Adirondack Peeks Summer 2025

FROM THE VAULT James A. Goodwin, #24

Trail Building | And Gladly Guide: Reflections on a Life in the Mountains (Chapter V)

A t this point, it is appropriate to detail my involvement with trail construction chronologically to 1966, because trails are for better or for worse my most permanent contribution to Adirondack hikers. My grandfather, Dr. Charles D. Alton, was for many years chairman of trail construction and maintenance for the Lake Placid Shore Owners’ Association during his summers at Undercliff. His enthusiasm for trail construction, reinforced by taking me into the woods during the time he spent at Interbrook Lodge, naturally influenced a growing grandson and got me excited about cutting trails. “Uncle” Mel Luck further encouraged me by pointing out that business-minded guides should construct trails on which to take their clients. In 1924, I learned of the jumper road that Eli Ducharme had constructed to his improvised sugar camp near the top of the Little Porter Ridge where the Haskins hunting camp now stands. Starting to blaze from Ducharme’s sugar camp, I cut a passably usable trail to the top of the ridge and from there continued the trail from rock ledge to rock ledge to the summit of what my friends and I had named “Little Porter.” Because my signs used this name and people started using it, the 1954 USGS map labeled the mountain accordingly. I cut the Little Porter Trail alone with a small Marble’s camp axe—still secretly nervous that I might meet a bear. The trail immediately became popular with Interbrook people because of its series of spectacular views, and it soon had wider patronage. During the next three years at times alone, and sometimes with sisters and others from Interbrook, I extended the trail to the top of the peak above the main Porter cliffs and on along the ridge to the summit. Especially in those days when there was more open rock on the mountain than there is today, this trail was much more spectacular than the present trail from the Garden Parking Lot. Because I neglected to continue maintenance of this trail during my college years, the Adirondack Trail Improvement Society took over its maintenance, shortening it by slabbing the ridge, but sacrificing the views on the ridge top. Another trail, which Cecil Parker had cut in the 1930’s from the Baxter Mountain Lodge area and which did use the summit ridge, fell into disrepair during World War II; but in 1949 Richard Thomas and I recut this trail with a new start from the south end of the Keene Valley airport. In 1930, Homer Brown directed the construction of a round-trip trail over Lower Wolf Jaw from Magee Clearing

and down the Wedge Brook Valley to the West River Trail. (This trail memorialized W. A. White, who served as the first president of the Adirondack Trail Improvement Society (ATIS) from 1897 to 1927. Appropriately enough, Homer had been White’s guide on the Upper Lake.) In descending to Wedge Brook, the W. A. White Trail left the southwest ridge of Lower Wolf Jaw about a half-mile above Wolf Jaws Notch in the bottom of which by then was a trail cut by the Johns Brook Lodge people. The latter trail had been extended over Upper Wolf Jaw and Armstrong to Gothics. Later in 1930, in an easy day’s work, I connected the W. A. White Trail with Wolf Jaws Notch, thus completing the continuous trail over the seven 4000-foot peaks of the Great Range. In 1953 with Charlie Keeler and representing the Keene Valley Chapter of the Adirondack Mountain Club, I connected Rooster Comb with the W. A. White Trail with a trail over the two completely viewless peaks of Hedgehog. For better or for worse, this completed the Range Trail from the Johns Brook Bridge to Haystack. We looked all over the mountain for decent view points to which the trail could be routed, but found none; and I shall probably never know how many people have cursed me for constructing that Hedgehog Trail. Nevertheless, the trail does make geographical sense for eager beavers wanting to traverse the whole Great Range. Working alone for the Keene Valley Chapter of the ADK, in 1951 I constructed the trail from the Second Brother to which there already was a trail over the Third Brother to Big Slide, thus carrying out a plan I had had in mind ever since I guided a man down over that route in 1927. With its numerous open views and the magnificent conifer forest between the Third Brother and Big Slide, this is still one of my favorite climbs. In 1955, now representing the ATIS, Alan Broughton, Charles Nason, and I (with assistance from Barrett Scoville on the reconnaissance) built the Giant Ridge Trail which is now named in memory of Zander Scott—an ATIS counselor and trail crew member who was killed in a plane crash in Alaska. The new trail led from the already constructed Nubble Trail above the Giant’s Washbowl up Giant’s southwest ridge to a junction with the older trail from Roaring Brook and St. Huberts. Original promoters of this trail were several former Camp Dudley counselors, including Lincoln Barnett, along with various Ausable

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