Wright, Algonquin, Iroquois

[king tut]

It's a rainy morning, as I sit on the hammock and read a few pages in a book, take a nap for a few moments, wake up and read a few more pages, then fall asleep again. The mountain wind blows creating a cool, blissfull feeling in my body and brain as I relax. I look out on the horizon and see mountains in the distance, nothing could be more serene. My left knee is a bit puffy and aching from crashing into a tree root during the prior day's climb, but I do not feel it as I slip into a blissful sleep again. The morning after a perfect day of climbing makes one feel complete, with no goals for the day, it is easy to take in your surroundings and feel perfectly content. It all started 24 hours ago, ok maybe more like 27 or so, I like to sleep in.....


The Dak attack started early in the morning hours, well maybe not, but early for slackers I guess. We started on the trailhead at ADK Loj a little after 8:30 in the morning. With our tummies full of hash browns, eggs, cheese, and english muffins we hit the trail. Our bodies were functioning a little differently due to a home made meal of meatloaf the prior evening by my friend's mother. The meatloaf was quite good, but it has been year's for both of us since our last meatloaf consumption. Our bodies did not know how to process this mystery meat, but let's just skip this part of the story...

The trail is a very gentle .9 miles to the first junction and then forks right going to Wright Peak where it ascends at a gentle to moderate pace for a few miles. After the first 3 miles, the trail starts a steeper ascent and soon comes to the junction of the side trail to Wright Peak. We decided to tackle Wright Peak first, and headed up the trail. The trail is a very steep .4 of a mile or so that climbs straight up. The ascent is not that difficult, but descending requires one to watch where they place their hands and feet so as not to slip and fall down the small rock faces. We reached the top in about 20 minutes or so and decided to take in the fabulous views of Algonquin Peak and Mt Colden. My friend Hilary decided to pull out the gorp and I decided to down Roast Beef sandwich # 1 of the day. I snapped a few of the first of what was to be about 50 shots of the slides on Mt Colden. Shortly there after a few women whom had parked next to us in the parking lot arrived at the top of the mountain and we had them snap this pic of us.



We took a few photos of them and then headed back down the trail towards the main trail up to the top of Algonquin. Once back on the main route up to Algonquin, the trail heads up steeply. About .2 of a mile or so from the junction of the Wright trailhead, the trail comes to a several hundred vertical foot climb up a narrow rock slide. I started ascending first and Hils started up right after me. About 20 feet up the slide, one of her water bottles goes skyrocketing out of her back pack and lands down at the bottom of the slide. Luckily for her, there was a nice French Canadian fellow right behind us that threw her bottle back up to her. Unluckily for him, water bottle #2 came shooting out of her backpack towards him at a high velocity a moment later. The poor guy caught the bottle, and handed it to her this time. He wasn't wearing a helmet, and luckily did not take a nalgene to the noggin'. It may have been divine intervention. With the fear of God in him, he decided to pass us for the moment, and nearly had a heart attack trying to climb safely ahead of us up the slide.

We summitted Algonquin after about 30 or 40 minutes of climbing up the steep rock slides. I arrived first to the top where I met the nice young summit steward. He gave me his speech about not killing the alpine flowers and then asked if I had ever met a summit steward. I said yes, and he asked where? I said, "mostly on the summits". He laughed a little and then I told him that the girl coming up behind me trampled all sorts of flowers on Wright Peak. He didn't buy my story, oh well, would have been funny to see a summit steward do a takedown on my friend all in the name of saving the alpine flaura. Maybe next time. We then snapped some more pictures of Colden, ate some pepperoni and cheese, and relaxed. Make that turkey pepperoni, my friend accidently bought turkey pepperoni, which is not quite the same as real pepperoni. Perhaps they feed pepperoni to Turkeys and then cut up the turkey... How does this work? Reminds me of Cranberry taking over all of the juice mixes these days in the super market. Is turkey on a similar mission to be a part of all foods in the super market?

Anyways, sorry for the ADD, the trip was soon to continue from the summit. My friend and I saw the two prior girls from Wright Peak on the top of Algonquin and she was trying to convince me to go make a move on the redhead from the prior peak that we were on and had talked to a short time earlier. She promised me i think a dinner and $5 if I manned up and did some high peaks flirting. I was not up to this challenge, and declined rather than to bother some nice female at about 5,000 feet.

