Another nice warmup for the big ones...Only this one counts! Spent the day in Lake Placid on Monday taking in the sights and overpaying for dinner. Surf and Turf is a good dinner the night before a hike though. Packed up the morning of and headed to St. Huberts to begin the assault on Sawteeth. It started with the bottom photo and these three looking at me like - "Your going where?" Seriously, they just stood there as I walked past 10 feet away. But, that aside, I decided to bring the snowshoes on this one as I read that there is still significant snow above 3000 feet. While this is true, it's kind of that transition period in the peaks. Not enough snow for snowshoes, but enough of a spine to posthole ankle to knee high periodically. Got away with microspike all the way to the summit on the Weld trail with just about no post holing because the spine was solid as the temps were single digits the night before. Microspikes = GOOD! I figured with brilliant sunshine and 50's it wasn't going to last. I was right. On sage advice from a friend, I decided to go down the scenic trail to take in the views. I would have reversed it if I had know that scenic trail. Anyway, about 1 mile down, started to posthole regularly, so I decided to put the snowshoes on. I went about another 10th of a mile, and the snow was effectively gone. The rest of this hike was tough in that it was intense downhill followed by a mile of rock scrambling on the shoreline of the upper Ausable Lake. By the time I hit the lake road again, my feet where beat up pretty good. And of course, they had just graded the lake road, so it was all loose rock and dirt. Made it even more fun on the way out. That said, this hike was a success in all ways. Summits alone are so peaceful and quiet that it puts the mind completely at ease. The self portrait was the best I could do alone. You get the idea. Only one place you can get that dramatic side of Gothics that close up. The other photo is my first experience at Rainbow Falls. In a word - Beautiful. This leaves me with 3 to go, 2 of them tough "trailless" peaks. Stay tuned for # 44.....
