Trip report best read while following along with both a map and the pictures.
Sylvie and I spent 3 days in the Adirondacks, camping 2 nights at Sharp Bridge. She needed one full day to work so I decided to use that day to hike to Spotted Mountain. I have been up and down this mountain from a multitude of directions and have always wanted to go straight up it from Linsday Brook, which runs SE of it. Curiously, there's a tributary of the S. Fork Boquet just below Spotted which runs parallel to Linsday Brook and which is separated from it by only about 100 yards. On one side of the tiny divide is the St Lawrence watershed and on the other is the Hudson.
I cinched my pack tight and strode off from campsite number 26 telling Sylvie I'd be gone for 10 hours. In very short order I was on the trail towards the Linsday Brook Culvert under the Northway. I immediately came upon my first impediment in the form of a rotting walk-way that led into a 200 yard wide beaver swamp. However, there was a dam upon which I managed to cross the entire width with almost perfectly dry feet and then I sauntered quickly along a beautiful old woods road with the Northway and little birds zinging in my ears. The culvert was well-marked, obvious, clean and dry. Once on the other side I began the whack towards Spotted, which was a long ways off. I only had the ADK trail map because I made my plan to do Spotted 15 minutes before leaving the campsite. (I first checked to ensure my map covered all of the terrain).
It was a blue-bird day and neither hot nor cold and there were barely any bugs. Leaf-out was only half-way so I had good views of the various bumps and summits that would act like sign-posts along my way. After side-hilling the 400 meter bump that is a part of Saunders I made a quick drop into a drainage and began ascending the 400 meter NE ridge of the same mountain. It wasn't long before I was cruising on wide swaths of open rock, right on my compass bearing. Atop the ridge, which has 2 contours of prominence, I got perfect views over to Spotted, which looked positively huge compared to the little guys like Saunders, Buck and Bear.
I was going across the grain and had a couple more ridges to traverse. The next one runs NE off of Bear Mountain and entails a whopping 150 feet of ascent. Down at the low point was a massive swampy area that didn't show on my ADK map, although it does show on the quad. I came out smack in the middle of it so I had to make a very wide detour, which was an impediment relative to my objective but which is the sort of thing that makes off-trail travel so pleasant and memorable. The views up to the Macomb, Wyman and South Dix were unique to say the least.
Once across the swamp I had to remove my boots and wring out my socks because the final 20 feet entailed either wet feet or another big detour so I opted for wet feet. Stopping and sitting quietly to do this was a special treat all of its own in the sun with no bugs and the huge flood plain all lit up in the late morning sun right in front of me. Lots of bird-song. In the next valley I crossed Lindsay brook for the first time and here I chugged the rest of my water bottle and re-filled. My next high point was the Wyman-Gem ridge. (Gem as named by Glen for the 3 Gems that lie in a SW-NE row at the lower NE end of the Wyman massif.) Here I went on instrument travel, something like dead-reckoning, following the compass bearing through rumpled and vague terrain but gaining 600 feet of elevation all the while. My next checkpoint was again Lindsay Brook (north trib) and I took on some more water. I quickly crossed into the St Lawrence watershed and crossed the S. Fork Boquet trib. I was at 2000 feet elevation and I could see Spotted now full-face. From the top of every high point and often on the downsides I had views of Spotted so except for the 600-foot rise it had been pretty easy to remain on course.
There was a lot of blowdown, fairly recent and the area was kind of dismal. Travel was slow because the tree crowns were intact and a lot of detouring and clambering was required. But then I was in open and steep terrain and I ascended next to an outward bulge of the mountain whose face was vertical. I got around behind it into a tiny col and walked out onto a flat area of open viewing rock that commanded a vast area of hills and mountains, near and afar. I turned around and studied my objective, doing a little route-finding. Out on the face the rock was steep and wet and looked like a series of inverted watch-glasses interspersed with scrubby trees and vertical steps. In spite of potential views and surely no shortage of adrenalin I decided to play it safe and follow a gentler line mid-way between the main face of Spotted and the col between it and the 1089 meter bump towards Grace Peak. What I got was gently sloped open rock with killer views in nearly all directions all the way to the top. Then from the summit the views opened up to Dix and beyond. There were no hikers to be seen anywhere.
