A Big Day on the Great Range

Timeline:

• Thursday 9/3
  • 2:30pm Hike from Garden Lot to Johns Brook Lodge
  • 4:00pm Check in to Johns Brook Lodge
• Friday 9/4
  • 8:00am Depart Johns Brook Lodge
  • 11:00am Summit Marcy
  • 1:00pm Summit Haystack
  • 2:30pm Summit Basin
  • 3:25pm Summit Saddleback
  • 5:30pm Back at Johns Brook Lodge
  • 7:20pm Back at Garden Lot
• Tracks: Day 1, Day 2 part 1, Day 2 part 2
• Conditions: Basically perfect! Temps around 70, not too much wind, partly cloudy, trails pretty muddy.

I live in New York and enjoy hiking high peaks, but I’d never hiked Mt. Marcy, the highest peak of them all. This has been bothering me! One of my goals for the year was to hike it.

Marcy is challenging because it’s long (the usual route is 15 miles) and the three-hour drive from my home near New Paltz means this has to be an overnight trip. So when my friend Leah invited me on a climbing trip to the ADKs over Labor Day weekend, my ears perked up. Maybe this was my chance to do Marcy!

When I ask friends about Marcy, they usually say something like “it’s a really long hike.” The 15 mile route would be the longest I’d ever done. Was there any way to shorten it?

The Adirondack Mountain Club’s Johns Brook Lodge stood out as the clear answer. It’s a three mile hike in from the Garden Parking Lot. Spending the night there would save those three miles and, crucially, start your hike 800ft higher up. Until Labor Day, you can pay them extra to get a cooked dinner, breakfast and pack lunch for your hike.

Saving those three miles and 800ft opened up the possibility of making this a multipeak hike. I did a lot of these in the Catskills, but it’s harder to link peaks in the ADKs because the hikes are so much longer and the peaks are taller and more spread out. The lodge was a unique opportunity to make this feasible.

I kept my eye on the weather before Labor Day and booked a bunk for Thursday night. Marcy, here I come!

Thursday

I left home around 10am. The drive up was smooth and uneventful. I stopped for gas at Northway exit 16, the same exit where Alex and I drove through the aftermath of a tornado last week on our drive home from Quebec. I listened to Revisionist History’s Staten Island podcast, part of a Hardcore History episode, and U2’s The Joshua Tree.

As I got into the Adirondacks, the high peaks were clear. Maybe I should have hiked today! But I figured it was also good that the trails had an extra day to dry off after all the rain this week.

Parking in the Adirondacks is always a source of anxiety. It stinks to drive three hours and not know if you’ll get a parking spot. If the Garden lot was full, I’d have to hike an extra two miles each way. I passed the Giant and Roostercomb lots, and they had a few spots. A good sign! The drive up to the Garden Lot was winding and steep. Fortunately there were plenty of spots and I had the $20 cash to pay for two days of parking.

I spent about 30 minutes sorting stuff out and covering all my climbing gear in the car, lest someone be tempted to break in. Then I started the hike. Conditions were perfect and the trail was clear and well-maintained. A little wet, but not too muddy. The three mile hike in was a good test run of what hiking with my pack would be like tomorrow. It felt good. I felt confident that I could hike this trail downhill in the dark with my headlamp tomorrow if need be.

After about an hour and a half I arrived at the John’s brook and the Johns Brook Lodge. It was beautiful. The lodge has great views of Gothics and you can hear the brook flowing nearby. The person working there said I could stash stuff there while I hiked tomorrow, which would save me the weight and bulk of my sleeping bag, toiletries and other non-essential items.

I arrived around 4pm so I had plenty of time until dinner at 6:30. I skimmed through one of their many hiking guide books. It said to do the Phelps trail up to Marcy, not Van Hoevenberg, because it’s much better maintained. I didn’t check how old the guide book was, but I figured I may as well take its advice.

There were five of us at dinner: an older man from Connecticut and a Ukrainian family, a dad and two boys, maybe 9 and 11. The JBL staff served vegan chili, rice, salad, cornbread, and mixed berry pie for dessert. Pretty good for dinner in the woods! The Ukrainian man had caught some trout that he cooked over a bed of pine leaves to supplement the meal. He was kind enough to share some with me. Delicious!

