Wednesday, August 3, 2022

Hiking NY: Backpacking Allen Mountain

Last weekend Brad and I headed out to the mountains again for another great backpacking trip. This time we met up with another lady and her two boys. We all got along really well and the 3 boys banded together and led us the whole way.

This hike is notoriously hated for it's length and the "red slime" on the ascent of Allen. There's several steep rock slides that are covered in green and red miss and are super slippery. Thankfully there was a way to go around them! I did fall once (and slipped about 20x) but it wasn't bad.

As for the length, I'm really happy we were able to break this 20 mile hike up over 3 days. There is not a designated DEC campsite along this trail, so we just had to hike in and find our own flattish spot for setting up. We had some idea of where others had done it, but we couldn't find anything good until about 6.5-7miles in. 


Friday we got to the trailhead around 2pm and joined our new friends on the trail. We decided on a decent site and set up camp around 6pm and got to work on dinner and winding down.

It really was a great trail coming in, and although there was a river cruise we were a bit anxious about... It ended up being no issue and we were able to rock hop across it.





We woke up with the sun and the birds around 6am and after breakfast then getting ready for a hard hike we got on the trail with our day bags around 7:30am.

Shortly after reaching the base of the mountain where we began the steep ascent, we reached a great waterfall where we refilled on water and had a snack.



We happily reached the summit and took a well deserved rest with lunch. And enjoyed the views!




We made our way back down and got so in the groove on the trail, we passed our campsite by about a quarter mile! We had to back track but still made it in time for dinner and smores before dark.

The next morning we had a quick breakfast and packed up our bags to head back to the car. We took a little break along the way for a snack, and found some wild blueberries as well!



Total miles: 21.5
Total elevation gain: 3,727ft
#21/46

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