View off of Skylight
Last Sunday morning we set off on the trip we had been planning since July of 2011. We had planned on doing this trip after Irene came through but the High Peaks Wilderness area was closed so we hiked Seymour instead. We set off from Upper Works at 7:30 with heavy packs on our backs. We were planning on hiking into Feldspar and camping there for two nights and having a three day adventure. The walk in was long. We had 7 1/2 miles up to Feldspar and 1,600 of elevation to gain. Most of it was when we were hiking into Flowed Lands and when we were hiking up from Lake Colden to the Uphill lean-to. Not only was it a hard climb with our packs but it was a very rugged trail. We got to the lean-to at 12:30 and we were luckily the first people at the campsite which gave us the opportunity to grab the lean-to. We had our lunch and then headed up to Lake Tear. The climb up from Feldspar to Lake Tear was very hard. We got to Lake Tear around 2:00 and then headed up to Skylight. The climb up to Skylight was not very hard and was easier than I had expected. We got to the top around 3:30 then headed back down to do Gray. Gray was said to be a hard climb but it wasn't all that bad. You gained your elevation right from the start and there were just a few muddy rock scrambles. It took us about 20 minutes to get from the start of the herd path to the top of Gray. We then headed back down to our lean-to and got there around 7:00. The next morning we set out do Redfield and Cliff. We decided to do Redfield first and then go up and do Cliff. On the way up Redfield we met up with Veranoenvermont from http://www.forums.adkhighpeaks.com/index.php, a forum my dad is a member of. We got to the top of Redfield around 11:00. Veranoenvermont decided to go ahead because she had decided she was going to try to hike Skylight, Gray, and Cliff in one day. We headed back down and had lunch at the split between Cliff and Redfield. Then we headed up to Cliff. The beginning was very muddy and wet and then the mud turned into steep cliffs. Cliff isn't called Cliff for nothing. We got to the top around 2:00 right as a storm was starting to come in. The rain wasn't all that bad since the cliffs were wet anyways. We got to the campsite at 4:00. A little bit of advice for Cliff: There is a false summit and once you think your there you need to drop about a 100 feet and then gain about 150 feet. Also there is a steep rock slab (you will know it when you see it) that is hard to manipulate. If you go to the right you can avoid it. The next day we took our time packing up. We left the campsite at 10:00 and had lunch at Lake Colden around 11:30. We were out of the woods around 3:00. This was a very fun trip and I'm glad we got to do it.
-ADK Gurl
