A.T. Lt. trip to the ADK's

Socks · Sep 7th 2015, 7:14pm

hikerboy wrote:

socks wrote:

rafe wrote:

Anyone bored with the White Mtns, or who thinks they're too tame or too crowded, should visit the DAKs. Well, they do get crowded at times. But they're as wild and gnarly as anything on the AT. And as the photos show, the views are magnificent.

Yup, I am, wish you guys would go hike some other places.

you're allowed to contribute too you know

you've no idea just how bad I wish I could, but then maybe ya do.

hikerboy · Sep 7th 2015, 9:31pm

socks wrote:

hikerboy wrote:

socks wrote:

rafe wrote:

Anyone bored with the White Mtns, or who thinks they're too tame or too crowded, should visit the DAKs. Well, they do get crowded at times. But they're as wild and gnarly as anything on the AT. And as the photos show, the views are magnificent.

Yup, I am, wish you guys would go hike some other places.

you're allowed to contribute too you know

you've no idea just how bad I wish I could, but then maybe ya do.

i do,socks.and you contribute plenty yourself.
and ive been doing my best to explore new places the past few years.really getting psyched for idaho next year. that is gonna be a grand adventure.

rafe · Sep 7th 2015, 10:33pm

For what it's worth, a few of my ADK photos at this link...

terrapinphoto.com/wp/galleries-3/hikes/adirondacks/

rafe · Sep 7th 2015, 10:44pm

Dawn from Bald Peak, overlooking Lake Champlain and a good chunk of the Green Mountains in VT. This photo is from 1994 and means so much more to me now that I've hiked the Long Trail.

LIhikers · Sep 8th 2015, 12:01am

Some day I'm gonna get up to the daks.
They're just too far away for the time I have, even though I live in the same state as them.

A.T.Lt · Sep 21st 2015, 9:15pm

So I am a little late on this update, but I hiked 5 more of the Adirondack High peaks this past weekend. Here is how they stack up, from highest to lowest:
Dix is 6th highest in NY, at 4857 ft.
Macomb is 21st highest at 4405 ft.
Hough is 23rd highest at an even 4400 ft.
South Dix is 37th highest at 4060 ft.
East Dix is 42nd highest at 4012 ft.
Friday I left work early and headed straight up to conquer the Dix mountain range, which consists of Macomb, South Dix, Grace Peak, Hough and Dix. Being they're are close together it made sense for me to do this hike in a loop.
I arrived at the Elk Lake trailhead parking area at around 5pm, parked my car, signed into the trail register and hiked in the 2.3 miles to the Slide Brook Lean-To site. I arrived at the camp site around 6pm, set my tent up, had dinner and settled in for the night. I was going to wake up the next morning at sunrise, approximately 6:30 in the morning. I stayed up reading in my tent until around 9 when I switched the head lamp off. The entire loop is about a 10.5 mile loop. The morning went well, had breakfast and cleaned up , packed a small pack with about 2L of water and headed out towards Macomb around 7:30. I started out a little sluggish, but was able to maneuver my way up the slide on Macomb well and reached the summit at around 8:45. After Macomb I reached South Dix, which was the least spectacular of the summits, although the climb up was amazing. rom South Dix it was onto grace, then a side trail to Hough, which is pronounced "Huff". Then onto Dix which i summited at 1pm. I had figured it would take me longer to complete, but being it was so early I decided to hump it down the steep 3.6 miles trail back to the tent site and pack up and get on home. I got back to my tent at about 3:40 and packed up my things, hiked back to the parking lot in 45 minutes and was on my way home at 5pm!
11 peaks down!

AnotherKevin · Sep 21st 2015, 11:57pm

Did you notice the V C on that Adirondack Survey benchmark? Verplanck Colvin stamped that one himself. Good find!

And you were flying! I can't manage High Peaks trails at anywhere near your speed. I get there eventually.

