Northeast Adventures
Winter camping into the New Year
Adirondacks.
The mountains were calling once again, and into the beautiful winter wonderland I would again find myself in. My best friend and I set out to overnight in the Adirondacks planning to hike in to Uphill leanto and catch the sunrise at Mount Redsfield. The adventure begin when my I had hit my buddy up and asked him if we wanted to go hiking in subzero weather. He had no problem saying yes in a heartbeat. After this began the planning process. After going back and forth for a couple of days we finally had our plan. The first day we would hike via Marcy dam ,cross Avalanche Lake, cross lake colden until we reached the bridge. From there we would take the trail leading to uphill Leanto. The second day we would attempt to summit Mount Redsfield and then hike all the way out. This is one of my more memorable hikes just due to the fact that so much of my gear had broke. It wasn’t funny then but it definitely gave me some good lessons and one heck of a story.
Once again the memorable 3 hour drive to the Adirondack lodge took place. We crammed the spacious Camry full of winter gear and we were soon on our way. 2.5 hours later we arrived the hostel where we would sleep before the adventure. The next day came soon. We drove from the hostel which took us about 5 minutes to the trailhead. We paid the fee as we found a parking spot and unloaded. Looking at temperature gauge on the car dashboard it read -4F. We both made a comment about it being a very hot day. We gathered up our gear and we were off. Packs were heavy and we were good to go. We made our way to the familiar trail register were we would sign in with our agenda and contact information. This would mark the beginning of our adventure. We were off on our way both looking forward to crossing a frozen over Avalanche lake. After wandering in the frozen winter wonder land we soon hit the first junction. We bore left and we were one step closer Marcy dam. After a short while we reached the Dam. It was quiet, frigid, and our steps in the snow were very audible. A gust of wind started to hit us in our faces as we paused to grab a quick snack and hydrate. We crossed the frozen barren ice covered Marcy dam. When we reached the otherwise we checked the trail register just to see how many people were here on this cold day. Too many people had not signed in due to the cold perhaps, We continued until we hit the junction leading to Uphill leanto and Avalanche pass. Hauling or winter weight packs we trekked on until we started gaining elevation before we would drop down into avalanche pass.
We soon came across Avalanche pass which was completely frozen over. The wind was rolling in as we trekked across this frozen lake. This would be our first time crossing a frozen lake. It was quite a thrilling experience until we hit a weak point of the ice. My hiking partner took 2 steps in front of me and I hear a giant crack. I saw his right leg go into the water just below his knee. Luckily he had plastic boots fitted with super gaiters otherwise we would have turned around right there. We were both very startled and hit by adrenaline rush. We headed towards solid ground after this near hike ending incident. Shortly after we hit the edge of avalanche pass and continued to Lake Colden. We were both feeling good and temperatures were fine even in this -10F weather. It was a winter wonderland with snow and ice everywhere. After hiking for a bit we reached the trail register at lake Colden where we ran into a Ranger who wanted to know what we were planning. After a short discussion and story sharing we were on our way. We took the path that she had just broke with her skies leading towards Lake Colden. We followed this path for a short time until we broke free of the woods stepping on the frozen snow covered lake. The Visibility wasn’t too good but the feeling was magical. There is always something about winter hiking that is incredible. We made our way across Lake Colden hoping to not fall in again until we reached Colden Dam. Once we reached Colden Dam we proceeded to take our second break. After taking a short break we started to head down the Marcy Dam trail that would take us to Uphill leanto where we would spend the night. There was nothing easy or fun about this part. Dodging and ducking under snow covered branches just one step at a time we moved forward with our heavy packs. It began to get to me after awhile wondering where the heck this leanto is and how close we were. After a lot of steps we finally reached our Leanto with giant smiles on our faces. At this point we were both becoming impatient and hungry.
We dropped our packs and began to set up camp in the Leanto. After spending some time readying camp and getting the stoves and snow kitchen up we were able to relax a bit. The temperature was beginning to drop as it started to get darker. Now here is where the story and a lot of time got wasted. This leanto did not have a outhouse style privy but rather a hole dug in the ground with a wooden seat and platform over it. Usually its easy to find when there isn’t snow. I must have spent 20 minutes trying to find the darn toilet. After 20 minutes of muttering to myself in -15F I finally found it. I won’t get into too many details but its always a memorable moment and feeling in subzero weather to have certain exposures. I marked the toilet in a tree above with flagging before I headed back to camp. We fired up the stoves and we watched water boil before we could eat. After eating and cleaning up we proceed to get some sleep before we would wake up early for an alpine start.
Morning came quickly waking up to now -20F. Here’s another great lesson I had learned about sleeping systems. I had a -30F rated Synthetic bag combined with a 20F Open cell pad on top of a Closed Cell pad. The nozzle on my pad was broken so puncture it to drain the air. On a side note I ended up patching it and it failed completely when I was sleeping on another trip.I wouldn’t recommend it but it was doable. Sadly this is something I laugh at as I continue my present winter adventures. Somethings you only learn by experience. The worst part about winter camping is getting out of your sleeping bag. Nothing wakes you up and makes you more vocal. We both got geared up and fired up the stoves so we could enjoy breakfasts. After all of this we donned our gear and we headed towards Redfield. Step by step we moved forward to the trailess peak. I had remembered the trail from the past summer even though this time it was covered by snow and ice. Either way we both had GPS points and a map and compass set up. The sky was starting to light up as we were gaining elevation. As we gained elevation the temperature started getting colder. The cold was not getting to us mentally or physically so we kept pushing carefully paying attention to how were both were doing as an cold-related injury this far back country would not be ideal or fun to deal with. We pushed on into we saw the trees starting to level out and some views were starting to appear. My hiking buddy rushed forward leaving behind. I’m sure he was summit hungry because the colors of the sky were still one of the best Sunrise summits I’ve seen to date. With Air temperature and taking into windchill we estimated it to be around -30F to -40F. We quickly took pictures of the amazing views before we started to descend the trail. Going down the way we came was much quicker, and there were a couple opportunities to butt slide as well. After a while of trekking the the snow and ice covered trail we soon linked up with the main trail. We were both feeling good so we decided to pack up camp and begin the long trek back to the trailhead. I took a quick second to look at each other and I’m pretty sure that we both had icicles on both our eyebrows. After 15 minutes of breaking down camp and removing the snow kitchen to leave it pristine for the next person we were on our way.
We headed back to Marcy Dam via Lake Arnold trail. We would soon find out that we would have to do a bit of trail breaking. We both didn’t do much talking as we were focused on keeping the pace and momentum. For this entire stretch let alone the entire 2 days we only saw 5 people up to this point. Its just one of the many perks of winter camping/ hiking, if solitude is what you are looking for. We soon passed the sign leading to Mount Colden. We shortly joked about doing Mount Colden. Step by step we continued until we finally reached the junction that we had arrived at yesterday. We had a bit of relief because of the time that we had gained due to our speed. We slowed our pace a bit and began talking about past adventures and memories. The talks were a great way to past the time as we found ourselves crossing Marcy Dam. We ran into a group of 5 hikers who looked very surprised to see people camping in this weather. We complimented them on how small their packs were and they laughed. After that we continued to head towards the trail head. It was pretty quiet the way back. We both had grins our face and thinking about a hot cup of hot chocolate. Once the trailhead was in sight we knew another great adventure was over, It was new years day. Another question was whether or not the car battery was still good. Either way it was a great adventure to start the new year off right.
Thanks for reading, as always would love to hear what you think about this story as well as any questions or comments.
