Unseasonably warm weather, and a surprisingly free family weekend calender, opened the door for another hike before our traditional family hiking event on Thanksgiving. Jack (one day removed from his first SAT attempt) and Rich took off early for the ADK Loj with the goal of visiting Marcy Dam to inspect the Hurricane Irene storm damage and climb Phelps and Table Top. We knew we would be pressed for time, as this marked the date to roll the clocks back to standard time.
When we turned in the ADK Loj road, the visibility of the high peaks were as clear as we have ever experienced. However, the parking area was sparsely populated with cars, and we encountered few people on the trail to Marcy Dam. From the dam, we walked around for a bit to survey the damage in that area, as well as the new slides visible on Colden and Wright. By this point, we were heating up pretty good and shedding layers of clothes. The path to Phelps was in decent shape, although the last half mile was heavily iced over and pretty slick. We brought our spikes in case we needed them, but none of the icy sections were long enough to justify the time it would take to put them on. We made it to the summit of Phelps by 10:15, and enjoyed a spectacular view with a small group.
Once the wind picked up and started cooling us down, we packed up our stuff and set out for Table Top. On the way between the peaks, most of the conversation was centered on which peak we would try to climb on Thanksgiving when the whole family is together. The previous year we bit off a little more than we could chew and had to turn back from Algonquin, and we don't want that to happen again. Once we reached the cairn marking the fork to the Table Top herd path, we took a break to eat our lunch. The path up Table Top was easy to follow, but incredibly slippery with ice. Jack said, "Kate would never make it over this ice; cross this one off the list for Thanksgiving." On the summit we bumped into a couple, but they cleared out and gave us the peak for a 15 minute rest. We had a great view of Marcy, and with our binoculars could see a number of people walking around the snowy, icy summit.
On the return trip, we diverted across to Indian Falls to see how much ice they had, and inspect the view from that vantage point. After spending a little while soaking up some sun at the falls, it was a quick and easy trip back past Marcy Dam and ultimately to the car. On the last leg of the trip, we encountered what we were fairly sure was a bobcat, which was thoroughly fascinating. However, we were a little disappointed to see that the beaver pond near the Loj seems to have drained.
The total hike was about 13 miles in a brisk 7:52. Thirty (30) High Peaks down; 16 to go.
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