Hiking NY: Backpacking in the Adirondacks (Colvin and Blake)

This weekend Bradley and I took our first trip of the season out to the Adirondacks for some hiking! I managed to snag a parking reservation for 2 nights at AMR where we arrived Saturday afternoon and hit the trails. The weather had been rainy but cleared up before our arrival with perfect timing! It remained clear thankfully the rest of the weekend.

We headed for the campsite off the Gill Brook trail--my 4th time there, his 1st. Luck would have it that no one else was there! We arrived to the site by 4pm and set up camp right by the fire ring. One of the few places you can build a fire in the Adirondacks! Unfortunately the wood was all too wet to keep a flame, but Brad had fun burning leaves haha!

I cooked us up some pesto pasta with chicken for dinner, then we hit the sacks for sunset around 9pm. Neither of us slept well (camping curse!) but we got up around 7am for breakfast and packed our day bags for a full day of high peaks.

We took Gill Brook trail up to Colvin trail where we continued on to Colvin peak (4,052ft). There were great views on the small summit that we enjoyed while we rested and snacked to prepare for the next leg of the journey on to Blake.

We continued on over Colvin and down toward Blake. The trail in between was full of steep boulders, rocky trails, mud, and a few ladders! We love the ladders, we will take all the help we can get. It was a lot of hard work, but after about 1.5 hours we arrived at the summit of Blake (3,977ft).

The summit was wooded with not many views, but there was a boulder to sit on and a rock painted with the name so we knew we were in the right place! We had our lunch here and regained our strength to turn around and do it all again the other way.

Going back down Blake and up Colvin a second time was just as hard as I anticipated...but resting on the summit again was much needed and we had a snack when we got there the second time. The trail back down to camp was much better and we knew we would be there in time for dinner! That's always a great feeling, especially when you have to take your time on a hard trail.

Brad was full of energy and literally bouncing off the trees!

We collected the rest of the water we would need for the evening and next day before settling down for another night of fitful sleep. The next morning we decided to skip cooking breakfast to save time and just eat a snack to get us going. We finally got everything packed up and hit the trail headed out at 9am. It only took an hour and a half to get back to the AMR gate and sign out on the trail register, then another 15 minutes to the car. By 11am we were on the road (with the AC!!) heading home!.

This was a neat tree we passed that looks as if it's levitating off the ground!

It was definitely a hot one, on the way home my temperature read 92 outside. After making our traditional stop for gas and food in Speculator ($5.24/gallon!) we continued on to home and arrived just before 4pm. Another successful trip in the books!

Approx miles: 16.3

Elevation gain: 4,111ft

My 46er status: 19/46! Brad is 5/46