Hiking NY: Backpacking Haystack Mountain

Last week I took my first official backpacking trip of the season with Brad. We both had brand new bags to try out!

I haven't been able to make it out to the Adirondacks much this summer so I was definitely not in shape for a long and hard hike. I was planning  a loop that gave us the option for 3 high peaks, but I anticipated only doing 2. Reality made us only do 1 haha! I was supposed to do this trip a couple weeks ago with a few others but ended up canceling due to bad weather and poor trail conditions.

We arrived to the Garden trailhead around 4pm and found a spot to park, then hit the trail toward a tent site that was about 3 miles in. It didn't take long to get there and we had dinner going by 6pm.

There were a few water crossings on the way to the tent site, and more along the trail the next day.

We found a nice flat spot to set up the tent, and we were the only ones around!

The next day we hit the trail by 8am ready for a day of adventure. There was rain forecasted for the afternoon, so that was also a big factor in how far we would go.

Just past our tent site we came upon the Johns Brook Lodge area with their cabins and lodge facilities.

Continuing on to Haystack!

A few more miles down the trail we started to ascend more, and once we passed the sign for Slant Rock the trail got much more steep and rocky. Many spots had us scrambling up rocks.

After finally making some headway we got a slightly intimidating view of the summits before us--the false summit of Little Haystack (left) and the high peak Haystack (right).

Both summits were very exposed and involved much scrambling and navigating some steep rock slides. Here Brad is waiting patiently for me at the top of the false summit.

This is the view looking back from the false summit to where we came from.

Making our way up the actual summit continued to be very challenging and required a lot of concentration and caution.

Once we got up there around 1pm the view was amazing! We could see the clouds moving in. The wind was very gusty and the temperature very chilly on top. We crouched behind a rock to eat lunch and rest for about 30 min, then were on our way back down.

With the way the weather was changing, my leg fatigue, as well as the late afternoon, I decided we were not going to take the junction and try for Basin high peak as well. This would be the one summit for this trip!

It started misting on us around 3pm on our way back to camp and the winds were picking up. We made it back to the tent around 5pm and were just able to cook dinner before the rain started. We tucked into our tent by 6pm and just relaxed until dark.

The storm continued on for most of the night, but thankfully by morning it had stopped enough to let us get packed up without getting soaked. We got back on the trail by 8am to head back to the car, and more rain moved in about 15 minutes into our hike. We stopped to put our pack covers on and continued on thru the mud! 

It only took about 1.5hrs to get back to the car and the rain was coming and going by then. Another successful trip!