We’d planned our trip to bag our first peaks in Adirondacks in the fall 2019. We found an awesome BnB in Keene, NY; on the northern fringe of the High Peaks wilderness area, and near Lake Placid. All seemed in good order until COVID-19. Early on, we all learned about social distancing and what it meant. Fortunately for us, as the COVID spring gave way to summer, businesses and trailheads in the high peaks area began to gradually re-open, of course,

Almost every blog post about these two Adirondack summits – approached them as a single day hike. Same. Both summits share the same trailhead and the same trail for the bulk of the hike. When taken together, the GPX looks like a “T”. Not wanting to rediscover the tried-and-true, we opted for the same – parking at the trailhead on Rt 73 between the towns of Keene and Lake Placid. Because of the popularity of this hike and the limited

We were beginning to learn that the “Dacks” were a bit more challenging than the “Whites” – hard as that might be to believe. NH’s White mountains are pretty formidable (though I suspect some Colorado natives might differ!), though steepness, more mud(!), and the greater distances from civilization make the Adirondacks just as challenging, if not more so, than the Whites. Phelps was a good example. Leaving from the Adirondack Mountain Club Loj on the Van Hoevenberg trail, the first

The first day of our week-long peak-bagging in the Adirondacks summits had really kicked our butts! As a one-day hike, the 3-summits of Iroquois, Algonquin, and Wright were massive and we were feeling it on our second day. We decided on a zero-day and took on a bit of relaxation in Lake Placid, walking around town a bit and exploring the area. In our COVID-19 era, the town was thankfully not hugely crowded, and some folks were taking precautions, as

We’d really enjoyed our first adventure in the Adirondacks during 2020 – especially during the COVID years, it enabled us to get outdoors while not putting ourselves in jeopardy of infection. In 2021, we returned to the Dacks, staying in the same, very cute AirBnB in Keene. For this week, we were looking toward adding another five summits to our North East 111 list. We approached these two peaks following the internet wisdom, by approaching Giant first, then the traverse