We headed down the trail from Algonquin over to Iroquois. After about .4 of a mile, we saw a sign thay pointed down and said "Iroquois". So I headed down a few hundred vertical feet and then realized that this was not the trail to Iroquois, but rather the trail down to the Avalanche Lake area. We re-traced our steps up the steep incline and then came to the sign again and noticed that it said "Iroquois" but had a small hand written arrow facing the other way towards a herd path. Sometimes I am not that bright, other times I am downright stupid and cannot read trail signs. I am sorry to say this one falls into the latter category. So we headed into the brush and I was enthused to walk through lots of mud and get my legs cut up with lots of brush, twigs, and branches. I am not sure who decided on this "romantic" notion that trail-less peaks preserves beauty and nature. I would like to punch this guy. If the state of New York is reading this, PLEASE BUILD PATHS TO THESE PEAKS, I AM NOT VERY TOUGH AND HATE GIVING BLOOD TO TREES, THAT COULD GO TO WELL DESERVED MOSQUITOS. We ran into a few people that promised that the view on Iroquois would be worth the effort. I was feeling a little tired, deydrated, and mad at herd paths at this point. I told him that if the view did not turn out well, I would come find him. He laughed, he thought I was kidding. He had no idea.

Yeah, so the view was nice, not amazing, but pretty damn good. The hike back down the herd path had a few tricky spots with steep declines on some small cliff like areas, but was not too bad. Well not bad if you are tall, my friend had a little tougher time with her shorter legs. We managed our way down and I decied not to track down the previously amicable fellow since the view was pretty good. We climbed the 400 or 500 vertical feet back up to Algonquin and I took down roast beef sandwich #2, and Hils ate a nice Snickers bar, natures best hiking fuel. The summit steward came over again and started doing his speech again but briefly into his speech, he recognized me as the previous smart a$$ who was on top a few hours prior, and he slowly walked away looking a little scared...

We took a few more pics, like this one with Colden and Marcy in the background.



The first half of the trip down was non eventful from the top of Algonquin. Then just after the 1/2 way point down, while I was walking down a normal section of trail and feeling pretty content, I slammed my left knee cap directly into a tree stump that was sticking out into the trail. I hit the sucker at full speed and let out a large scream. My friend came down a moment later and asked what happened, since she thought she heard a loud bear groan. Well, the loud bear was me, still silently cursing the tree stump and laying in agony in a heap. The pain went away after a few minutes, and then we non eventfully made our way out to the Loj a while later.

The hike was gorgeous, could not have asked for a better day. I think we did a little over 12 miles, somewhere around 4,000 vertical feet of climbing, and I took down a new personal best of two roast beef sanwiches in one hike. We decided to celebrate the hike with beers and nachos at the Lake Placid brew pub. They had some fantastic beer there! I loved the Ubu beer. Five 46'ers down now, only 41 to go. Could someone please let me know when they take out those herd paths, and replace them with real trails? I love the ADK's, especially the peaks with real trails!

If anyone is bored and wants to see pics, here they are.

Pics

 

[TDawg]

Nice write up, I'm thinking about this route for later in the fall on a rare trip to the ADKs. Nice pictures, looks gorgeous.

 

[Tom Rankin]

Nice TR, nice pics, and good choice of Brew Pub!

Now, about those herd paths, welcome to the ADKs!

Seriously, the herd paths are getting better. Since I started hiking, there have been improvements to Street/Nye, Cliff/Redfield, Marshall, Allen, Santas, Macomb, and Tabletop, so for better or worse, it is slowly getting easier.

 

[king tut]

The scenery was awesome, can't go wrong on a trip like this.

TDawg, you might want to consider doing a loop with these peaks and then coming down through Avalanche Pass. I have seen others pictures, and it looks really cool down there. My friend was a bit scared of the terrain after reading it in her guidebook, but it looks relatively tame down near the lake.

The Brewery was really nice Tom, do you have any other recommendations for breweries in the Dak's? Enjoy the beer in Burlington this weekend, maybe i will see you at the waterfront if i decide to come have a few.

 

[TDawg]

TDawg, you might want to consider doing a loop with these peaks and then coming down through Avalanche Pass. I have seen others pictures, and it looks really cool down there. My friend was a bit scared of the terrain after reading it in her guidebook, but it looks relatively tame down near the lake.