My bunk mates were a mother and her 8-year-old daughter. I’d booked a spot in the four person room, but there was only one person sleeping in the big ten person room next door. I thought about swapping, but after giving him a look I was worried he would snore. And wow did he ever! I used the provided earplugs and could still hear him through the walls.

I slept pretty well, all things said. When I got up to use the bathroom at 3am, there was a trail runner getting ready to go. A serious alpine start! I wonder if he was doing the full Great Range Traverse?

Friday

I woke up at 7am, prepped my stash bag and tossed some river water in my face to really wake up. Breakfast was at 7:30: scrambled eggs, a scone and fruit. I got my trail lunch around 8 and was on the trail by 8:05.

The Marcy trail was just fine, maybe a little muddy. I was surprised by the extent to which you’re hiking up a stream. I’d looked for water crossings on the map as potential refill spots before, but I needn’t have worried: you could refill basically anywhere. I packed almost four liters of water, but I could have gotten away with a Barefoot Ken-style 0.5L.

The Ukrainian family had hiked Marcy on Wednesday in rain and thick fog. It sounds like it had been a disappointment: no views anywhere. But they’d enjoyed seeing Bushnell falls on the way down, so I made a point of checking it out. This was a 10 minute “pack dropper” detour. It looks like a cool swimming hole!

I honestly don’t remember too much from the early ascent. I got pretty sweaty. I think I did a decent pace. There was a tall mountain to my right. Hiking the highest peak makes it easy to think about this. However high anything around you looks, you’ve got to go higher!

There were a few stream crossings on the trail and I felt it was a bit under-signed in places. I found it helpful to look for some of the other “you’re on the trail” markers I’d learned from bushwhacking in the Catskills: scars from hiking poles hitting rocks, places where boots had stepped over downed logs.

There were some threatening clouds in the morning, but the forecast was good so I didn’t worry. The canopy started to get lower around 3000ft, but there were still trees almost to 5000ft. At some point I looked back and there was a great view. I must be getting close! You don’t really see the Marcy summit until you’re very close to it.

Early view of Mt. Marcy summit

There was less “alpine zone” than I was expecting, but it was still pretty cool. There’s even a little bog up there. And the sky was clear! I was hoping to summit by noon and I was there by 11, so I was well ahead of schedule. There were good vibes at the top. Everyone was happy to summit and have a view. I briefly got reception and texted people and did today’s Wordle. (I got WAGER in four.)

I used my binoculars to see people on other nearby summits. Skylight was prominent, as was Haystack, my next potential peak. It was a little cold and windy on the bare summit, and clouds started to roll in, so I didn’t linger.

I’d run into quite a few people on the trail and at the lodge who said they were hiking Haystack because they’d never had the extra hour to do it after Marcy. Three of these people would be finishing their 46ers on Haystack today! I took this as a sign that I should go get Haystack. I had time, I was feeling good, and the weather was good, so why not?

After making the turn to Haystack, I ran into the mother and daughter from the lodge. They were impressed that I’d already done Marcy and caught up with them! The daughter said they’d done 12 of the high peaks so far. I’d only done seven, counting Marcy.

I got caught behind a group of eight twenty-year-olds and slowly passed them. They were doing six peaks today and were going slower than me. That gave me some confidence. Maybe adding a few more peaks to my day wouldn’t be totally crazy.

Haystack is a double peak. Little Haystack was easy. I figured “big” Haystack could be another “pack dropper.” I stashed my bag behind some shrubs and made my way over. There was more of a descent than had been apparent from Marcy or Little Haystack, and there was one vaguely technical rock scramble to get up. There were tons of blueberries on Haystack. We usually get these in June or July, but I guess the season comes late to the high peaks.

There were great 360° views from the summit of Haystack, probably the best of the day. I could clearly see Marcy and my next potential peaks, Basin and Saddleback. It was actually quite sunny—I regretted leaving my hat in my backpack! But it was cold when the wind picked up, so again, I didn’t linger.

On the way back I passed another hiker from the lodge who was finishing his 46ers with Haystack. He looked exhausted but happy to be there.

Upper path is shorter, lower path adds two peaks

After collecting my pack and going back over Little Haystack, it was decision time! Should I head back to the lodge or get two more peaks (Basin and Saddleback)? The mileage difference wasn’t very big (less than a mile). It was mostly elevation. This is a slippery slope: you can keep doing one more mile and a few hundred feet to get another peak, and pretty soon you’ll have done the full Great Range!

