Dail & Nippletop - August 13, 2010
Because we had bagged 2 of the 46 high peaks in May, we felt a little more prepared this time. We knew to get our packs all ready & loaded in the car the night before, we knew to get up early, we knew to eat lots of carbs the night before, we were feeling like pros! On Friday morning, we got up around 4:30 am, got the coffee started & had arrived at the trail parking site by 6:50 am. Although we had planned to be there around six, we were still impressed with ourselves.
We took off quickly down the road, as we knew we had about 2 miles to hike before hitting the official trail head. About 5 minutes into our walk, we paused for a quick "before" picture.
After a short walk on a back road, we came upon a seemingly private country club getaway type place. There was a golf course, multiple unique cottage units (with very nice cars parked in their driveways), tennis courts, and a fancy lodge. We were slightly perplexed at to the type of people who would patronize such a place. During our quite morning walk, we guessed that maybe it was a sort Camp David for non-presidents. Recently George W. & Laura Bush were spotted mountain biking in the Adirondacks, we briefly joked that some of their friends, or even they would stay at a place like this. We further assumed that many of the residents were republicans as we giggled at their "Obummer" bumper stickers. Although, we did see a few legitimate Obama supporter stickers. Shortly we found ourselves at the sign in:
After signing in, we headed down the private road, toward "the gate". According to all of the trail material we read before our trip, "the gate" is were the mileage calculations begin for the trail. We reached it shortly:
After the gate, we knew the trail head to be about 0.7 miles away. We walked quickly at this point as we were eager to hit the trail. We passed a morning jogger & saw another group of hikers on the road to the trail head. We guessed they were staying at the Rich Republican getaway as we didn't see that anyone but us had signed in. Upon reaching the "H.G. Leach Trail" head, we changed into our hiking boots, and of course, took a picture:
I just briefly attempted to google whoever H.G. Leach was, but I have very little to report back to you. H.G. stands for Henry Goddard Leach, however that's about all I've got. Google did "suggest" that I search for "Henry Goddard Leach New York Secretary", which provided this tidbit from the New York Times archives circa 1919:
COPENHAGEN, Dec. 29.--It is reported here that Dr. Henry Goddard Leach of New York, Secretary of the American-Scandinavian Foundation, has been designated as American Minister to Denmark, in succession to Norman Hapgood.
But anyway, back to the trail: The first part of the trail (through the private land belonging to the Rich Republicans) was excellent trail hiking! We clipped along at a great pace & even coined a phrase we used through out the hike & will for years to come, I'm sure. When one of us wants to hike a little faster, say on a flat section of trail, they will say "CLIP!" indicating they want to clip along at a faster pace. Stephanie first used this word & we started using it all day. For example we would use it as a question or to describe a certain section of trail as clip-able.
We had smooth sailing trails for about 2 hours and then entered the public New York State land which was less maintained and very overgrown. We reached the "W Shoulder Lookout" around 10 am and looked around at the remnants of a forrest fire some 10 years ago.
After reaching the W Shoulder, we headed down a slight desent & were passed by a group of three. They were on the same path as us, looking to reach Dial & Nippletop. They were clipping along quicker than us, but we kept pushing. The trail after the W Shoulder was long, we knew we had to cross another, non-46 peak (Bear Den, which I kept mis-pronouncing as Beer Run), before hitting Dial. It was a grueling 2.1 miles from the Shoulder to the Dial summit. We were loosing steam & our spirits were dwindling down with every step we took. We were passed by a pair of young men, clipping along very quickly. I remember one said, "see you at the summit" and I was thinking "yeah, right". Another time, we saw someone descending. This man took pity on us and encouraged that the Dial summit was just 200 feet away. I was overjoyed, Stephanie later called him the biggest liar she'd ever met. Upon reaching the Dial summit & having a lovely lunch & break we were able to laugh at our exhausted selves. We were just glad to have another of the 46 peaks done. A few pictures from the Dial Summit:
After lunch, we were in much better spirits. Stephanie was leading and we were hiking at some of our best speeds. The trail to the Nippletop Summit was about 2.1 miles from the Dial summit. I can't recall what time we reached the Nippletop, but it was raining. I was excited about this for 2 reasons: 1. it was cool & refreshing my hot skin and 2. we got to use our pack ponchos! But the rain made it very difficult to hike without my glasses being a HUGE problem. Eventually I just pushed them up to the top of my head as I was too tired to keep pushing them back on my face. The last little bit of trail before the Nippletop summit was very steep. At one point on the trail, we got a glimpse of the summit and I was shocked, it was all rock and looked so steep. But Stephanie just kept on pushing, she was relentless & and with her fast pace I barely even had time to dread it. The view from the Nippletop summit was beautiful:
The descent off the mountain was absolutely brutal. It was a steep decline within a one mile section of trail. It was all rock and very difficult. Stephanie was very encouraging to me as I was convinced that the mountain was "making personal attacks on my dignity". She just laughed at my silly antics. Somehow, we finally made it back to the nice trails of the Rich Republican lands and then eventually their private road that led back to "the gate". Our feet, muscles, and joints were screaming at us by the time we reached the road. We paused to eat an energy bar & rejoiced as we changed out of our hiking boots and into our regular shoes for the over 2 mile walk back to the car. At this point we were able to make good time as we were walking on flat even land. We made it back to the car around 8 pm, making our hike a total of a little over 13 hours. However, it was somewhere around the 10 hour mark that we decided we didn't want to attempt the next hike 2 days later. We both agreed that lazy time campsite would serve us much better!
