6 and 7 of 46 - Cascade Mountain and Porter Mountain

It is advised that hikers not hike the high peaks until June as the sensitive alpine vegetation is particularly fragile in early/late Spring and our winter was pretty long.  So now that it's June, we were raring to go.

Cascade and Porter were the obvious choice for our first High Peak trek of the season.  Last year we started off with Big Slide which was a particularly difficult hike for two beginners.  After a long off-season with minimal training, I thought we could use an easy break-in hike.

This hike is somewhere around 6 miles round trip and you get two peaks in that distance, so it's really not too bad. The weather forecast was showing around 70 as a high in nearby Keene Valley, so we were expecting a decent warm day.  Fortunately, we brought along our jackets and some clothing, just in case.

It was a little chilly at the base so we started with our jackets on, though we quickly removed them as we were sweating quickly in an early steep ascent.  The climb is pretty consistent on the way to the fork in the road, but we made pretty good time, stopping only rarely to catch our breath.  We actually gained on some hikers in front of us, which is not all that typical for us.  Later, we passed them, well before the fork.  Many of the descending hikers looked wet.

A couple guys coming down from the top stopped for a second to chat with us.  They gave us tips about finding the mostly unmarked summit of Porter.  Then they expressed some concern for our clothing.  We had taken off our jackets and I was wearing shorts.  They said the peak of Cascade was getting hail and it was very cold and windy.  We assured them that we were properly equipped and marched on.  They advised that we hit Porter first and then double back for Cascade, which was my plan to begin with.

When we got to the fork, we branched off to Porter, only 0.7 miles according to this sign.  You go right to Porter and left to Cascade.

First you go downhill for a bit, then come back up as you climb to the summit.  Between that sign and the summit a very cold chill settled on us and I quickly put my jacket on.  It was very cold and I put my hands in my jacket pocket for a bit as I was gloveless.  As advised, the summit is unmarked. You come to a sign that tells you how far it is to the next major point of interest and that's really it.  There isn't much of a view on a normal day, but on our cloudy day it was really nothing, so we immediately doubled back.

We stopped again at the fork and had a quick snack.  If it was still hailing on the summit of Cascade, we wouldn't be able to stop and snack there, so this was our best bet.  As we snacked, the two hikers that we passed finally arrived at the fork.  We really beat these guys if we had already taken on one high peak and they just got there.  We advised them how cold it was at Porter's summit and they trekked on.

This time we went left, and it's only 0.3 miles to Cascade's summit, according to the sign. This is probably more accurate as it felt like no time at all.  About halfway, you arrive at open rock face.  This is pretty common in the Adirondacks as there is a lot of bedrock and lots of rock faces.  In this case, though, I wish it was more sheltered.  We were right in the clouds and it was very windy as soon as we were out in the open.  The moist cold cloud air was rushing around and very cold.  We could see a decent distance ahead though and it was all open rock.  This was the steepest section and the rock was a little slippery.

However, in what seemed like no time at all, we were at the summit.  I found this guy for proof:

These markers are found on most of the high peaks.  While it wasn't hailing at the summit, it was very cold and the air was so wet (because we were in clouds) that my hair was dripping and my jacket covered in beads of water.  It was also extremely windy.  At one point I almost fell down while climbing into the wind.  I would guess the gusts were over 50 miles per hour, but that's a very uneducated guess in this case.  While I thought that Porter was cold, Cascade was much, much colder.

Again we quickly got the heck out of there.  We got down the rockface in record time as were both very cold and couldn't wait to get back to the shelter of the trees.  Here's a picture of where the rocks meet the trees.

On the way back down, the clouds were clearing up just a little bit and I happened to get one picture with a slight view.  This is the best view we got all day.

You can't see much, but there is a lake down in that valley, and the sun shining through the clouds off in the distance.  We got off the mountain in decent time.  All in all the hike took about 4 hours, which isn't bad but isn't great.  My shirt was absolutely soaking wet when we got back and I don't have any idea how much was from sweat and how much was from the occasional rain we experienced.  I didn't think I'd be too sore because I never felt rough on the hike, but I'm feeling it quite a bit today.  That's really the consequence of taking all winter off.  We had two preparation hikes to get back to the High Peaks, but it only gets MUCH harder from here and I expect to hurt a lot more after the next couple.

It was very exciting to get two peaks to start the season in such an easy fashion, but I can't wait to get back up and get some more!  Next up: nothing easy.