Northeast Adventures #10 Dix wilderness
Dix Wilderness 5-28-16
Once again me and my best friend set out to the peaks and wilderness once again. There was a slight twist this time around. About 2 weeks prior to the hike I had broken a fall with my left hand and unfortunately I fractured 2 meta carpals. It made very common/ easy activities very difficult but I wouldn’t let this stop me from hiking.We made our way to the trail head off of Elk lake road. It was going to be a very hot and humid day. We knew that once we hit the ridge there would not be too many places, if any to filter water.
We signed in at the Dec register and we were off on our way. Our plan was to go up Macomb slide, climbing , Macomb, Hough peak, Grace Peak, and DIx Mountain. We started to make our way up to the trail gaining elevation before we hit the turn before the slide. The strong heat and humidity was causing us to constantly sweat and remain as hydrated as we could.
We made our way to Macomb slide. We had read about the slide but seeing it for the first time was an incredible sight and experience. The sky was still clear blue with minimal clouds. As the sun beat on our backs we worked our way up the slide.The bugs and flies were a constant motivator to move fast. As we gained elevation the view had gotten better. Our pace had slowed down due to the fact that we were both distracted by the amazing view behind us. We soon made it to macomb’s summit to be greeted by a great view of Elk Lake and the slide we just climbed up. The summit was absolutely beautiful everything was so blue. The sun was shining and there was small breeze . After a quick snack in the shade we continued to the next peak. The descent to South Dix was relaxing and also downhill minus tripping on a couple roots. The downhill only lasted so long before we were heading back up.
The quick climb up the bare rock was again open to clear blue skies. We quickly enjoyed the summit of South Dix before we headed to East Dix ( grace peak.) We went down the beaten down trail until we reached East Dix. There wasn’t too much mud so we were making a good pace. We were again greeted by astonishing views of mountains around us as far as the eye could see around us. We took a quick break and then we headed back over to South DIx, from there we would head back to South Dix , from there we would head north to Hough Peak. The trail was very quiet, we hadn’t seen many people on the trail this day so we expected to see people on the next 2 summits.
From South Dix we went downhill and the backup hill. As we approached the ridge once again we were greeted by beautiful views on both sides of the path . We made it to Hough peak and we again were greeted by beautiful views surrounding us. Some dark clouds were starting to form, so we cut our break shortly and we headed back on the trail towards Dix.. As we made our way up we had more scrambles involving use of all 4 limbs. This was difficult in spots by itself. Unfortunately I had a cast on my left hand. Using that as a brace I made my way up the Obstacle. One obstacle after another we finally hit timber line and more hit both by the heat and the light of the sun. After checking our map we saw the dix summit was only a half mile from where we currently were, we decided to drop our packs and jog the remaining mile .When we got the summit after the remaining mile, standing at the peak we were able to see the range that we had just climbed starting with macomb slide. The view was breathtaking, it almost seemed unreal. We took another quick break before heading back to the junction where we had left our bags. Unfortunately we were both slowly running out of water and with 2 more miles downhill to the next water source we knew that the descent down was going to be grueling. Grueling it was, not much was said but the views were absolutely stunning until we got back into timberline. Once in timber line we increased our pace a bit as we got closer to Lilian brook, we were definitely both dehydrated. We were definitely excited and ecstatic to see the brook and the bridge. We just about jumped into the shallow brook to fill our water bottles. After rehyrdrating we kept on hiking until we reached the trail head. The rest of the hike was uneventful and pretty quiet. The only think you could hear were footsteps on the path and the sounds of wilderness.
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