#marcy brook

[itreallyiskyler]

Indian Falls brook crossing, Mt. Marcy, NY June 30th, 2017

[glacierbandits]

Heart of the 'Daks - Day Two

Well, this morning we awoke, and instead of having outmeal and Pop Tarts for breakfast, I surprised the girls with a hot meal at the Adirondack Loj. If you stay in the campground, you can reserve a breakfast the night before, and that it what I did. I hoped that the Loj would have served pancakes, but we had some scrambled egg concoction. Better than oatmeal, not as good as pancakes.

Here we are waiting for the breakfast.

I told everyone to bring their own mugs so that we could take hot beverages with us as we walked back to the campsite. Besides, there's nothing like having breakfast with one's own REI mug.

Completing breakfast, we filled up our water bladders (the coffee filled up our internal bladders) and headed over to the trailhead register. The convenience and speed of the water spigot was very much appreciated. It's better than pumping water through my MSR Waterworks each morning and night. You can see the girls with their fully-loaded packs at this point ready for the day's hike. They would have about an 8-mile day.

We checked in at the trailhead (GPS coordinates here), and began to follow the Marcy Brook into Marcy Dam.

Very early into the trail, it crosses a swampy area created as a result of a beaver dam. Here, we cross from the trail onto a boardwalk that straddles the water. This trail, while heavily traveled and often referred to as an Expressway, is one of the quickest ways into the backcountry. Once there, many people turn around at Marcy Dam or Avalanche Lake. We would go further.

Marcy Dam

The trail passes the Marcy Dam lake on the east side, allowing you good views of the peaks. Remember to sign in at the trailhead register at Marcy Dam.

Just after Marcy Dam (maybe 3/4 mile or so), there is a stream crossing, and this was an opportune time to load up on some trail snacks (I think that this snack of choice was Cheerios) and dip feet into the water. So, that's exactly what we did. The stream crossing occurs just before Avalanche Camp. In the past, there used to be two lean-tos in Avalanche Camp, but they have been removed.

The trail goes up through Avalanche Pass. It's a bit of a climb, but nothing serious. The experience is full-on mountainous because you get to walk between a pretty thin pass (only about 30' wide in the thinnest part, and the walls rise up from the pass. There are also a lot of trees strewn about in the bottom of the pass from an actual avalanche (occured sometime in 1999?). The trail has been cleared, so it's easy passing.

Eventually, the trail open up into Avalanche Lake. Here, the water starts flowing south from the pass all the way down to the Hudson River. North of Avalanche Pass, the water flows into the St. Lawrence Seaway. So, pretty cool to know (useless, sure, but you can probably win a few drinks off friends by knowing it).

So here is the crew at the northern end of Avalanche Lake. It's a good lunch spot for scenery. In the summer, bugs can be bad, and there is little protection for the sun right out here on the apron.

Following lunch, we headed through the Avalanche Lake Trail. This involves climbing ladders, scrambling over rocks, and traversing unique bridge-like structures called Hitch-up Matildas. This allows the trail to navigate through the area even though no footing exists along the mountain wall.

This section of the trail is only about 1 - 1.5 miles long, and it's not super technical, but you may want to ensure that you have good, solid hiking boots for the trip.

Eventually, we found our way into Lake Colden, and decided that if we found an open lean-to, we would stay there for the night instead of pressing on to Flowed Lands. We were able to score a lean-to, and dropped our equipment in the shelter, and sat down just listening to the quiet. And it was REEEAAALLLLLLYYY quiet.

This was the view from the inside. We had opened our sleeping bags to let them loft and put them on our sleeping pads. Lying down felt good after the day's hike.

Sure, pumping water is a chore in the backcountry, but as I'm treating water, I'm treated to views like this. I can see the path that we took through the mountains. Avalanche Pass is dead center in the picture above, with Iriquous Peak to the left and Mt. Colden to the right.

Details about the bear that wandered into camp will be included in day three. Why? Because I only found out about it the next morning.