Foresight · Sep 22nd 2015, 1:26am

I'm a surveyor so monuments fascinate me..... There's a great app that we use called 'Find a Control" (LINK) that you may find useful as well. The app itself will get you close, but you can also pull the datasheets for each monument and they give very (read "too") precise directions based of nearby items (boulders, trees, signs, etc.)

Foresight · Sep 22nd 2015, 1:33am

And what would prompt a man to get that close to Nipple Top without going there???

Foresight · Sep 22nd 2015, 1:45am

Dix monument Datasheet

A VERY cool way of documenting your summits would be to do a station recovery for each monumented peak. The NGS website which provides the datasheet above also has a place to submit a "Recovery" (HERE). You can view the Dix datasheet above and see the last recovery was in the 40's. If you submit one then your name will be on the datasheet with your recovery until someone else submits one. :thumbup:

<Edit>
Well shyatt.....the link directly to the datasheet isn't working for some damn reason. In the search box type "PG2090" (without the quotations....) and click Get Datasheet, then click to highlight it and then click view datasheet (or retrieve datasheet.....whichever) and it will show up. If this formats right, this is what it will look like.....

<further edit>
Nope.....didn't format worth a crap

With the app you simply touch the symbol and a box opens describing it then you touch the symbol in the bottom left of the box and the datasheet will open. I'll get in touch with NGS tomorrow and find out WTF is going on with the links to individual datasheets. Not being able to link directly is going to screw up a LOT of GIS databases that I have built for people.......not happy with this development.

A.T.Lt · Sep 22nd 2015, 4:55am

AnotherKevin wrote:

Did you notice the V C on that Adirondack Survey benchmark? Verplanck Colvin stamped that one himself. Good find!

And you were flying! I can't manage High Peaks trails at anywhere near your speed. I get there eventually.

Yes! Very cool stuff!! As I was halfway between Macomb and South Dix I had realized I forgot to take s picture of the Macomb benchmark. Macomb is spelled wrong on it. They have it as McComb

AnotherKevin · Sep 22nd 2015, 8:52am

Foresight wrote:

I'm a surveyor so monuments fascinate me..... There's a great app that we use called 'Find a Control" (LINK) that you may find useful as well. The app itself will get you close, but you can also pull the datasheets for each monument and they give very (read "too") precise directions based of nearby items (boulders, trees, signs, etc.)

If you're a surveyor, and a hiker, and monuments fascinate you, there's an old book on this survey that makes wonderful reading: the Seventh Annual Report to the Legislature on the Progress of the Adirondack Survey, by state surveyor Verplanck Colvin. If you're into reading trail journals at all, his 'Narrative', which begins at page 81, is just about the best one I've ever read.

If you want a single picture of what his survey party faced, the drawing between pages 214 and 215, showing division of levels on Whiteface, is telling. A close second is the drawing three pages earlier, showing a party chaining a line in the Saranac River gorge at High Falls. This is a tale of heroic surveying.

Foresight · Sep 22nd 2015, 9:00am

Thank you! I'm all over this, much appreciated.

Foresight · Sep 22nd 2015, 11:34am

AnotherKevin wrote:

Foresight wrote:

I'm a surveyor so monuments fascinate me..... There's a great app that we use called 'Find a Control" (LINK) that you may find useful as well. The app itself will get you close, but you can also pull the datasheets for each monument and they give very (read "too") precise directions based of nearby items (boulders, trees, signs, etc.)

If you're a surveyor, and a hiker, and monuments fascinate you, there's an old book on this survey that makes wonderful reading: the Seventh Annual Report to the Legislature on the Progress of the Adirondack Survey, by state surveyor Verplanck Colvin. If you're into reading trail journals at all, his 'Narrative', which begins at page 81, is just about the best one I've ever read.
If you want a single picture of what his survey party faced, the drawing between pages 214 and 215, showing division of levels on Whiteface, is telling. A close second is the drawing three pages earlier, showing a party chaining a line in the Saranac River gorge at High Falls. This is a tale of heroic surveying.

