The time had come for a very easy intro hike. Many people at work were interested in sampling what the Adirondacks were all about. And so, on a truly perfect cool summer day (getting lucky with those this year), we headed off to what I think is one of the best intro mountains to climb: Catamount Mountain. Short (only about 5.5 km round-trip), good views and interesting climbing.
In order to reach Catamount, you must traverse a series of back roads. If you have a GPS, you can navigate to the 'trailhead' waypoint that I have included in the GPS tracklog of this hike.
One of the unique features of Catamount is that, for an Adirondack peak, it offers a lot of fun open rock scrambling (easy climbing). This starts off with a bang with a neat steep natural chimney that must be climbed, and is then followed by lots of slabs and ledges.
The group climbs the chimney
Chatting on an open ledge
Looking back at sub-summit
The summit was beautiful, with good views of the flatter northern and western Adirondacks, and views of Whiteface and Esther. The more rugged central High Peaks are obscured by Whiteface. The weather was quite cool for end of June, and many of us donned fleece. But... no bugs! what an excellent day.
Luke and Pu and Whiteface
