Adirondack Peeks Winter 2025

Although the sun had come up some time ago, I was still in shadow, so I did not linger long. Taking my leave of Slant Rock I noted the snow was much deeper now as I made my way slowly up toward the Range Trail. My first doubts were beginning to creep in about making the summit when the sun finally made its presence known. The sun can do wondrous things on a cold winter day in the mountains and today its rays encouraged me to continue onward. By now I was only about a half mile or so from the Range Trail. Stopping for a quick breather I thought that I could hear voices. Looking behind me I saw two climbers trudging up the trail. They stopped to chat briefly — they were heading towards Marcy, not Haystack as I had hoped. After I left the Range Trail I encountered deep, drifted snow. I had a fleeting thought of climbing Marcy instead, but I had already come this far. Shortly after plowing through drifts and starting up Haystack proper, my snowshoes were unable to grip very well. I needed to find a level spot to put my crampons on, so I took my pack off, fished my ice axe out and used the adze side of the axe to chop out a small platform. Now on a somewhat flat surface I was able to put my crampons on. Crampons made all the difference, and I was able to scratch my way up the icy slopes. Once above the foremost set of cliffs I ran into the first set of epic snowdrifts. I considered stopping to put snowshoes back on, but the wind and the cold helped me decide against it, instead just plowing through the drifts the best that I could. The conditions turned out to be very strange indeed: huge snowdrifts followed by rock hard snowpack that was easy to walk on. At the first open area (Horse Hill) before the descent to Little Haystack, I had my first up close look at what lay in store. Both Little Haystack and Haystack proper were sheathed in ice and snow with the occasional black rock poking through. The wind was whipping pretty good, and a snow plume was blowing off of Haystack’s summit. More doubts were filtering in now — perhaps the wind was going to be too strong today. I compromised with myself that I would at least check out Little Haystack and make a determination once I got there. Dropping down toward Little Haystack, the trail was heavily drifted in and it took a lot of extra energy to wallow my way through. As the grade eased off in the col, the drifts let up and suddenly the ice-encrusted cone of Little Haystack loomed in front of me. The first few steps on the dome revealed boilerplate snow, into which my crampons sank firmly. This gave me a bit more hope of achieving the summit as I made my way up. The wind was indeed raging as I headed toward the summit, working my way across and toward the infamous southeastern face. There was more hard, wind-blown snow on the face as I started down. The going was steep as expected,

but not too bad until I got to the final drop-off near the shallow col between the two peaks. Scanning the face, I could see no obvious path of least resistance, so I took off my pack and dug around for the piece of climbing rope that I had brought along for just such an occasion. Wrapping the rope around a rock outcropping, I slowly descended into the col. Safely at the bottom I left the rope in place for the return climb and began the final push to the summit of Haystack proper. The col was a mess of drifts and spruce traps. Most of the stunted trees had been buried under the snow. This section was rough, but blessedly short. Leaving the drifted-in col behind, I was lucky to find the same good snow consistency that I had found on Little Haystack. The wind turned on again in earnest. Coupled with the fact that ice crystals were flying through the air and my goggles were fogged up made it harder to concentrate on my footing. Head bowed down to the wind, I suddenly discovered that I had no higher to go. And so, I stood on the summit of the third-highest mountain in New York state in winter. My victory was very short-lived, as the wind blew in some cloud cover. The view back to Little Haystack and Basin vanished. I could barely make out Marcy’s outline across Panther Gorge. Being high up on the flanks of Haystack Mountain in a whiteout was not my idea of an ideal place to be, so after a few half-hearted pictures I started back down the way that I had come. The descent was fast and as I made my way down the clouds rolled away and once again my landmarks were laid out in front of me. So far the decent had gone flawlessly, but as I approached the sag between the two summits my feet suddenly slipped out from underneath me. Haystack had to get one more jab in. Standing up I brushed myself off, regained what composure I had left and started back toward the col. This time the col was easily bested as it was already broken out and back to the steeps on Little Haystack, where my fixed rope came in handy on the ascent. Once up the steep section I stashed my rope in my pack again. When I was back on the summit, I did not linger long, but made a break for the tree cover on the leeward side of the summit and blessed relief from the wind. As I started up the final slope before the downhill back to the Range Trail I noted that the drifts were already starting to fill back in. I topped out on what I had dubbed Little Little Haystack (aka Horse Hill) on a trip with my brother and Ben years ago. I glanced back at the twin summits of Haystack — glowing in the late afternoon sun — free of cloud cover once again. Although I still had miles to go before Grace Camp, I felt an overwhelming sense of accomplishment. A few more seconds and then I turned my back to Haystack and continued the long descent home. That night, tucked into my bunk at Grace Camp, I dreamt of giant snowdrifts.

WINTER 2025 | 31