Hiking Jay Mountain

Sunday, September 23, 2012

When I heard Donnie stirring around 7 a.m., I began packing up my gear inside my perfectly dry tent.  Nothing beats a good tent while camping in the rain and I’d positioned my pack outside my tent for easy access and packing in the morning should it still be raining.  It wasn’t.

Amazingly, there were still some hot embers in our fire pit, a testament to just how hard it is to douse a flame.  Being in a fire pit in a soggy woods with the nearest burnable tinder fifty feet away, ours was safe but I understood the restrictions the Park Service put on having fires in certain parts of the Adirondacks.  You really needed to be cautious and not all campers were.

We hiked out on trails that were somewhat treacherous from the rain, but made it back to the car in 35 minutes where we repacked our vehicles and headed for Noonmark for a final breakfast.  I tried ordering an extra pancake and some home fries to fuel myself for the climbing I planned to do after Donnie left, but they forgot my fourth cake and I just had to make do.

By nine, Donnie was on the road for Massena and I was trying to find the trailhead to Jay Mt.  My new, $11.95 full-color, water-proofed map showed the location about a hundred yards north of an intersection where it was actually about a hundred yards south.  I finally found it by looking at my old map.  It was quite obscure, being marked only by an old, iron pike painted yellow and sticking about three feet out of the side of the road and partially obscured by foliage growing in the ditch where it stood.  I was the only car there, making it doubly hard to find.  As I loaded my daypack for the hike, a second vehicle pulled up and the occupants told me they’d had the same problem with their new map. 

“We’d have never found it if you hadn’t been parked here,” one of the men said.

Many of the trails of the Adirondacks are like this one…hard to find and seldom used.  I would never have considered it if I hadn’t read about it in my bi-monthly edition of ‘The Adirondack Explorer’.  It had identified Jay Mt. as one of the best and scenic hikes in the Adirondack Park with fantastic views of the surrounding peaks from over a mile and a half of the trail that traveled along an exposed ridge.  The peak was 3,600 feet high and outside the famous 46 above 4,000 feet that is such a draw to so many hikers, including me.

The first hour of the hike was in the woods and on dirt trails without the normal rocks and roots of well-traveled Adirondack trails.  The first hour was also a steady uphill and had me sweating profusely in spite of the cool air and constant shade.  I could see the skies were still blue, though I was concerned that I’d miss these if I didn’t reach the open trail quickly since the forecast was for afternoon showers.  When I did finally reach the ridge, I was rewarded with the advertised views in every direction.  I could easily see across Lake Champlain to the east and to the Green Mts. of Vermont beyond.  To the north and west, many of the High Peaks were on display, including excellent views of Whiteface Mt. and the Olympic ski slopes.  I spent the next hour scrambling up and over exposed rock with increasingly beautiful views.  Though still gaining elevation, it was moderate at this point and with the winds blowing and no protection, I cooled off quickly.  I was forced to reach into my daypack and pull out my rain jacket for protection and some warmth.

I had a long drive scheduled to reach my Aunt and Uncle in Cape Vincent on the St. Lawrence River where I’d be staying that evening and with the time pushing one, decided I needed to cut my hike short and return to the car.  This is a hike I will most certainly take again and with people I bring to the Adirondacks to give them a real sense of its beauty.  In all, I spent 5 hours on the mountain, but in a very doable fashion.  I felt strong and refreshed when I reached the car, something I can’t say after climbing most of the 46’ers and of which only a few offered anything comparable to the scenic views I’d just experienced.

Hike Duration: 5 hours.
Training Heart Rate: 80-130 bpm.
Calories burned during workout: 3000.