Our pick for adventure on the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend was Lyon Mountain. Leesa had been wanting to do this for awhile for our ADK Firetower Challenge. We also wanted to avoid some of the areas we expected to be crowded.
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| Lots of nice trail work went into the new red marker trail |
As reported earlier, we stopped in the morning to climb Silver Lake Mountain. After lunch, we were ready for Lyon. The trail to the summit of Lyon has recently been rerouted. The old trail went pretty much in a straight line SW to the summit for a hike of about 2 miles. We ended up ascending this route since we missed the new trailhead on the left a couple hundred yards into the walk. Near the the top, the new trail crossed the old trail, so we hopped on it at that point.
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| Chazy Lake from the Lyon Mountain firetower summit cab |
We arrived at the summit a few minutes later. Lyon has a large summit with lots of open rock. There is also a small path that starts out on boards in a damp area that leads to an alternate viewpoint at the far end of the summit ridge.
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| The firetower is in nice shape |
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| Cairns come in all sizes and types |
Our weather was great, even though the forecast called for 40% chance of showers.
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| The summit rock looks like lunar rock |
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| An interesting tree along the small footpath to the alternate summit view |
After eating on the summit we desended the new trail the entire way. It is much nicer and it travels through varying forest with interesting features. The trail is well built, but it is longer... 3.4 miles vs. 2.0 miles on the old trail. As you can see on the GPS track at the bottom of this post, there are a lot of switchbacks on the new trail. This helps keep the grade moderate, but lengthens the hike a bit.
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| Nice bridge work on the new red marker trail |
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| This is the trail head we missed on the way up. It was on the left a couple hundred yards from the parking lot |
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| Sign out at Chazy Lake Road |
Lyon Mountain has a nice firetower and nice summit with good views from the tower. The new trail is a nice walk. The old trail is steep, wet and rocky. We preferred the new trail!
Hike Stats:
Hike Distance: 6.1 miles (for our loop of old and new trails)
Hike Time: 3.5 hours
Total Vertical Gain: 2100'
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| This map shows the old route highlighted in blue (click image to enlarge) |
The new route is the zig-zag route. The route up is more or less straight line
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