MacNaughton Mountain (#47)

September 21, 2014

September 7, 2014

Weather: sunny and warm

Well, this definitely goes on the list of not my favourite hikes. Seymour still claims #1 in our hearts, but I started off with aching legs (had a short-lived dream of becoming a jogger) so it was a little tougher annd there’s something about the fact that technically we didn’t even really need to do this one. But, in the end, it really wasn’t that bad and the obstacles were more mental than anything. I really don’t want to scare anyone off this one because if I had been in the right frame of mind I feel like it could have actually been a fun adventure. Also, we’re now officially 47ers! My aunt pointed out that that doesn’t have the same ring to it, but if we’re going to get real technical then we’re actually more like 43-ers.

ANYWAY. About that hike…

We got ourselves a bright and early start, then got caught in nice long conversation with someone who clearly walks faster than us (Imagine that? He was planning on finishing Street & Nye before noon) and only really left the parking lot at 7:00.

The trail from there all the way to the Scott Clearing Lean-to is basically flat, if not even vaguely downhill. We got to the Rocky Falls turnoff within 45 minutes, and stopped to take a little snack. We opted to not go down and see the falls, knowing the big day we had ahead.

Around 8:40, we made it to the lean-to. As we approached, my dad made a joke about me having fallen asleep in that spot the last time and how “at least we wouldn’t lose time doing that again” so I decided to just stop for a snack and not admit that a nap would have suited me just fine.

A couple minutes later we passed the junction, after a moment of confusion/excitement, we realized that the sign had lost its last digits. Don’t get your hopes up, it’s 1.6 miles to Scott Pond and 2.8 to Wallface Pond.

A couple minutes after that, we reached the Scotts Dam (not to be confused with the dam at Scott Pond). We only paused for a second to snap a few pictures since we had already taken our break at the lean-to, before hopping across the rocks.

After this, we started climbing. That went on for a while but it was easier than we had expected. Then the trail leveled off and it got muddy. We pulled out our poles. Once again, gaiters were a big plus; my foot got schlooped on multiple occasions. We really did our best to try and stay on the trail to avoid making it any wider!

Just before 10:00, we reached the “older stone dam” at Scott Pond and the late morning sun was perfectly shining on the water and through the gap in the dam. We sat down and enjoyed another snack and took lots of pictures (guess who was doing what), taking in the sunlight.

As we started moving, my dad started talking to me about navigation and knowing where we were going, etc, and we absentmindedly turned left, over a small wall of branches (whose purpose was most likely to block the way) and straight toward a campsite. We realized almost immediately, but we both took a lesson from that.

After 25 minutes of walking after the dam, we got a little prematurely excited by the sight of a pond. We stopped and took pictures, but then realized we probably hadn’t walked 1.2 miles in such a short period of time. We pressed on, and spotted another pond through the trees, again that meant nothing.

Finally, we came out into a bit of a clearing and could see MacNaughton looming ahead of us. We eased across some logs, trudged through some mud, and found ourselves facing Wallface Pond! We figured it was a good time to take a seat on a rock, pull out the guidebook, the map, and the compasses and figure out a plan…which involved figuring out how a compass works. After a bit of practice, we decided we were as good as we were ever going to be, and we were just barely on schedule, so we headed off.

Now there had been a little 8-foot path to the water and we realized, we weren’t entirely sure whether we had come from the left or the right. We knew where the mountain was, but the guidebook was not particularly detailed and we  wanted to be certain which pond we were at and which way around we should go. We walked a bit both ways, determined we were (as expected) at the upper pond and found our way left around its south end. This took us through a bit of mushy marsh ground, through trees (and I mean right through trees, we were holding our poles in front of our faces to avoid scratching our eyes…little did we know, this was only the beginning), around campsites, and finally to the little stream that connects the Wallface Ponds where two cairns marked the path on either side. Time: 11:30am

We noticed a few ribbons on trees, which my dad said was too bad since it’s illegal (the DEC considers it littering), but they seemed to give out quickly anyway. We had our compasses on hand and our eyes on the sun, and were carefully heading SW, and in the direction of the middle of the ridge. After a few minutes, we remembered to turn on my dad’s phone GPS, we figured it could help us find our way back, should we run into trouble.

There seemed to be this little intervening hill that we figured we may as well go around rather than climb and descend, so we pressed on, with yet another pond on our right. The trees were not too thick and the walking was pretty easy for the first little while. We wove left and right, trying to find the best path to take but checked our heading frequently and seemed to be on the right track.

Well, then things started to get a little thicker, and the terrain was a little rougher. We happened to see a couple, whom we had met that morning in the parking lot; they were heading down about 30 feet to our right (but challenging to get to), and told us they had walked up much farther to the left and that it had been horribly wooded but they were having a much easier time on the track they were currently on. I was starting to be a little nervous and so I wanted to get over to where they were (because in my head it would be significantly easier), but my dad kept calm and we kept following basically the track we were on.

