Winter Balsam Lake: A Windy Adventure

Timeline:

• 9:10 AM Leave home
• 10:55 AM Start hiking
• 12:25 AM Summit
• 12:35 PM Start descent
• 1:55 PM Back at car

• 3:40 PM Back home

• Tracks: AllTrails
• Conditions: 20-30°, 1-3 inches of snow in tracks, 2+ feet in drifts. Calm on the hike up, light snow and 50mph wind gusts on the hike down.

To stay on track for my goal of completing my winter peaks this season, I wanted to do two hikes in January, 2-3 in February and 2-3 in March. With January nearly over and only one hike in the books, I was eager to get back out on the trails!

Balsam Lake has always felt like a “check the boxes” hike to me. It’s a long drive, it’s not a particularly long hike, and it was one of the last that I did on my 3500 list. A friend recently told me that you could hike to Balsam Lake from the north, rather than the usual, shorter route from the south. I figured that would make for a nice variation, and it would help me fill out my “all trails” map for the Catskills should that ever become a goal.

For the long drive up and back, I started listening to the recent Hardcore History podcast about Alexander the Great: Mania for Subjugation. Clocking in at nearly eight hours, it would certainly last the whole trip. Alexander’s father, Philip the II of Macedon, and his mother, Olympias are both fascinating characters in their own right.

The forecast wasn’t amazing: cloudy, some light snow, and 50mph winds. It was perfectly sunny and clear when I left home, but it got cloudier as I drove north and, as I passed Belleayre, it started snowing lightly. I was certainly in the minority going for a hike today rather than skiing! There were no 50mph winds to be seen.

There was one other car in the Dry Brook lot when I arrived. It was a couple who was just starting the hike. I thought I might have company, but they explained they were having a “snowshoe issue” and weren’t sure if they’d do the hike. I put on my snowshoes, crossed the road, and started up the hill.

I hadn’t done a solo hike since last April and quickly found myself moving much too fast. I had to remind myself to maintain a steady pace, that it was better not to get too sweaty on cold days like these.

I was surprised that there weren’t clearer tracks to follow. In places there was a “channel” but never clear snowshoe prints. There were usually only 1-3in of snow in the channel, but in places it felt like I was really breaking a track in 1-2ft of snow.

I made myself take a break every hour to pull water out of my backpack. I was generally pretty happy with my pace on the way up, and I enjoyed the snow and occasional views.

While it wasn’t windy on the way up, there clearly had been a lot of wind in the past. There were some interesting formation.

And I saw some interesting tracks:

Given the size, I wondered if they might be bear tracks. But they were single file. Steve from the Catskills Facebook group later told me they were Snowshoe Hare tracks. Cool!

As I got closer to the summit I joined up with the red trail. I’d wondered if there might be tracks here at least, but it was still totally blank. This part was quite steep and I had to take more frequent breaks.

Towards the summit the canopy got lower and I realy started to feel like I was in a snow globe.

I knew there was a fire tower at the summit, but still, it was pretty jarring to see a man-made structure so high up after such a long walk through the woods!

I’d hoped for a view from the fire tower. I took off my snowshoes and started ascending, but that was when the weather started to change. Snow started falling and I found the 50mph winds once I was above the trees. There was no point in continuing up.

These two photos were taken literally one minute apart.

I tried to eat my sandwich just in the woods, where I’d hoped I would be more sheltered from the wind and snow, but this was clearly not the place to be. I started making a hasty descent.

For a moment near the top, I got worried about visibility. It was very hard or impossible to see my tracks from just 30 minutes earlier. Now it was clear why I hadn’t seen any tracks on this hike: the wind gusts would fill them in almost immediately!

When I got back down to the red trail junction, I realized that the visibility issue was more my glasses fogging and icing over. The conditions weren’t all that bad. So I hiked down without glasses and felt much better.

There were lots of wind gusts on the way down but otherwise the descent was uneventful. I noticed that the other couple had signed in after me at the register and also signed out. I never saw them so they must have given up.

Five hikes left for my Winter 3500!