I had no idea what my next move was going to be and my plentiful options included Grace and Wyman or Grace and the Great Slide with an exit via the North Fork herdpath and a hitch-hike home. For aesthetic reasons I leaned towards the idea of beginning and ending on foot at campsite 26 so after gauging everything I opted to descend towards E-Town 4 until the slopes eased off and then head home via a subtle variation of my inbound route. I would avoid the blowdown hopefully and pass to the NE of the big swamp. This I did and the long walk home was very zen. Without Spotted as a guide I relied on Glen's Gem and then when I lost that sign-post, which I sited on when crossing Linsday to get a position fix I travelled “blind” through open woods until my next checkpoint. I actually held the compass in my hand out in front of me to save time. Otherwise I would have wandered all over the place.
Near the end I crossed the same open rock of Saunders NE ridge and now I began to spend some time laying the compass edge on the map and lining up my approach to the culvert. The trail under the N-Way is incorrectly shown on the quad by the way. That trail is shown as leading to the Lindsay Brook culvert, not the walking culvert. You need TCD's book, Under the Fast Lane for that beta (or the ADK trail map).
Anyway, I wanted to hit the N-Way about 5 minutes north of the culvert so as to know for sure which way to turn to find it. There isn't a handy pond (like Shingletree) to mark it. I was cross-sloping downhill so I made myself be extra diligent with the compass bearing and this ploy worked perfectly. After crossing the beaver flow (this time getting my feet soaked) I strolled into campsite 26 eight hours after heading out. I sat down in a lawn chair, pulled off my boots and scrolled through the day's pictures. I got a nice fire going and shortly thereafter Sylvie drove in and made supper. :thumbs:
PICTURES
Edit: Picture 3 is mis-captioned.
Sylvie and I spent 3 days in the Adirondacks, camping 2 nights at Sharp Bridge. She needed one full day to work so I decided to use that day to hike to Spotted Mountain. I have been up and down this mountain from a multitude of directions and have always wanted to go straight up it from Linsday Brook, which runs SE of it. Curiously, there's a tributary of the S. Fork Boquet just below Spotted which runs parallel to Linsday Brook and which is separated from it by only about 100 yards. On one side of the tiny divide is the St Lawrence watershed and on the other is the Hudson.
I cinched my pack tight and strode off from campsite number 26 telling Sylvie I'd be gone for 10 hours. In very short order I was on the trail towards the Linsday Brook Culvert under the Northway. I immediately came upon my first impediment in the form of a rotting walk-way that led into a 200 yard wide beaver swamp. However, there was a dam upon which I managed to cross the entire width with almost perfectly dry feet and then I sauntered quickly along a beautiful old woods road with the Northway and little birds zinging in my ears. The culvert was well-marked, obvious, clean and dry. Once on the other side I began the whack towards Spotted, which was a long ways off. I only had the ADK trail map because I made my plan to do Spotted 15 minutes before leaving the campsite. (I first checked to ensure my map covered all of the terrain).
It was a blue-bird day and neither hot nor cold and there were barely any bugs. Leaf-out was only half-way so I had good views of the various bumps and summits that would act like sign-posts along my way. After side-hilling the 400 meter bump that is a part of Saunders I made a quick drop into a drainage and began ascending the 400 meter NE ridge of the same mountain. It wasn't long before I was cruising on wide swaths of open rock, right on my compass bearing. Atop the ridge, which has 2 contours of prominence, I got perfect views over to Spotted, which looked positively huge compared to the little guys like Saunders, Buck and Bear.
