I have wanted to climb the peaks in Adirondacks for a while. Yesterday I climbed Cascade Mountain, my first mountain in the Adirondack 46 High Peaks. Cascade Mountain has an elevation 4098 feet. It is the 36th highest peak in the 46 High Peaks. The ascent from the trailhead is 1940 feet, and the hike is 4.8 miles round trip. The top of the mountain is rock as the trees and soil were apparently burnt away many years ago.
My wife and I were camping over near Tupper Lake. We got up in the morning and drove to the trailhead which is located between Lake Placid and Keene. The parking area is located right off of highway 73. If you can, try to back into a spot as it will make it easier to get back out when there is traffic. The trailhead is is located around 44° 13.211N, 073° 53.150W.
There were three of us, me, my wife, and our airedale terrier Issaquah. We wore day packs loaded with water, two-way radios, fleece jackets, and some other stuff just in case (compass, flashlight, etc). I carried my Magellan Map 330 GPS which was great. I loved knowing how far we still had to go.
We signed the log at the beginning of the trail and started on our way. About a half mile into the hike my wife decided to stop and let the dog and I go on, while she would sit on a rock and read a book and wait for us. I set a way point in the GPS for where she was sitting.
I kept in touch with my wife as the dog and I made our way up. Issa was full of energy, and we made a good pace. The steepest parts weren’t any worse than climbing stairs…a lot of stairs. As we got higher, the trees suddenly got smaller, and we were surrounded by small evergreen trees. At about 2 miles in, there was an opening with a great view. I took a few pictures, and we continued on. Radio communication with my wife came and went. Sometimes I could reach her, sometimes I couldn’t. When I could get her on the radio, she would tell me about other groups coming up from behind. I passed one small group coming down, and they told me that the summit was only 10 minutes or so ahead.
We came to a sign that gave us the option of going to either Cascade Mountain or Porter Mountain. We continued straight to Cascade Mountain. Soon over the trees I saw a rock peak jutting upward. It looked like it was still a ways a way. But then as I got through an opening in trees, the rocky peak stood before me.

Cascade Mountain Summit

We made our way up the rocks and soon stood on the top. It wasn’t cold, but there was a nice cool breeze. I didn’t need the jacket though. I took some digital pictures of the scenery. I also took a picture of the little metal marker signifying the summit. I saw many of the other Adirondack 46 High Peaks, but I couldn’t name any of them (I later bought a map the High Peaks region) except for Porter Mountain. My GPS put the coordinates of the summit at 44° 13.117N, 073° 51.607W.
Issaquah on Cascade Mountain Summit

I radio’d my wife to let her know we were on the summit, and that we were coming back down. As I was going back down to the sign, I considered going to Porter Mountain. It didn’t look like a difficult hike to bag the second peak. I had already done most of the hard work. But my wife was down the hill waiting so I decided to pass up the opportunity. I will come back and climb Porter Mountain another time.

I ordered a book titled Exploring The 46 Adirondack High Peaks by James R. Burnside. I am looking forward to coming back and climbing more of the peaks. Hopefully my wife can improve her conditioning and make it up the mountains with me and the dog!

I considered making the summit of Cascade Mountain a Virtual Geocache, but saw that for some reason they removed virtual geocaches from the allowable types.

Posted by RJ in Travel on July 11th, 2006 | 11 Comments