Northeast Adventures 6-25-16
Basin Mountain, Haystack Mountain, Sawteeth and Saddleback Mountain. The first 20 mile Adirondack day.
It was time for another adventure for me and my best friend. This time we had more of an ambitious hike planned. Our plan was to hike to Sawteeth mountain via east river trail taking the AW weld trail. From there we would ascend pyramid peak and visit a very important mountain, Gothics mountain. From there we would then proceed up an down to Saddle Back, Basin, and making our way over Little Haystack to HayStack and then returning the same route. A very ambitious route ! l read to find out.
We once again made our way to St Huberts for a very early start. 1:00am start to be specific. We groggily got our gear set up and we were off our way. We made our way down lake road until we made our way to the junction over the dam and made our way to the A.W. Weld trail. While crossing the bridge we heard an owl not to far away from us. I got close to 4 feet away from the owl before I thought to myself, ” It still very early in the AM, lets not screw this up.” This was my first very early am hike. It was perfect weather. the humidity and heat wasn’t too bad, However the weather had called for rain and thunderstorms late. Hiking through the dark with headlights showing the way we made our way up the pat. We passed Rainbow falls outlook and being pitch black we really didn’t see much. We then continued on our way until we hit the Junction. We took the turn south to make our way to Sawteeth. It was a tremendous view with a dark sky surrounding us. We took a short break taking our time to rehydrate and refuel. We soon after our short break headed back up the trail onward to Pyramid peak on our way to the Junction at Gothics Mountain. The sun was just starting come out and the outlines of the surrounding mountains.
We soon made our way to treeline starting to take in the views and seeing the views around us.
We soon came across the descent from Gothics. This was very exciting because this involved going down using the cable for assistance. We slowly made our way down the route and we came across a junction which had we taken it, would lead us to the Orebrook trail. We were right back up to the climb to Saddle back . It was now getting sunny and there we were able to make out the views around us. We were getting close to the summit to Saddle back and the views were incredible. Upon checking the the trail we saw that we would be going straight down and the gradually back up again making our way to Basin. We made our way down cautiously making sure each step was solid and secure. We shortly made our way down and before we knew it we were going straight back up , We soon reached the summit of Basin mountain after navigating a view trick spots and one rotted board which gave way. Very minor stuff. When we had arrived at the top, it was a clear, but cloudy day with plenty of clouds moving around and masking summits. After another short break we began what we would knew would be a very steep decent down to the next junction until we closed into our goal for they day.
The trail was very steep indeed, we took our time with our foot placement. The weather was still holding up well and spirits were still high. After working our way down the steep section we made it to the next junction which would bring us closer to little Haystack and Haystack. It was a very clear day out plenty of sun and wandering low clouds to add to the day. We made our way up to little haystack which was a short huff and buff dropping down and then finally up one more time. We soon reached the summit of Haystack only to be greeted with an incredible 360 degree view from the summit. We had a tremendous view. visibility was incredible. We again took another break to enjoy the view. After enjoying the view and chatting with some fellow hikers who happened to be enjoying the summit, we soon started back on our way. With the clouds starting to look pretty ominous we decided to to take the longer… but safer way back .
We decided to take the Phelps trail down by JBL and then cut off to the Wolfjaw trail and coming down the Wedge Brook trail, meeting up with the west river trail and then back to the lot.
It was a long trek after an already exhausting day, we had already been hiking since 1am. Much wasn’t said until we hit JBL( John Brooks lodge). By this time every bad joke had no effect or just made the other person angry. Tired we kept on moving exchanging pleasantries with other hikers that we had passed. We soon made it to JBL , and took a quick break getting water and refueling our stomachs. After taking our break we soon headed out to make our way up the Wolf Jaw trail. We were extremely tired and fatigued but he moved along. We had ran into 2 guys we actually saw earlier around 5am which was pretty funny. Some funny comments and jokes were exchanged. About 2 minutes after we both went on our way , I heard a loud laugh, and just shook my head and kept going. We soon ran into 2 rangers before crossing the AMR property. It was approaching sunset and they had asked us if we had headlights. We answered by saying yes, they obviously didn’t know that we had been hiking since 1am. After a few other short questions we were on our way. After more walking with limited talking we soon made it back to the West river trail, where we continued for a bit and then crossed back over to the road.
We soon saw the trail register where we signed out and made the finally trek back to the car. Once the car was in sight we took off our backpacks loaded up the car and just sat there reflecting on how incredible the day was. This was the longest hike that we had done currently at the time.
