Lets give the particulars first this time just for something different and to put some perspective on this one. GPS says - 11.9 miles and 4242 ft of vertical gain. Left the trailhead at around 8am, and exited the woods at 3pm sharp. Not bad, as I had to climb 3 peaks (Macomb, South Dix and East Dix - In that order), and then turn around and come out the same way. The most interesting thing on this hike was the slide climb up Macomb Mountain. 5 or 6 hundred feet of vertical on an open face rock slide area. This one is a bit different than most though, as it is mostly loose rock and rubble. Most of the Adirondack slides are smooth granite. The climb up wasn't too bad, but the trek down was a toe curler. Every two steps you start to slip or slide on the rubble. This turned out to have been a rather short hike by comparison, but the amount of vertical was tough. By the time I was climbing back up Macomb on the way out, I was beat up and tired. Tomorrow at work, people will know what I was doing on this day, because my arms got torn up by the closed in brush on this hike. 8 miles of this hike were on unmarked herd path. Not bad though - They were easy to find and pick up. Since this was a weekday, I didn't meet any people on this hike until the way out. Because of that, the summit photos are of the three markers on the three summits. The top photo is the view from the top of the slide on Macomb Mountain. The parking area and trailhead are near the left edge of the lake in that photo. You can see that for the most part, the first 2 miles of this hike were relatively flat, and the rest was a brutal excercise in up and down hiking. No complaints though - This makes 40,41 and 42. Only 4 left, 2 of them relatively easy ones, and two LOOOONG hikes for single peaks. I am going to try to finish these this fall, but not sure because of the difficulty of a couple of them that its going to happen. I will keep you posted.....