I would most likely be solo past the Algonquin summit, soooo.....

Roughly, how long is the said loop back to Adirondak Loj? Including Wright, anyone?

 

[Jay H]

The funniest part is, I'm pretty sure the trail over to Iroquois isn't even considered a herd path.

It's admittedly not very wide, though.

Jason

in the winter with enough snow, you just kind of walk over the trees as the herd path is hit and miss in winter, sometimes you're on it, sometimes you're not.

However, there is an informal marker at the junction sign at the trail that leads down to lake Colden and avalanche pass. Something like a reversed yellow disc that says "iroquois" on it..

Nice TR!

Jay

 

[HuiYeng]

I was there Monday doing the loop. Isn't the views just amazing up there, even on Iroquois. Marshall looks so close from there that I wish I could bushwhack over there.

..came to the sign again and noticed that it said "Iroquois" but had a small hand written arrow facing the other way towards a herd path. Sometimes I am not that bright, other times I am downright stupid and cannot read trail signs. I am sorry to say this one falls into the latter category.

That happenned to me too

Roughly, how long is the said loop back to Adirondak Loj? Including Wright, anyone?

The loop was a great route. BUT, the trail down from the Boundary Peak to the lake was pretty rough going, not because it was steep but it was mostly under running water. I don't know was it because of the rain from Sunday? or is it always like that. No idea. After the descent, the trail goes along the lake and you got a up close and clear views of the scars on Colden. And couple of bridges build along the cliff wall about 10' above the water, super cool!!

Not a tough hike at all just bit of scramblings. I can imagine that to be tough for backpackers with large heavy pack, but no big deal for day hikers. That said, I ran into a family of 3, down at the avalanche Pass the kids are barely 9-10 ish with 30+ lbs on them and were hiking in great spirit with their mom. Awesome kids, super cool mom.

I was hiking on a slower pace and the whole loop (including Wright and Iroquois) took me about 10 hours. I may write up a report next week. Including my visit to the Santamuddy range!!

 

[TDawg]

I am aware that the trail to Algonquin/Iroqouis from Lake Colden is steep and rough, but I'll have a light day pack and I'm up for it.

Thank you 7summits.

 

[king tut]

I would most likely be solo past the Algonquin summit, soooo.....

Roughly, how long is the said loop back to Adirondak Loj? Including Wright, anyone?

The entire loop if you included Wright and Iroquois would be around 13 miles or so, is my guess. The herd path over to Iroquois is not that bad, just a little mud and a few branches here and there. Definitely a lot tamer than my most hated herd path, the Fort Mt herd path in Baxter State Park in Maine.

 

[Neil]

Great report! I love the term, "Dack attack".

Like Columbo I couldn't help but notice a certain....uh...inconsistency. And, like in so many of those episodes it's a picture that raised my eyebrows.

You mention the blood-letting along the herd trail to Iroquois. But when I examine carefully the picture of you on Algonquin, after this traumatizing ordeal, I detect no discontinuities in the integument that covers your genicular and tibial regions. And, you are wearing shorts. This leads me to conclude that it wasn't all that bad.

I chuckled through the entire report. Btw, I advise against you embarking on a bushwhacking career.

The Algonquin-Iroquois route is one my my favorites in the Dacks.

 

[king tut]

I spent countless hours photo-shopping out the blood from the pictures.

OK, you got me, there was minimal blood from the 'whack through the decent herd path. More emotional bleeding than literal bleeding. I did break skin and bleed a little on my knee during the knee-stump collision on the way down Algonquin though.

 

[MattC]

The loop including Avalanche is outstanding-I've done it once in each direction. I found it easier climbing up the trail from Avalanche and coming back out over Algonquin. Avalanche Pass and Lake taken together make up one of the most scenic areas in the high peaks, IMO.

Iroquois is considered a herd path as far as I know, but it is definitely one of the better ones. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe it was in fact cut, I think by Colvin's survey crew all those years ago.

Matt

 

[DreamFarmer]

Great Report and pics with lots of laughs. Well Done !

 

[Adk_dib]

I remember doing Iriquios from Algonquin about 7 years ago. I had shorts on andI agree, my shins took a beating. It might be worth wearing long pants for that short section. This hike is definatly on my redo list.