I was going across the grain and had a couple more ridges to traverse. The next one runs NE off of Bear Mountain and entails a whopping 150 feet of ascent. Down at the low point was a massive swampy area that didn't show on my ADK map, although it does show on the quad. I came out smack in the middle of it so I had to make a very wide detour, which was an impediment relative to my objective but which is the sort of thing that makes off-trail travel so pleasant and memorable. The views up to the Macomb, Wyman and South Dix were unique to say the least.
Once across the swamp I had to remove my boots and wring out my socks because the final 20 feet entailed either wet feet or another big detour so I opted for wet feet. Stopping and sitting quietly to do this was a special treat all of its own in the sun with no bugs and the huge flood plain all lit up in the late morning sun right in front of me. Lots of bird-song. In the next valley I crossed Lindsay brook for the first time and here I chugged the rest of my water bottle and re-filled. My next high point was the Wyman-Gem ridge. (Gem as named by Glen for the 3 Gems that lie in a SW-NE row at the lower NE end of the Wyman massif.) Here I went on instrument travel, something like dead-reckoning, following the compass bearing through rumpled and vague terrain but gaining 600 feet of elevation all the while. My next checkpoint was again Lindsay Brook (north trib) and I took on some more water. I quickly crossed into the St Lawrence watershed and crossed the S. Fork Boquet trib. I was at 2000 feet elevation and I could see Spotted now full-face. From the top of every high point and often on the downsides I had views of Spotted so except for the 600-foot rise it had been pretty easy to remain on course.
There was a lot of blowdown, fairly recent and the area was kind of dismal. Travel was slow because the tree crowns were intact and a lot of detouring and clambering was required. But then I was in open and steep terrain and I ascended next to an outward bulge of the mountain whose face was vertical. I got around behind it into a tiny col and walked out onto a flat area of open viewing rock that commanded a vast area of hills and mountains, near and afar. I turned around and studied my objective, doing a little route-finding. Out on the face the rock was steep and wet and looked like a series of inverted watch-glasses interspersed with scrubby trees and vertical steps. In spite of potential views and surely no shortage of adrenalin I decided to play it safe and follow a gentler line mid-way between the main face of Spotted and the col between it and the 1089 meter bump towards Grace Peak. What I got was gently sloped open rock with killer views in nearly all directions all the way to the top. Then from the summit the views opened up to Dix and beyond. There were no hikers to be seen anywhere.
I had no idea what my next move was going to be and my plentiful options included Grace and Wyman or Grace and the Great Slide with an exit via the North Fork herdpath and a hitch-hike home. For aesthetic reasons I leaned towards the idea of beginning and ending on foot at campsite 26 so after gauging everything I opted to descend towards E-Town 4 until the slopes eased off and then head home via a subtle variation of my inbound route. I would avoid the blowdown hopefully and pass to the NE of the big swamp. This I did and the long walk home was very zen. Without Spotted as a guide I relied on Glen's Gem and then when I lost that sign-post, which I sited on when crossing Linsday to get a position fix I travelled “blind” through open woods until my next checkpoint. I actually held the compass in my hand out in front of me to save time. Otherwise I would have wandered all over the place.
Near the end I crossed the same open rock of Saunders NE ridge and now I began to spend some time laying the compass edge on the map and lining up my approach to the culvert. The trail under the N-Way is incorrectly shown on the quad by the way. That trail is shown as leading to the Lindsay Brook culvert, not the walking culvert. You need TCD's book, Under the Fast Lane for that beta (or the ADK trail map).
Anyway, I wanted to hit the N-Way about 5 minutes north of the culvert so as to know for sure which way to turn to find it. There isn't a handy pond (like Shingletree) to mark it. I was cross-sloping downhill so I made myself be extra diligent with the compass bearing and this ploy worked perfectly. After crossing the beaver flow (this time getting my feet soaked) I strolled into campsite 26 eight hours after heading out. I sat down in a lawn chair, pulled off my boots and scrolled through the day's pictures. I got a nice fire going and shortly thereafter Sylvie drove in and made supper. :thumbs:
PICTURES
Edit: Picture 3 is mis-captioned.
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