Soon after this, the terrain started to get much more challenging. It was fairly steep, but I was hardly even noticing because finding places to put my feet – whether climbing up fallen trees, grasping at roots and trunks (sorry, wildlife) and avoiding slipping downward had my full attention. On three occasions small twigs whipped into my eyes and left me immobile while my eyes gushed tears. We had allotted ourselves about one 1.5 hours to get to the summit (pessimistic), and we were approaching an hour and a quarter. I told him that we had to give ourselves a time, and if we reached it, we should give up on reaching the summit and turn around. He said 1:30, I said 1:15 max.

Around my max time, I started to get very antsy – bad antsy – and kept thinking we were approaching the time. The terrain was not getting any friendlier, and every time we looked up, it felt like we were so close because we could see the sun through the trees, but after an hour of thinking that, you kind of lose hope. I was frustrated, there may have been non-twig-induced-tears involved, and was insisting that we turn back. Unfortunately, my dad made the excellent point, which only made me more upset because I knew he was right: turning back would only mean fighting through the same crap on the way down, we needed to get to the summit and find the real herd path to get down.

Finally, at 1:50pm, we climbed through (yes, through) fallen trees and bushes and landed right on a herd path. We had reached the ridge! Time since Adirondack Loj: 7 hours

We knew the official summit sign was to the right, so of course we went left (to the south end of the ridge). We came out onto a rock with a nice view and sat down for some much needed victory chocolate. After a few minutes of sitting, we heard voices and called them over to our spot. Of course, my first question to them was how did they find the climb up???? Their response: Oh, it was no trouble at all, there were ribbons all the way up that brought us to the top of the north side of the ridge! WHAT. …WAIT, WHAT?! Apparently the ribbons we had abandoned right at the beginning, if followed, brought you right up a nice little herd path to the summit.

Anyway, we thanked them for the valuable information and the picture they snapped for us, and then parted ways. They went back along the ridge to pick up the ribbons downward, and we headed northwest to see the famously misspelled sign. We found it no problem, on what did not feel like the highest point on the mountain, made an awesome little makeshift tripod to get our summit shot, failed to remember how the 10 second delay worked. And then, after a solid half hour of dilly dallying along the summit ridge, it was time to get going.

We walked allll the way back to the other edge of the ridge, and sure enough, we found the ribbons.

The path was steep, but we had no problem following it, and it led us through a more open part of the forest. *Please note: I do not recommend counting on these, as people take them down and replace them throughout the year, because it is considered littering* The compass bearing was NE, as stated in the guidebook, but I guess the trick is to find where the start is.

As we neared the bottom, the ribbons were farther and farther apart but we still managed to stay on track. We really wanted to find where it led and where we had gone wrong. As the path flattened, we came out onto an open space, a dried up pond (on the other side of the hill we had aimed to avoid going up, is my guess).

We followed the footprints to the other side and spotted two ribbons about 20 feet apart. Following either of them (or anything around there) meant pushing straight through a bush, which we finally accepted we had to do.

On the other side, we passed a few more obstacles and met up with the familiar path, this time with that pond on our left, pushed through trees to come out next to a beautiful sight: the cairn.

Relieved, I plunked myself down on a cozy little boulder to enjoy another chocolate bar. It had taken us an hour and a half to get back down. We didn’t pause for too long, we weren’t quite done yet.

When we got back to Wallface Ponds, and the trail, we turned off the GPS and were actually pretty impressed by the fact that we were just about parallel to the real herdpath…only 300 feet off.

*Distances are in kilometres* The white circle is where we turned on the GPS tracking, (2) is along the summit ridge, (3) is along the herdpath we took down.

**To help you learn from our mistake:

After leaving the stream between the Wallface Ponds, when you head SW and reach another pond (on your right), then continue SW and go straight over the little intervening hill [or if you skirt it to the right (N) as we did, then trend a bit left (S) afterwards as compensation] so as to pick up the herd path. Remember, although we ultimately found ribbons marking the herd path, you should NOT rely on finding them, because they are illegal and might be removed. **

The rest of the walk did seem much easier, though; I guess the fact that it was downhill contributed to that but it was more of a mental thing. I knew as soon as we made it back to Scott Clearing lean-to we would be in the clear.

At 5:00pm, we reached Scott Pond, and an hour later we were at the lean-to. There were two women setting up for the night so we stopped and chatted for a while and offered our advice about conquering MacNaughton (follow the ribbon!), before continuing on. It was a very uneventful walk made interesting with my two favourite ch’s: chatting & chocolate. We made it to the turnoff to Rocky Falls in about 45 minutes, then at the trail registry in about the same amount of time.

We actually managed to reach Heart Lake before the last light disappeared!! And we were back at the car just before 8:00pm. Time since departure: 11 hours

Lessons Learned
1. Stay calm; often, the barriers are more mental than physical.
2. Plan your timing, schedules, and recognize when it’s time to turn back or when to move forward.
3. Bring the right equipment, in this case: compass, leg coverage, AND chocolate.

MacNaughton Mountain: elevation: 4,000 feet (depending who you talk to, I guess), elevation gain: +2,000 feet

Round trip: 15.5 miles