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Aug. 6, 2005 (Sat.)
Elevations: 4867 feet, 4240 feet; Order of Height: 5, 28
Participants: Andrew Lavigne, Jennifer Innes
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This outing was a Whiteface/Esther combo hike that Jenn and I did on August 6, 2005. Jenn wanted to do these two peaks as part of her 46er quest; I'd never hiked from the lower Wilmington trailhead, nor had I ever done both Whiteface and Esther in a day. And, the weather was beautiful and warm, a situation I'd also not encountered on a previous ascent of Whiteface..

We stayed the night before at the Wilmington Notch Campground, a nice state-run facility very close to the Whiteface ski hill. There is a nice waterfall down below the campground that is worth visiting.

We started off our hike not long after 7am, and encountered very few people on our ascent that day. The lower trail, being the longer option, has little traffic and therefore good trail conditions. Higher up, the usual Adirondacks rockiness rears its head once in a while, along with some tiring stretches of muddy trail in the long flat sections at around 4,000 feet.
An officially unmarked but fairly obvious junction marked the way off to Esther. and the summit of Esther was reached not long afterwards. This was the first time at Esther's summit in the summer for me, and so it was the first time that I actually got to see the summit marker. Very nice.
After Esther, it was back to the unofficial junction, then up over first muddy trails, then the beautiful north summit ridge of Whiteface. The summit views were beautiful, but as a result, also crowded with tourists who have driven up on the auto road. We take a few snaps, then head down the "protected" west ridge route to the castle, where we pop in for a quick snack and new batteries (I only brought one set of half-charged batteries for my GPS, and they were now out). From there, we walked down the auto road to where it intersects the ascent trail, and from there back down to the trailhead.

Trip Reports, Image Galleries or Other References:
 Image Gallery: August 2005 Whiteface and Esther Hike


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