Hiking NY: Backpacking in the Adirondacks (Indian Head and Sawteeth)

Last weekend I made my first trip to the Adirondacks for the season! Me and my hiking buddy Ken snagged 2 overnight reservations from the AMR lot for the holiday weekend. I picked him up Saturday morning, and we arrived to the trailhead around 2pm. The weather was warm and sunny and we hit the trail! We took Lake Road up to Gil Brook trail where we would set up camp.

We relaxed the rest of the evening and after dinner we went to bed by 8pm! It got chilly that night but we stayed warm and started our day early on Sunday. After breakfast we hit the trail at 8am heading over to Fish Hawk Cliffs and Indian Head first. Amazing views!

After that we headed down to the bridge and dam to cross the Ausable River. We turned left to take the "scenic" trail up to Sawteeth.

As luck would have it, the dry weather did not hold out and it started to rain about halfway up Sawteeth. We begrudgingly got our our rain ponchos and continued our way to the summit! Thankfully we made it there successfully, and after taking the obligatory selfie we continued on our way down the other side.

We of course had to take the side trip to see Rainbow Falls! Always a treat. We were happy to be DONE with the summit, and we crossed the bridge again to Lake Road and the shortcut back up to our camp. We arrived back to camp by 4:30pm.

It was a bit difficult to cook dinner in the rain, and very chilly. After dinner we tucked in early again around 8pm and our poor feet were happy for the rest. The rain finally finished at some point late at night, but in the morning everything was still so wet so we skipped breakfast and grabbed a quick snack after packing up our gear and hitting the trail back to the car!

We made it back to the trailhead in less than 2 hours and it's a lovely relief to see the end! Another job well done, and 10/46 high peaks for me! We clocked around 14.5 miles and about 4100' elevation gain for this trip.

Now to plan the next one....