Climbing Snowy Mountain

With my arm back in order, and a camping trip for my girlfriends birthday at Lewey Lake on tap, the stars seemed aligned to get my summer back on track.

Snowy-Mountain

Although Lewey is practically in Gore’s backyard, I haven’t spent much time in this part of the Adirondacks. The drive on endless two-lane blacktop serves to remind you that the park really is huge, despite the fact that we made good time getting there from NYC.

The campground was groomed to perfection, clearly a different summer meaning but I’ll take it. With ample space between us and our neighbors and perfectly clean sites we felt pretty spoiled.

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Gore Mountain Improvements: Summer 2014

Recently we had the chance to see the progress that’s been made on Gore’s big summer project: the replacement of the Adirondack Express.  What impressed us was the amount of work that’s required to complete a job of this size.

Gore Mountain improvements: new lift installation

The original lift required twenty-eight towers to cover the 7000 foot expanse from Gore’s base to the saddle on Bear Mountain. The new express will require twenty free-standing lift towers to do the same.

Each one of those twenty towers will sit on a deep footing that will rest below grade on a surface that was blasted out of bedrock. Within each of these craters a form is being built that will contain the rebar, concrete and bolt configuration needed to hold up the massive towers.

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Kettle Mountain, NY

I first heard of Kettle Mountain years ago when it was the only legal way for the public to see OK Slip Falls. Views of the falls from Kettle are distant, but still very good.

Casey-Summit

At that time it wasn’t exactly a no-brainer to hike it. Access required a long bushwack through swampland to the south of the Northwoods Club road.

If you wanted to access the peak by rafting, you’d have to plan an overnight or a very aggressive day trip itinerary, minding river levels as determined by the Lake Abanakee dam release.

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