Over the River and Through The Woods

To the barn, of course, for Thanksgiving. We opted for a quiet, "us only" Turkey Day for the first time ever? I think. While I thought I'd miss having time with big family (either williams or mitchell), we decided to make it totally nontraditional by scheduling a 46er climb. This would be our 4th and we think Phelps Mountain is our target. The only conundrum is that it has snowed much more than expected. We all have snow shoes but if it's really rough conditions, we might end up with a Thanksgiving ski instead of a 46er hike. Either way, should be interesting day.

Giant

For # 3 of our 46er summits, we decided to do Giant Mt. It was our longest and hardest climb to date. I will let the boys add any details but Joe and I were absolutely amazed at their stamina and good nature. We hiked for over 7 hours including ascent and descent. It was only a 3.1 mile hike to the summit but it was steep from the moment the trail started. There was also quite a bit of bouldering. We took the shorter Ridge Trail, not the Roaring Brook trail. We had heard the Roaring Brook had a path along a waterfall but was longer. Nevertheless, we were treated to a few small waterfalls along our hike too. We also came upon a really neat lake, about 3/4 of the way up, called the Giant Washbasin. We were really running out of steam and Oscar was ahead. We saw him scamper up a boulder and then turn, smile and raise his hands above his head. We knew we made it! Summit was crowed but fun. There were a few cute dogs to pet and we had a lovely picnic lunch. Descent was tough because of the boulders and incline. Clarke was challenged by a sore twisted ankle but handled. Lots of falling and slipping and sliding. At the end of the day, we all enjoyed a great sunset and evening. I made shrimp fajitas and the boys had root beers. Joe and I were struggling to keep our eyes open and the boys were....outside playing baseball. Youth! We think for our next we will get a very early morning start (before 7am) so we can relax a bit on the way up.

Cascade and Porter

We did this on April 1st, but when we were publishing this, it got lost and we didn't save it. We tried to remember it.

For our first 46er, we decided to do Cascade. It was the beginning of spring, so there was snow and ice on the ground which made my shoes slippery, even though it was somewhat warm outside. This made the whole hike a little bit harder. In the beginning of the hike, we could hear the streams under the ice. The hike was pretty easy for a 46er mountain. We decided to eat lunch at a spot about 7/8 of the way up to the top. It had a great view. At the end it was completely bald and me and my crazy little brother Oscar rock climbed very fast. At the summit we touched the summit marker, looked at the view for 5 minutes and went back down.
When we reached the cutoff to Porter, we decided to do it since we had lots of energy left. So we went off. We were all together, until me and my mom started to go ahead. All the sudden Oscar and my dad were way behind us, we stopped and called their name; no reply. We decided they probably had to stop to tie Oscar's shoe or something like that, so we kept going. The sign said it was only .8 miles to Porter, but we were pretty sure we should have seen it by now. We realized we should go back when there were signs to go to some place called "the garden". So we went back, very confused, to find Oscar and dad. We were calling for them for at least 20 minutes until we got a reply. We finally found them , and went back to our car. We got there just before sundown.

When we got home, we researched and found that Porter is the only 46er without a summit marker.

Clarke

The Quest!

We are the Williams Family, part time residents of Saranac Lake in the high peaks region of theAdirondacks and part time residents of Manhattan. We are going to document our adventures and fun during our time in the Adirondacks. First, we are starting our quest to become members of the historic Adirondack 46. The membership of the Adirondack Forty-Sixers Inc. consists of hikers who have climbed to the summits of the 46 major peaks of the Adirondacks. This will probably take years. Second, as this is our first whole summer up here we have a big agenda of new things to try and favorites to frequent. And now the lineup: Clarke is 12, Oscar is 8, Bridget is 37 and Joe is about to be 37. The Adirondack Mountains are our favorite place in the world and we hope to share the fun.