I was at Gore Mountain this morning at 8:30 to sign up as part of the Race Crew for this season. I've got my pass in hand and am ready hit the slopes!
Since I was there and had the day free, I decided to climb the mountain and check things out. I parked at the Ski Bowl in North Creek and took the Schaefer Trail to the Roaring Brook Trail to the summit.
Gore were making snow at the base and at mid-station, but oddly the summit was 36 degrees this morning and too warm to made snow up there.
The trail is a nice trail and relatively easy except for a small rough section near the cascading waterfalls about a third of the way up. The trailhead sign said 5.8 miles to the summit and I was a little worried that starting at 10:30, I would have to hustle. I made it to the top by 12:30, and back to the car by 2:30. I checked the GPS and found out that I was only 5 miles each way, not 5.8.
Since it was still early I also spent an hour climbing Hackensack Mountain in Warrensburg. This was a short 2.1 mile hike round trip with 800 vertical. From the summit you get fine views of Warrensburg and the hills to the west and south.
Hike Stats:
Gore Mountain
Hike Distance: 10 miles
Hike Time: 4 hrs 15 minutes
Total Vertical Gain: 3040'
Hackensack Mountain
Hike Distance: 2.1 miles
Hike Time: 1 hour
Total Vertical Gain: 830'
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| Snow guns going at the base! |
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| Gore... and more Gore! |
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| The distance to the summit was actually 5.0 miles, not 5.8 |
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| Many great waterfalls along the trail |
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| The summit firetower... with a new purpose! |
The firetower on Gore Mountain was #9 of 23 for me in the ADK Firetower Challenge.
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| It's true! |
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| Snowmaking down below |
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| This was the easy way! |
There were guys were working in one of the buildings at the top, but they flew in!
See more trip photos on my Picasa Web Album.
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| The route highlighted on Google Earth (Looking west) |
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Gore Mountain is a great hike... but it's December. Let the skiing begin!
I really like that view from the summit looking down at the snowmaking going on at the top of Bear Mtn (top of the gondola) - the pic captioned "snowmaking down below."
ReplyDeleteDespite all the hiking I've done in the adks and all of the skiing I've done at Gore, I've never hiked the Schaefer trail. I'm guessing the discrepancy in mileage is due to the trail having been re-routed several times over the past few years.