Adirondack Peeks Winter 2025

Jim Graham, #8346 Saddleback Cliffs

I t’s hard not to exaggerate when talking about Saddleback. Just 10 or 12 years ago there was not an abundance of trail reports or trail apps with logs of personal experiences. Google Earth and Bing Maps did not have well developed lidar models to help us know what we were getting into. Back in 2013, tales from the trail built your pre hike knowledge base. As an aspiring 46er was shortening their list of the not-yet-bagged peaks, it was not uncommon to encounter others on the trail with similar lists. Each hiker is ready to recite their ever-shortening list and agenda with strangers on the trail. “What do you have left?” was a common question. Oddly, responses almost always included Saddleback. “Are you saving a particular mountain for your finish?” was another common question heard on the trail. Perhaps not so odd, responses never included Saddleback. Yet discussions with aspiring 46ers almost always touched on Saddleback. Hikers would exchange tales that friends had shared of the Saddleback cliffs: stories of friends’ tears and fears, stories of friends encountering the limits of comfort, stories of ripped pants and useless gear,

and stories of muscles that froze and didn’t respond even when commanded by logic. On one occasion when my wife, Stefanie, #8345, and I were involved in such a discussion. A gentleman used his hands to describe to us the shape of the cliffs just as his friend had described the cliffs to him. “They are not actually cliffs. The shape won’t allow you to fall,” he said while gesturing with fingers walking up the back of his hand like a person walking up a basketball. I had never heard that before. “You just need to convince yourself that you can deal with the exposure,” he said. Easy enough, I thought, even though I did not thoroughly understand how his hand gestures supported such confidence. You only know what you know, and you don’t really understand Saddleback until after you rise over the cliffs. But once you rise over the cliffs you have been indoctrinated into a club whose rights include poetic license and hyperbole. When asked about Saddleback, our responses typically start with a thoughtful pause and then a tale of each handhold and the need for additional handholds that just weren’t there. The perspective of this photo of Stef may exaggerate the cliffs a little, but this is how we tell our Saddleback story.

Stef #8345 on Saddleback Cliffs

WINTER 2025 | 29