Day 1 of March 2024 Trip to Adirondacks, Cascade Mountain

by admin

Early March 2024, I made a trip to upper New York State to explore the Adirondacks. This was the first day of the trip when I checked out Cascade Mountain.

View from Cascade Mountain Summit

The Adirondack mountains were one of the two places I considered visiting last July. (Unfavorable weather meant I visited Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina instead.) Generally, I wasn’t into winter hiking when there’s no snow around to decorate the views, the Adirondack mountains were the only part of New York State with snow on the ground in early March. Even better, the comments on AllTrails mentioned snow was mostly packed along the trails, that meant only crampons (rather than bulky snowshoes) were needed for the hikes. Weather forecast was relatively good, so I decided to spend a few days exploring the Adirondacks.

Most of the good hikes in the Adirondacks were in High Peaks Wilderness. Considering price and amenities, I chose to stay in Saranac Lake (instead of Lake Placid or Keene). I arrived in Saranac Lake relatively late last night, so I woke up late this morning. Weather forecast indicated chances of rain this afternoon, so I decided to pick a shorter hike for the day as I got accustomed to the area, and that’s Cascade Mountain.

Cascade Mountain Hike

This is a 7.2km out-and-back with 580m elevation gain (4.5 mi / 1900 ft). It’s common for people to tag on the nearby Porter Mountain for a 9km-total trip (700m gain). With poor visibility on top of Cascade Mountain and the impending rain, I only checked out Cascade Mountain.

The trailhead for this hike was along NY73, near a crest. I got to the trailhead and started my hike at 10:50am.

Here’s GPS tracking:

The elevation of this trailhead (670m, 2200ft) was relatively high compared to other trailheads in the Adirondacks. As a result, the trail was fully covered in ice upon leaving the trailhead, so it’s crampon territory the entire way. Over the next few days, when starting off trailheads at lower elevations, the trails were often a mix of dirt and ice. I didn’t like the idea of using crampon on dirt, which required me to clean off mud and/or leaves regularly.

Trail
Trail
Trail
Trail
Trail
Trail
Trail
Trail

Overall, I would say the first half of the trail was largely on ice (p1-5 above), among a deciduous forest. It’s often the case that there’s little snow/ice on the ground beside the trail. I guessed the snow/ice was well-packed along the trail, which made them less prone to thaw from the warming weather.

After that, the trail was largely on packed snow, where coniferous forest took over.

Creek
Creek under Ice
Flowing Ice along Trail
Trail
Ice Covered Trail
One of the most technical bit of the trail to Cascade Mountain.
Trail
The end of snowpack. The remaining 200m towards the summit was on rocks.

Like most other peaks in the Adirondacks, the summit area of Cascade Mountain was on rocks, and largely snow-free. Minimal scrambling was needed to reach its summit, which was much easier than the next two days at Wright and Big Slide Mountain.

Path to Cascade Mountain Summit
Path to Cascade Mountain Summit
Summit of Cascade Mountain
Fields to the West
Mud Pound, Round Lake, and the nordic ski tracks of Mount Van Hoevenberg.
Pitchoff Mountain
Pitchoff Mountain
Walton Basin
Extending towards the town of Keene.
Cascade Mountain
A beautiful transition between conifers and rocks near the summit.

Unfortunately, it’s a cloudy day with low ceilings, so the views on top of Cascade Mountain were rather restricted. On a clear day, I should be able to see the town of Lake Placid to the west, and the core of High Peaks (among which was Mount Marcy, the highest peak of New York State) to the south. Instead, I was watching Pitchoff Mountain across the valley most of the time. Even seeing Mount Van Hoevenberg was a struggle from time to time.

In addition, probably due to the incoming rain, it was very windy on top of Cascade Mountain. I found a few pieces of boulder that provided me some shelter from the wind, had some snacks while hoping to wait out the fog, to no avail. So after about 40 minutes at the top, I started to head back down.

The weather forecast predicted rain to start at around 2pm. I was wearing a water-resistant coat hence in no worry to head back. In the end, I experienced a few raindrops along the trail, and got back to my car at 2:40pm, just as the rain was picking up. I drove slightly down the road to check out Cascade Lakes (photos in a different post), before going back to check out the town of Lake Placid.

Lake Placid

This was the town that hosted the 1932 and 1980 Winter Olympics. On its outskirts were a Ski Jumping Complex, Mt Van Hoevenberg which hosted the nordic ski and bobsled events, and Whiteface Mountain which hosted its downhill ski events. In the town center, there was an (open-air!) speed skating oval, and a few indoor ice rinks.

Like most other small towns in the US, Lake Placid featured a two-lane main street lined with shops and restaurants, and that’s basically it. It’s hard to imagine an Olympic event could be hosted in such a small town. Indeed, the local Olympic Museum acknowledged the struggles of maintaining Lake Placid’s small-town charm, while keeping its relevance on a world stage of winter sports. The Winter Olympics has taken on a noticeable increase in size since the 1980 games, but Lake Placid was still hosting various other high-stake events, like the 2023 Winter World University Games, together with USA Olympics’ training facilities.

After having my car parked, I took a stroll around the town, largely near “Mirror Lake” that’s still frozen for the season.

Bench on Mirror Lake
An artistic location as this bench was placed into the lake, away from the shore.
Smoky Mountains behind Lakefront Villas
Buildings along Mirror Lake
Mirror Lake
Olympic Speed Skating Oval

As I roamed around, I bumped into the Olympic Center, which was essentially three indoor ice rinks connected together. Two of them hosted ice hockey games during the 1932/1980 Winter Olympic Games. Somewhat to my surprise, during my visit, such high-grade arenas were hosting CAN/AM Hockey League games, which was a youth hockey organization. After checking their website, it turned out that CAN/AM had games over most weekends throughout the winter in Lake Placid.

With enough time left in the day, I sat and watched a few matches. Judging by the scoreboard, the teams participating in this tournament had vastly different skill levels, but their gratification in participation was universal. Despite the Olympic Games have outgrown the small town of Lake Placid, its legacy still lived on, not only in the ski slopes and ice rinks but more importantly, in the aspiring kids that continued to practice their games.
Photos in the following slideshow of CAN/AM Hockey League games shall be in public domain.