Trip Report: Cascade Mountain Gully-washer!
It's
been a few years since we've had consistent trips to the Adirondacks
due to busy schedules for travel soccer (May to July), Travel hockey
(July to April) and school sports (Sept to May). With the Covid-19
pandemic, all sports activities have been canceled, affording us more
time to do non-sport family activities. We've spent the summer camping,
kayaking, golfing, and hiking local trails. We've been looking forward
to getting back to the Adirondacks, and decided to take a trip out there
the last week of August.
Liz moves into her dorm on Friday, so we
headed to Lake Placid for a quick pre-college move-in hiking trip.
Our nephew, Ben, joined us for his FIRST ADK High Peaks hike. This trip was also
Teena's triumphant return to the High Peaks after breaking her shoulder
18 months ago.
Our goal was to have a nice and familiar hike to the summits Cascade and Porter on Tuesday and
maybe another one to Hurricane Mountain on Wednesday. We hiked Cascade as a family in 2011 and I hiked Hurricane with Rick Allen in 2001.
A nice and easy return to the
mountains? Yeah...Right...
We were greeted at the summit of Cascade by a BLAST of wind, HEAVY rain, HAIL... ...and a crack of THUNDER!
Needless to say, we made a hasty gully-washer retreat! Everyone
was soaked. Teena's boots filled with rushing water from summit rocks
that slid over the top rear ankle of her boots. With our gear
thoroughly soaked, we packed up and headed home Wednesday after a great
brunch at Half-Moon Cafe in Saranac Lake.
I may be crazy, but... I love this stuff!
Some day, I'll be that old geezer out there in a flannel. My daughter just replied "you're already there, dad." ...What a brat! 🙄
STATS SUMMARY:
Date of Summit: 08/25/2020
Team: Mike, Teena, Liz, Nick, Ben
Summit Elevation: 4,098'
Vertical Ascent: ~2,000'
Approach: Via trailhead on Rt 73
Trailhead to Summit: ~2.2 miles
Time to Summit: ~2 hours
Weather: Cloudy, cool, temps in the low 50's to mid-60s. Very windy and rain, sleet thunder on summit.
Trail Difficulty: Easiest of the 46 High Peaks - boulders, roots, dirt, granite. Kid friendly.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:
For Additional Information on Cascade Mountain, click on one of the following links:
- Best Easy Day Hikes - Adirondacks (by Lisa Densmore), Chapter 4- "Cascade Mountain" - Page 20
PICTURES: (32 pictures) Click on picture to see a larger version. Click again to make it even bigger!
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Getting ready for the hike. They looks so dry! |
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| Stepping down to the trail register. |
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| Liz signs us in... |
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| ...and away we go! |
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| An interesting message about cairns. You'll see pictures of them later on. This is really important, but I'm not sure how successful they'll be at stopping people from building random cairns. We humans have been building cairns since our cave-man days. It seems to be wired into our DNA. I hope people heed the request. |
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| The first break occurs after maybe ten minutes as everyone figured out they were overdressed. Strangely, the old curmudgeon taking the pics is fine. Experience??? 😈 |
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| There are many large boulders you can sit on, and probably an uncountable number of rocks like these in the ADKs!!! |
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| Ben and Nick enjoy thir boudlering time. |
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| Our first rock outcrop with views shows....nothing. Clouds are obscuring the scenery. |
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| At the trail junction to Porter Mountain. Our intention is to hike both Cascade and Porter. However, the weather is deteriorating quickly, and the decision is made to finish Cascade first. If the weather holds off, we'll catch Porter too. If the weather continues to get worse, we'll leave, having at least done Cascade. |
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| This may be the most amusing picture of the day. If you've gotta go, you've gotta go! Even on mountain tops. |
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Teena clears the tree line and begins her final climb to the summit...into the clouds. She's really killing this hike!!! |
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| Remember the sign advising against cairns? There are many on the summit. This is an "official" one built by trail mantenance crews. Others (not pictured) can steer people off-path...which can be dangerous, even lethal. |
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Yep... That's me with my, ahem, "vintage" Eastern Mountain Sports trekking poles, circa 1996 or 1997. Take care of your gear, and it will take care of you. |
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| Teena makes her way across the peak on her way to the summit. |
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| Rock cairns, painted marks, and a ladder... We are on the summit and in the clouds! The summit marker is only a few hundred feet away. |
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Teena and I are standing on the summit marker. Notice Teena's hair and my hood... Yeah...it was *that* windy! |
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| This picture was taken juuuust as the rain started to hit... (11:52am) |
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It's really hard to smile nicely for the camera when getting pelted in the face with wind-driven rain. 😜 Moments later, we were SOAKED when the clouds unleashed what felt like a
waterfall. And then it hailed...followed by a crack of thunder 🗲 in the
distance. Yep... Time to get off the mountain! |
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| We were rather surprised to see this fella... Oh, wait... It's a toy. Nice trick! |
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| Finally in the canopy after the deluge of rain that soaked us at the summit. We had to make a decision... Do we keep going to tackle Porter Mountain, or do we head down. We were soaked, and thunder accompanied the rains earlier, so we decided to end early. Porter Mountain isn't going anywhere... |
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| Ben fell in love with the Adirondacks and started hugging trees! |
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| Liz didn't realize she'd run into Justin Bieber on the trail. Oh, wait... That's Nick.😆 |
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Summits aren't the only reason we hike. If you look carefully enough, you'll see Teena. |
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Everyone
was soaked. Teena's boots filled with rushing water from summit rocks
that slid over the top rear ankle of her boots. In this pic, there are
two with wet shirts, one with no shirt...who's drier? The temperature
is in the 50s. |
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| Nick's sporting his favorite rain-weather hiking gear. 😏 |
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| Another great perspective shot! If you look carefully, you can see Liz in the distance. |
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| Daylight!!! |
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Made it down by 2:45. Notice how dry we aren't? |
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We
had dinner at Lake Placid Brew Pub where we introduced Ben to Ubu Ale.
It continued to rain sporadically through dinner with bursts of high winds that nearly flipped our awning. We didn't
care. It was still awesome! |
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| How awesome would it be to live on an Adirondack Lake??? We like to stop at ADK lakes during our travels. They are so beautiful! This is Fourth Lake from the dock at Arrowhead Park in Inlet. |
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| Teena's accomplishment in hiking this peak is remarkable! Eighteen months ago, she broke her shoulder skiing in a freak accident. Here, Ski Patrollers from Bristol Mountain help her. It's been a long road... Teena's return truly was triumphant! |