I don't know what you do for a living or even where your interests lie, but I can only hope you have a grasp of the goodness bound in this work. The field notes alone are worth their weight in gold to someone like myself. Truly incredible. Thanks again!

As for the division of levels, as simple as it is if you stop and think about what you're doing in a level loop, a lot of these techniques are lost among the surveyors of today. The saddest thing about it is, as rooted in the math sciences as surveying is, these methods are there if only the surveyors weren't so bound by their modern equipment and took a moment to analyse and think out the problem.

Fascinating stuff this is. Now I'm going back to my inner surveyor geekdom and reading further, y'all carry on

AnotherKevin · Sep 22nd 2015, 2:07pm

Foresight wrote:

I don't know what you do for a living or even where your interests lie, but I can only hope you have a grasp of the goodness bound in this work. The field notes alone are worth their weight in gold to someone like myself. Truly incredible. Thanks again!

I'm an engineer (electronics and computers) working at a huge research lab. So I'm also capable of geeking out on the field notes - as well as enjoying the narrative as a tale of adventure.

If you really want to geek out - here's a field book from the triangulation. The man was a flippin' genius. If you look at page 31, you can see some of the astonishing errors of closure that he found when he resurveyed earlier lines. Some of the land grant surveys (the Totten and Crossfield patent leaps to mind) had never even successfully established recoverable metes and bounds, much less geodesy! Colvin named Gore Mountain (now a popular ski resort) during the survey, when he discovered that when properly triangulated, it didn't lie within any of the survey townships at all.

And, hoping not to belabor the point too much, the copper bolt that A.T.Lt found and photographed is marked "Adirondack Survey VC 10 1878." You can find it in several places in Colvin's report, including a very dry account of sending a party of guides over to Mount Dix to repair a tower with a heliotrope and worrying about their delayed return. He recorded in a later entry merely that they had returned safely. I bet there was a harrowing story between those diary entries.

The monuments all bore the stamp of whatever surveyor set them. Many of them bear the initials MB, after Mills Blake, Colvin's lifelong friend and assistant. The two men lived together from their youth until Colvin's mind began to deteriorate in old age, and neither man ever married. Colvin provided for Blake to be buried beside him, but Colvin's sister's family refused to allow it. It appears that they found the two men's relationship scandalous. Fittingly, an adjacent pair of the Adirondack High Peaks are named Mount Colvin and Blake Peak, and because of their proximity, the two are usually climbed together.

JimBlue · Sep 22nd 2015, 2:20pm

Hmm... Years ago I was reading one of J. Frank Dobie's books about 1800s Texas. He was talking about the old Spanish Land Grants in 'Coronado's Children' ( a book mostly about lost mines; silver, gold, and lead) and he had this to say. Paraphrase, but I have read it so much, I should be very close.

'The Spanish surveyors were supposed to use various equipment and chain to measure the grants. But the Indians were very likely to attack such parties. So what the surveyors would do is attach one end of their chain to the left stirrup of a saddle, and the right stirrup of another saddle. The surveyors would ride, with the second suveyor measuring by eye where the first stirrup passed a point. Instead they did these surveys at he gallop. Streams, rivers, thick brush areas, thick cacti areas were not measured.'

I suppose that is one reason the land grants were so huge. Some of the property deeds in the small Texas town I grew up in mention these early Spanish Land Grants.

AnotherKevin · Sep 22nd 2015, 2:21pm

Oh, and thereś been a crew of Colvin fans who have been going about since the 1990's, recovering his monumented stations. colvincrew.org/past_recoveries is an index of their reports.

AnotherKevin · Sep 22nd 2015, 4:53pm

JimBlue wrote:

I suppose that is one reason the land grants were so huge. Some of the property deeds in the small Texas town I grew up in mention these early Spanish Land Grants.

