Sunday/Monday February 14th and 15th - Adirondack weekend trip - Days 1 & 2 - Victor NY to Saranac Lake NY - Hike of about 7 miles, 900 feet elevation gain estimated

 We took off from the house about 9 am Sunday and headed East on NY-96, NY-318 and NY-31 until we got to suburban Syracuse for a bagel at Bagelicious.  It was just an ok bagel but the toppings, people and price were all good enough that we'd go back if we were in the area again.

The drive was about 250 miles in total and we didn't use the freeways or tollway except for a comically brief half a mile near Syracuse.  Just like the last time we passed through Adirondack state park (on the way home from Vermont once) it was ridiculously sparsely traveled during these off season winter days.  

 

When we got to Saranac Lake our hotel room wasn't ready to check in despite it being after 3 pm and clearly chaos was reigning with the front desk and housekeeping.  We took that as a sign that a very early dinner was the right idea since, after the bagel, we'd had very little to eat all day.  The first place we tried to eat at was an Italian restaurant called Little Italy downtown.  Unfortunately it was already too crowded for our COVID avoidance standards. We walked around the rest of downtown and ended up at a bar called Grizle-T's  where we had well prepared tavern food and enjoyed surprisingly reasonable music from the digital jukebox.  After dinner we wandered downtown a little more. I was hoping for a desert but we ended up stopping at an Italian restaurant for what turned out to be very bad to-go cheesecake and chocolate mousse pie pieces.  Oh well, it at least felt like desert even if we didn't eat much of it and our hotel was ready when we got back.

Monday morning we headed to Lake Placid for another bagel breakfast.  Brian had been to Lake Placid years ago but it was my first time.  The bagel was better than yesterday but the town was too busy and snooty for either of our preference.  I don't intend to go back to Lake Placid anytime soon. It had a definite the feel of an NYC or LA tourist filled town.

 After a brief stop back at the hotel to suit up for hiking we drove the very short 2.5 miles to the trailhead for the Jackrabbit trail. There was just 1 other car there when we started and I think that person was wrapping up their hike or ski or whatever brought them there.  The original plan was to follow an Alltrails found 4 mile minimal climbing out and back route to a pond.  The snow here is quite deep but on trail it is well packed down by the multitude of tourists that were probably here this weekend.  Walking on the somewhat packed but still bright white snow was much easier than some of our other recent snowy hikes.  The trail had minimal ups and downs at first but at one point there was a junction where the trail to the right clearly went up hill and was clearly marked as the Jackrabbit trail.  I didn't consult the phone at all after arriving at the trailhead partly because the pond wasn't really a must see destination I just knew that people had commented on it this weekend so I knew it was accessible and doable even with the snow.  

The uphill started immediately after the junction and didn't relent for probably 2 miles of constant arduous uphill hoofing.  At one point Brian thought I wasn't enjoying and he was ready to turn around but, while very slow, I was ok with pressing on.  We went considerably farther finally having one person pass us on snow shoes and eventually reaching the top of the hill we'd been climbing so long.  There were endless snow covered logs and trees and occasional little areas of water, some frozen, some still flowing.  One area of substantial cliffs was completely draped in long brown icicles that were very interesting to look at but not easy to photograph. We turned around after getting to the point where the trail went steeply downhill the other side of whatever we'd been climbing all morning.  There were about 4 sets of people going up while we were on the way back down. The snow was gently falling the entire hike but it was also very gradually getting more intense and by the time we got back to the car the car had a half inch or so of snow and the road which was more or less plowed was now a thoroughly snowy affair.  I love having winter tires, it really makes even very treacherous snowy conditions drama free.

 

After a McLunch we were back to the hotel by 2 pm.  Since there is 7-14" of snow expected overnight we are staying pretty close to the hotel tonight.  We played Yahtzee and listened to music on the Bluetooth speaker we brought with us. It's just the kind of low key away from it all that we've been craving.  Tomorrow we will either drive home or extend our stay 1 day depending on conditions.