot of snow and staying on the trail. (luckily, some cairns were visible). We managed to follow the trail around to the beginning of the steep descent off the west side of Jay and to our delight there was a set of tracks that came up and stopped at the first viewpoint. We had figured that we would be unable to stay on the herd path and thought we would be bushwhacking out under headlamp glow so this trail was a real godsend. Whoever made it must know the herd path really well because in spite of the snow he stayed right on it the whole way. (We checked in the register and it was someone from Jay).
We got out at 8:20 without using headlamps. It was a long and very physically demanding day covering 11 miles in over 13 hours with continuous sensory stimulation and mental challenge.
Yes, we have pictures!
http://adkhighpeaks.com/neil/outdoor%20pursuits/aus4_jay/index.html