If you're searching a land title or studying local history around here, you need to know about the early patents. When I'm studying history for a trip report (anyone who's read my journals knows that there's usually something about the history of the place in them), I often have occasion to refer to maps like hardenbergh.org/patent/CatskillLandMap1970.pdf hardenbergh.org/patent/CatskillLandMap1970.pdf . My brother's land deed shows the parcel chained out relative to the bounds of Division 1, Lot 10 of the Minisink patent (Tusten township, Sullivan County). The surveyor did pay lip service to a USGS benchmark a hundred yards off my brother's corner, but the metes and bounds of the Minisink subdivision were what was important.

By the way, if anyone knows anything about the history of Lots 7 and 8 of the Green and Dibble Tract (Cairo township, Greene County) there's some local history that I've hit a brick wall on. I can see the red shading on the map above showing that it was State land (although outside the Blue Line) even in 1970. There's a fairly substantial ghost town in there, with recognizable remains of a cluster of houses, a smithy, a tannery and a mill. And I haven't been able to turn up any information about what it was called, who lived there, or why it was abandoned. (I can say why, in general: the tannery used up the hemlock trees, and it supported the rest of the village.) The tax rolls from the period are lost

New York State didn't abolish feudal land tenure until the 1840's. Entire counties were sometimes subinfeudated to single landlords. Families like Van Rensselaer, Hardenburgh, Jessup and Durant were very, very powerful.

JimBlue · Sep 22nd 2015, 7:44pm

I don't know if it would help, but the guy who does the 'How the States got their Shapes' program on history channel seems to know things about towns, and states, that no longer exist.

A.T.Lt · Sep 28th 2015, 6:17pm

Yesterday my daughter and I hiked Cascade and Porter Mountains. I'm at 13 peaks since August 23 of this year and my daughter hiked her first 2 high peaks. Cascade and Porter are known to be the easiest of the 46 peaks in that the trail heads up right at the road. They also I'm told have some of the best views, and I must agree. Cascade is a 360 bald with panoramic views of the entire high peak range.
Four more next weekend. McIntyre range, Looking to do Marshall Sunday and Algonquin, Iroquois and Wright on Monday!:)

hikerboy · Sep 28th 2015, 7:35pm

awesome. you're a lucky dad

rafe · Sep 28th 2015, 11:11pm

Wish I'd kept journals of more of my ADK hikes. I have quite a few photos but at this point I'd be hard pressed to say which hike they're from or which mountain I'm on or which one I'm looking at in any given photo. Wild territory, easily as interesting as the White Mountains or even Maine.

Dan76 · Sep 28th 2015, 11:25pm

Just the excuse to repeat these hikes, with a keener eye and a tablet to more readily record your observations. I've not been the journaling type, but with a tablet I find it more likely to record my observations and keying them to photos.

Foresight · Sep 29th 2015, 12:56am

Building a strong woman, I like it!

AnotherKevin · Sep 29th 2015, 8:59am

Hiking with your daughter is awesome. I wish mine were in town more often. I didn't get out with her all summer. (I lost most of the prime hiking season to an injury.)
[IMG:https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3861/14318089308_5cdcf83a07.jpg]

Traffic Jam · Sep 29th 2015, 9:21am

AnotherKevin wrote:

Hiking with your daughter is awesome. I wish mine were in town more often. I didn't get out with her all summer. (I lost most of the prime hiking season to an injury.)
[IMG:https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3861/14318089308_5cdcf83a07.jpg]

My youngest is so busy with school and work. I tried to talk her into skipping a day of classes last year to go hiking but she refused (I'm a bad mom). She's planning on hiking the AT this summer if she can save enough money.

twistwrist · Oct 2nd 2015, 8:47am

A.T.Lt wrote:

Yesterday my daughter and I hiked Cascade and Porter Mountains. I'm at 13 peaks since August 23 of this year and my daughter hiked her first 2 high peaks. Cascade and Porter are known to be the easiest of the 46 peaks in that the trail heads up right at the road. They also I'm told have some of the best views, and I must agree. Cascade is a 360 bald with panoramic views of the entire high peak range.
Four more next weekend. McIntyre range, Looking to do Marshall Sunday and Algonquin, Iroquois and Wright on Monday!:)

How fun! How many miles did you two hike together? She looks like a fun little girl!

