Cascade and Porter Mountains

Hike Date: July 3, 2011

Hike Location: Adirondack Park, Placid/Keene Area, NY

Hike Rating (Scenic views and/or interesting terrain/vegetation): A+

Hike Difficulty: Strenuous

Hike Description: Cascade and Porter Mountains (elevations 4098 ft and 4058 ft respectively) are amongst the 46 Adirondack High Peaks and generally considered the easiest to hike. The trailhead is on Route 73 near the Cascade Lakes, approximately 7 miles from Keene and 10 miles from Lake Placid Village. The trail is well-laid out and is surprisingly easy on the feet while going up. It does ascend 1940 ft or so in 2.4 miles and so involves a certain amount of exertion of the lungs. If one also does Porter, it adds 240 ft of ascent (and 0.7 miles one-way) thereby making for a total elevation gain exceeding 2000ft, and round-trip distance of 6-7 miles. True to my luck in such matters, it was an overcast day (in all fairness,  I did know that from the forecast, but one has limited choice when on a trip planned several weeks ago).  However, the temperature was not too high, making the hike quite pleasant (but for the bugs...a strong insect repellent is much needed here), despite being counterbalanced by very high humidity. At around 2.1 miles, one gets to the trail fork for Porter. Shortly after, the approach to the summit begins, as the vegetation cover gives way to exposed rock surfaces. By the time I got to the approach to the summit, visibility had become extremely poor and I could barely see a few meters ahead. To add to my chagrin, a returning hiker told me that I was just a half hour late, and that 30 min ago, there still were views to be had. Swallowing my disappointment, I covered the remaining part of the trail. The summit was quite desolate when I got there, and the only other person there was the ADK summit guide. She has been hiking up Cascade every day since May...a feat an occasional day-hiker like myself found very admirable!  I enjoyed the relative solitude of the mist-wrapped summit for a few minutes before throngs of hikers started arriving (be warned: this is a very popular hike, and on a long weekend, solitude is not likely).

Visibility was minimal when I got to the summit.
ADK summit guide seen to the left.

Summit marker at Cascade

After a while, conditions started to clear a bit, and I was able to take several rather surrealistic photographs.

It's starting to clear up a bit!

Porter Mountain behind wisps of mist (from Cascade)

Mist-shrouded Big Slide Mountain and others from Cascade
(part of Porter to the left)

After lingering on Cascade for a while, I headed down with the intent of going to Porter. Initially, I missed the fork (the sign is placed such that it is only noticeable when on the way up). After I had descended down to the ledges with views, I realized I had left it behind and ascended again.

Trail fork for Porter

 The side trail to Porter initialy descends for a while before starting to ascend again. It was extremely muddy that day. At one point, there is an open ledge slighly off the trail to the right. This has some good views. Near this location, the trail goes around a large boulder that would afford good views and that it is possible to climb. I skipped climbing it, but I did see some other hikers do so.

Panorama from off-trail ledge en route to Porter

I finally got to a spot on the Porter ridgeline that looked like the summit, and had good views, but two hikers sitting there told me that the real summit was 100 yards further on, with just an orange mark for indicator, and no views. I headed on to reach this milestone, and having done so, returned to spend a while on aforementioned viewpoint. Conditions were somewhat clearer now, and there were nice views of Cascade, Big Slide and several other High Peaks I still do not recognize.

Big Slide Mountain seen from Porter

Cascade Summit seen from Porter Mountain

Hikers on Cascade Summit
(taken from Porter with a telephoto lens)

 I then made my way back, stopping at the ledges on the main Cascade trail for more photos (by that time, the sun was out as though teasing me).

Panorama from ledge near Cascade Summit on way down
(stitched together from 8 photos)

The trip down was unexpectedly hard on the feet, especially the toes, and I think I took longer to go down than come up! A trekking pole would be a help here, I believe, since it would shift some of the weight off, and reduce impact on the feet during descent. Alas, my usual strategy of grabbing a fallen branch did not work here...the fallen branches were too thin or too thick or too wet or too rotten. Advice: consider bringing a trekking pole.

That was the end of my first High Peaks hike, and a wonderful experience it was. In particular, the first few minutes on the Cascade summit with dense mist swirling all around with the blowing wind, were (despite the foreboding of missed photo ops) amongst the highlights, and one of my most interesting hiking experiences to date. Well, 2 down out of 46. Let us see how many more of the High Peaks I get a chance to hike.

Note: In addition to online resources, I found the following to be very useful information sources regarding hiking the High Peaks: ADK's High Peaks Region guidebook (includes a trail map), and James R. Burnside's Exploring the 46 Adirondack High Peaks.