I’d felt a little tired hiking back up Haystack, but for the most part I felt fine. There was a father/son pair about to finish 46ers on Haystack. They encouraged me to go for it. The weather was great (not a given in the ADKs), I felt good, I had time, and I was already at elevation. My only concern was that my knees would start to hurt, or that I’d run into some unfamiliar new endurance wall. But what the hell? Let’s do it!

I felt some regrets about this decision as I made the trek over to Basin. It was extremely muddy and going up was starting to feel harder. I crossed paths with a couple who told me I’d have to do the “Saddleback Cliff,” and that it was a little easier going up. This created some suspense for me. What were these cliffs? And were they saying that I was going to be going up them? Or that they had? The descent from Saddleback looked pretty steep on AllTrails.

I passed another hiker for the second or third time of the day. He was doing the same two peaks, was worried about fatigue from sleep deprivation and whether he’d get to Keene before restaurants closed. Again, encouraging for me! I told him that there was a shortcut back if he didn’t want to do Basin and Saddleback, but he really wanted to do the Saddleback Cliff. That cliff again!

The Basin summit was not particularly memorable after Marcy and Haystack. But once again, the weather was clear and I had great views of the next peaks along the Great Range: Saddleback and Gothics.

The Basin to Saddleback traverse was the hardest part of the hike for me. There was a ton of mud, lots of wet rock, and steep descents. On one descent, I had to stop for a few minutes to game it out. The direct descent looked sketchy, and I wasn’t really sure what to do. Fortunately, a group of four hikers came up and explored a side option. When I told them where I was coming from, they asked if I’d seen a group of eight people about their age. I sure had! They were the other part of the group from Haystack. They were happy to hear I’d seen their friends and that they were doing well.

Soon I was at the base of Saddleback. This was short, but it was borderline technical rock climbing. I thought this was kind of fun! I used a foot jam in one place and pulled on a bunch of flakes. Last summit! The views of Gothics were pretty spectacular here.

I was worried that the descent from Saddleback would be “the” cliff, but the descent wasn’t bad at all. So I’d done the cliff going up! Soon I was at the junction for Gothics. Should I keep going? Hell no! Fortunately, John W., Alex and I had hiked Gothics last November, so I didn’t have any high peak FOMO.

The most notable part of the long descent was a huge, bare slab with a 300ft wooden staircase. This almost felt luxurious, like a return to civilization. I was tired but my knees felt ok at this point.

I ran out of water with 0.5mi left to the lodge. I filled up my water filter but it smelled a little funky so I just waited until the lodge. There were wild raspberries growing in this area.

As I approached the lodge, I had one last notable encounter: a chubby, shirtless man jogging with a loudspeaker and big pack. “Is this the way to Marcy?” Yes, but it’s not the most direct route. He was trying to find two of his friends. I sent him the other way.

I was back to JBL at 5:30pm with plenty of daylight to spare. The Ukrainian kids were curious to hear about my day. Dad to son: “do you think you could do four peaks in one day?” Younger kid: “yeah, but not if I had to keep waiting for you and my brother!” The dad was curious about rock climbing, and I encouraged him to have his son try it.

I took a 15-20 minute rest at JBL. I put on fresh socks, got fresh water, and enjoyed the cookie from my pack lunch. While I was sitting on their porch, two hikers walked by. Had I seen a shirtless guy with a speaker who seemed like he was drunk? Why yes, yes I had! I pointed them in the direction he’d gone.

My pack felt noticeably heavier with all my overnight supplies back in it. I’d hoped the hike out would feel more like a victory march than a death march, but in truth it was a bit of a slog. My knee started to feel a little twingy here, so I moved slowly and deliberately. I passed lots of campers going the other way. I wished them good luck, and that they’d have as good weather as I had today.

I was back at the Garden Lot by 7:20pm, just before sunset. My car was still there and not broken into. What a day!

I texted everyone that I was ok and got dinner at Forty Six in Keene. I had the “I just climbed a mountain” burger. Very appropriate!

At the end of the day, my back, legs and feet were pretty sore, but I was proud that I had the stamina and fortune to do such a big hike on such a beautiful day. Those four peaks take me from six to ten 46ers, and I can finally say that I’ve hiked Mt. Marcy, the tallest peak in New York!