LIhikers · Oct 2nd 2015, 10:58am

TrafficJam wrote:

AnotherKevin wrote:

Hiking with your daughter is awesome. I wish mine were in town more often. I didn't get out with her all summer. (I lost most of the prime hiking season to an injury.)
[IMG:https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3861/14318089308_5cdcf83a07.jpg]

My youngest is so busy with school and work. I tried to talk her into skipping a day of classes last year to go hiking but she refused (I'm a bad mom). She's planning on hiking the AT this summer if she can save enough money.

No you're not. Just remember, not every good lesson life can teach can be had in a classroom or lab.
We used to take our kids out of school for all sorts of worthwhile (in our eyes) reasons.

A.T.Lt · Oct 6th 2015, 4:45am

Mount Marshall, Algonquin, and Iroquois Peak
Marshall is 25th highest at 4360 ft,
Algonquin is 2nd highest in NY, at 5114 ft.
Iroquois is 8th highest at 4840 ft.

So I hiked 3 more High Peaks this weekend. Originally I had intended on driving up early Sunday morning and hiking in from the Upper Works Lot and then climbing Marshall then hike Algonquin, Wright and Iroquois on Monday. Being my sons baseball game was rained out I had a change of plans. I decide to drive up Saturday afternoon instead. I arrived at Upper Works at 4 and head out on the trail toward the Flowed Lands at 4:15 and arriving at the Calamity Brook Lean-To and campsites approximately 4.5 miles exactly 2 hours later at 6:15. I set up camp, had some dinner, cleaned up and retired for the evening. The temps dropped to the lower 30's and come m morning I didn't want to get up. I packed up and decided Id move to a campsite closer to the trails I was planning on hiking and settled for the Lean-To nears Mount Marshall. After dropping all my gear and packing water and a small day pack with lunch I headed up Marshall at 8:45 and reached to top at 10. I had also packed my micro spikes because I had been told about icy conditions on the peaks. Marshall did have a bit of ice but not that required putting on spikes. Upon descending Marshall at 11:30 and getting back to camp I realized that probably should have switched which days I hiked which peaks being I arrived a night earlier. I should have done Iroquois, Algonquin and Wright first thing and saved Marshall for Monday. I decided Id climb Algonquin and then Iroquois and save Wright for another time being there wasn't much time left in the day. I headed up Algonquin trail, summited Algonquin and then took the side trail to Iroquois. The views were amazing and it was windy and cold. Algonquin had quite a number of people on top. Iroquois was empty. I was the only one up there and it was peaceful with its 360 degree views.
I took a slow walk down back to my basecamp and the entire time was craving a burger, with bacon, and fries, and lots of soda. I got back to my camp at 5:15 packed my stuff up and hiked back to the Upper Works trailhead to my car. The last hour of hiking was in the dark under headlamp. Go to my car at 7:15, and was stuffing my face within the hour! Got home around 1am and got to sleep in today and unpack!

Next trip may be the Santioni Range with some friends on 2 weeks.!

Foresight · Oct 6th 2015, 4:53am

Very nice!

Traffic Jam · Oct 6th 2015, 8:21am

I'm curious, how do you secure your stuff when you drop it off at your campsite?

A.T.Lt · Oct 6th 2015, 9:25am

TrafficJam wrote:

I'm curious, how do you secure your stuff when you drop it off at your campsite?

Just like this!:)
You're so deep in and remote and everyone around is doing the same thing. No one is going to mess with your stuff

Traffic Jam · Oct 6th 2015, 9:39am

I've only left stuff once and worried about it the whole time.

