Skylight!!!!

On Saturday the 20th of September my trail mates and myself went on a little adventure into the Flowed Lands to climb Skylight and Grey peaks in the Adirondack High Peaks. We went in at the Tahawus trailhead and planned on either staying at the Uphill lean-to or the Feldspar lean-to or in one of the campsites around these two shelters. The hike into Lake Colden was not bad, a sight steady climb, and the trail is in good shape. Near Lake Colden we passed a new Lean-to and a new designated campsite.

Lake Colden looking N, early the second day.

At this time we were noticing that all the lean-to's and campsites that we had passed were filled right up and it was at this time that I was a little worried about where we were going to stay.

Now the trail became difficult, especially with backpacks on. While difficult it was rewarding with some of the views that this route afforded us.

In fact some of the gorges were 150 feet deep in spots.

We made camp at a tent site just before the Feldspar lean-to. It was a bit off the trail and we had to move some logs to make room for our tents. We had our site set up, had lunch and headed off to climb Skylight with our light packs. Just before we reached the Four Corners we arrived at Lake Tear of the Clouds. At the outlet we found the cairin that marks the beginning of the trail to Grey Peak.

Outlet of Lake Tear of the Clouds

Skylight was just about .75 mi. ahead and we were on top of the summit before we knew it and we were greeted with spectacular views. Also, there were very few people as it seemed that Marcy had all the rest of the hikers in the region. (We found out from a ranger that most of the hikers actually went up Algonquin Mt.)

Redfield Mt???

Mt Marcy

Mt Colden and the Mac Intyre Range

When we were ready to leave we decided that we didn't have time to do Grey and headed to the camp as it was pushing 4 pm when we started off the mountain.

We arrived hungry and immediately began making dinner. During this time two parties walked up to our site and one asked if there was room and the other, well that SOB just marched right into our site and looked around and said "Well no room for us." and walked out. That pissed me off, but our more experienced hiker said that's the way it is here since the DEC is limiting where and how you can camp. In all that was the only little cloud to a literally cloudless day.

When we were getting ready to call it a night we noticed odd old scratches on the trees, which turned out to be bear claws as they climbed the tree for the bear bags. We use a bear canister. We slept, no incidents, but we slept lightly.

There were a lot of these marks on all the trees in the camp

The next day we hiked out and even though the trail up beat us up a little we had a great time. Another glorious adventure.