Hiking NY: Backpacking in the Adirondacks (Mt Marshall)

This week me and my biggest little Bradley packed up our backpacks and headed out to the Adirondacks for a mother-son trip before school starts!

I wanted to take him with me to do Marshall because there is a neat historical plane wreckage that is right off the trail close to the summit of the mountain. A solo pilot crashed there in Aug 1969 and survived, but it took 32 hours to rescue him!

After a busy morning we made the 5 hour drive to the Upper Works parking and trailhead and started our hike at just after 6pm. I knew it was a late start but we were prepared! We were intending to get to a lean-to for our shelter. We brought a tent just in case, but  we were looking forward to the lean to experience.

At about 8pm we stopped to put on our headlamps and kept on going. The path got more muddy and rocky as we advanced deeper into the mountains. At about 9pm we reached a junction where we looked around the corner and there was the shelter! Even better--no one in it!! We jumped for joy then started unpacking and making dinner.

Dinner was mac and cheese with BBQ pulled pork. Yum!

We got to bed by 10pm, then woke up around 7am the next morning to begin our day. After a breakfast of oatmeal we tidied up our shelter and grabbed our daybags for an adventure of mountain climbing!

Our shelter was right by the Flowed Lands lake. It was a bit too stagnant for getting our water supply, so we waited until we reached a nicely flowing creek.

After we filled up on water, we continued on down the trail past Lake Colden. Another beautiful sight!

Shortly after that we reached the Cold Brook pass junction to start our ascent of Mt Marshall. Most of this trail was marked so it wasn't too hard to follow it as we criss crossed Cold Brook. There were several crystal clear pools along the creek where we happily stopped to cool off. It was a very hot and humid day! The water was ice cold and was very refreshing.

We reached the plane wreckage just after noon, and decided to have our lunch there and check it out.

After lunch we continued on to our next junction which was an unmarked trail to the summit! Not much farther....

We summitted the mountain just before 2pm! It was a wooded summit with just a few peekaboo views from rocks. Not much place to sit and rest, so we grabbed a few pics, caught our breath, then headed down the other side on another unmarked trail.

The trail down followed along Herbert creek and seemed a bit more steep than the Cold brook pass. It was also more muddy, so we had to take care to hop on rocks and tree branches or else we got a bootful of muck!

After about 7 miles that day, we happily arrived back to our shelter around 5:30pm and rested for a bit before having dinner. Some other hikers set up camps behind our shelter so we had neighbors on our second night.

For dinner this night I made Spanish rice and fajita chicken burritos. Delish!! A hearty meal after a long day.

The heat and humidity continued into the night, and we got up the next morning ready to pack up and head out. We reached our car by 11:30am and after finding a gas station we made it home just in time for dinner at 5:30pm! Another successful hiking trip!

Total miles hiked: Apprx 17 miles

Total elevation gain: Apprx 3,120ft

Marshall puts my total high peaks at 14/46 and Bradley at 3/46!

The TikTok Tortilla Hack!

Evidently it's the newest trend right now, because I'm seeing variations all over Pinterest (I don't do TikTok)! The infamous "tortilla hack". You can do sweet, you can do savory....the possibilities are only limited by your imagination! What is it? Well picture a combination of a wrap and a quesadilla and that's basically what it is. Sort of. Ha! 

For my very first one, I decided on a sweet snack for my kids. I chose nutella, strawberries, and bananas. Yum! Hard to go wrong with those.

Step 1: First, use a knife and cut halfway up the middle of the tortilla. This is so you can fold it.

Step 2: Cover each quarter of the tortilla with a filling or spread. Don't use a filling on the bottom left quarter because that one is the first to fold, so a filling would fall out and get messy.

Step 3: Fold up the bottom left quarter

Step 4: Fold over the top left quarter (see how your fillings are enveloped now?)

Step 5: Lastly, fold down the last quarter. Now you are ready for a hot griddle! You could also use a hot skillet, or even a panini press if you're bougie like that.

Step 6: Heat each side just a few minutes until golden brown.

Step 7: Let cool for a few then enjoy! Super good.

The kids loved it, and you could even use a whole wheat tortilla to make it more healthy.

This was a different variation I tried for the kids' lunch, and they loved this one as well. Just sandwich meat, American cheese, mustard, and lettuce.

Take a quick browse on Pinterest for a hundred more ideas. I promise this will be your new favorite snack or lunch!

Rocky Mountain Adventures

I just got back from 8 days in Colorado with my hiking buddy Courtney! We had lots of adventures, hiked lots of miles, and accomplished several goals.

Our flights got changed at the last minute so we actually flew separately and met at baggage claim in Denver Saturday evening. From there we drove to our hotel by the airport and got settled in.

The next day was just a free day to check out the area, so we went to Stanley Marketplace in Aurora, CO and had fun walking around sampling foods and checking out stores.

We left Monday morning for our next destination--Leadville, CO--but on the way, we stopped at Herman Gulch to do our first high altitude hike! It starts at about 10,000ft elevation and ends at an alpine lake at about 12,000ft. Not a difficult hike persay, but the altitude was definitely a challenge. We ended up hiking about 6.9 miles.

After that hike we headed to Leadville, CO (highest city in the US!) for a stay at my first hostel! "Inn the Clouds". We shared a bunkbed in the girls dorm.

We mainly stayed in this town for a couple days to help our bodies acclimate to the higher altitude. The next day was pretty glum and rainy, but we still walked all around the town on most of the Mineral Belt Trail. We did 8.1 miles on that.

On Wednesday at 4:30am we woke up and grabbed our bags to hit our first 14er--Mt Sherman! A completely unmarked trailhead and unmarked trail. For the most part it was easy to follow the trail except for on the rocky cliffside. The weather was clear, but there were still clouds towards the top, and a very cold wind! The temp was in the 30s at the top and we were mostly in the clouds until we turned around to descend.

We did a total of 6.4 miles with an elevation gain of 2,507ft. Woot!

After checking out of our hostel, we headed SE for our next stop in Colorado Springs. My second hostel, "ColoRADo Adventure Hostel". This time we snagged a private room! They also included free bike rental, so we took advantage of that and biked around the town about 5 miles that evening.

The next day we headed out to hike Garden of the Gods for the afternoon. There are many different trails there, and we pieced together a loop and did about 4.8 miles.

View of Pikes Peak

We worked up a big appetite so we stopped in at Sonic and loaded up!!

After lunch we decided to check out Pulpit Rock, which is an open space park in Colorado Springs. All pretty unofficial trails, we followed a steep one up to the top, and actually climbed up on the very top of the highest rocks you see here!

View from the top looking down at the trail.

For that evening we headed to a vintage arcade bar Supernova for dinner and video game fun!

The next morning we hit the road again after breakfast on our way back to Denver, but on our way we stopped at Alderfer Three Sisters park for our last Colorado hike! We made a loop there and did about 6.4 miles total with some pretty mountain and meadow views.

After that we headed to our last hotel in west Denver. The next day was a rest day, and just checked out some local places around us. For lunch we found another vintage arcade bar called 1Up Arcade and they had even more games!

We walked around the mall, then had dinner at a local brewery right up the street. The whole time we were in Denver, the sky was super hazy from wildfire smoke around the country. Zero views of the mountains from the city.

Our flights back to Buffalo landed without issues, and I am home for a whole 12 hours before heading out ONE LAST TIME tomorrow morning for my last week working at camp. Whew!