I was climbing to Rocky Top for the first time and was in a lot worse shape so decided to lighten my pack. I hung some stuff (including my food) on the bear cable at Spence shelter. I ripped a page out of the register with a note that I was coming back and please don't steal my food.

A.T.Lt · Oct 6th 2015, 9:52am

In the Adirondacks it is not uncommon to come across a stashed pack or two at trailheads and herd paths to summits

JimBlue · Oct 6th 2015, 11:35am

AHTS is having a meeting at Cheaha in November... I am kinda worried about people looking around in my tent while I'm at the get together. I could lock everything in my car though.

AnotherKevin · Oct 6th 2015, 1:21pm

A.T.Lt wrote:

In the Adirondacks it is not uncommon to come across a stashed pack or two at trailheads and herd paths to summits

I've always had trouble getting used to that style, although I know it's popular in the High Peaks to make a base camp and go for the summits with a light pack. I'm always nervous about walking away from my gear. The peaks that I've done on overnights, I always had my full pack all the way up.

max.patch · Oct 6th 2015, 1:26pm

AnotherKevin wrote:

A.T.Lt wrote:

In the Adirondacks it is not uncommon to come across a stashed pack or two at trailheads and herd paths to summits

I've always had trouble getting used to that style, although I know it's popular in the High Peaks to make a base camp and go for the summits with a light pack. I'm always nervous about walking away from my gear. The peaks that I've done on overnights, I always had my full pack all the way up.

i believe in murphys law so i don't leave my pack behind.

seems like once a year a thru has "hidden" their pack somewhere and comes back to find it missing. that'll screw up a hike.

rafe · Oct 6th 2015, 1:56pm

AnotherKevin wrote:

A.T.Lt wrote:

In the Adirondacks it is not uncommon to come across a stashed pack or two at trailheads and herd paths to summits

I've always had trouble getting used to that style, although I know it's popular in the High Peaks to make a base camp and go for the summits with a light pack. I'm always nervous about walking away from my gear. The peaks that I've done on overnights, I always had my full pack all the way up.

Slo and I did that from Grey Knob Cabin up in RMC territory a couple weeks ago. The packs were unattended for maybe half a day. No problem at all. But there wasn't a lot of traffic, and there was a caretaker drifting through every now and then.

A.T.Lt · Oct 6th 2015, 2:00pm

believe me, it took a while for me to get used to it as well. My first few peaks were with a full pack as well..I don't like staying in lean to's, so I set my tent up and so far knock on wood I've had no problems. I think people would be more hesitant to unzip a tent and rummage thru it then just walk into a shelter and rifle thru what's laying in it.
My luck next time I go up everything is stolen!:(

Astro · Oct 6th 2015, 2:10pm

When I accidentaly left my rain jacket at Bears Den hostel I realized it when I got to the highway. So I started back up and left my pack on a sign that was not too far once back in the woods. This allowed me to move a lot faster (especially going uphill), but I still did not like the idea of leaving my pack unattended, even if just for an hour or less.

When on a long hike I feel my pack is my house, my bedroom, my kitchen, my pantry, my wardrobe, etc.., and I do not want to take the risk of being without it. I guess this another reason I do not slack pack unless it is with someone I feel I know and trust.

I guess we all have different aversions to risk, so it is one of those HYOH areas.

A.T. Lt. trip to the ADK's

hikerboy wrote:

socks wrote:

rafe wrote:

socks wrote:

hikerboy wrote:

socks wrote:

rafe wrote:

AnotherKevin wrote:

Foresight wrote:

AnotherKevin wrote:

Foresight wrote:

Foresight wrote:

JimBlue wrote:

AnotherKevin wrote:

A.T.Lt wrote:

TrafficJam wrote:

AnotherKevin wrote:

TrafficJam wrote:

A.T.Lt wrote:

AnotherKevin wrote:

A.T.Lt wrote:

AnotherKevin wrote:

A.T.Lt wrote:

Share

Similar Threads