May 2, 2026
Had planned this trip with a couple friends, but with a somewhat poor weather forecast my mates bailed. I thought about cancelling too, but after a rough week at the office, I really needed a weekend in the woods. Drove down to Keene Farm solo Friday evening and spent some time socializing with a bunch of young folk around the fire pit before retiring to my tent.
I slept wonderfully to the lullaby song of rain pitter pattering on my tent all night. At 05:00 I was well rested, and the rain politely stopped for me to get up and cook my breakfast. By 06:30 I was driving in the narrow road towards Connery Pond. To my surprise, another vehicle was coming out at this early hour on the dead-end road, and we had to do a bit of shuffling to get around each other on the single-track laneway. I wondered if this meant that the tiny parking area at the end of the road was full, but arrived at the gate with the place to myself.
A light drizzle accompanied me as I scampered along the trail past Connery Pond and onwards to Whiteface Landing. Stopped for a brief break at the lake, and then continued on to the lean-to where I stopped for a longer break under the roof. The trail from here starts climbing, first gently and then steeply. The rain fortunately had stopped, but covered everything in a blanket of wet snow once above 700m of elevation. That snow was now melting out of the trees and dripping on my head. When combined with the narrow brushy trail, I was good and soaked in pretty short order. As I climbed higher, it got colder, which stopped the dripping, but not the feeling of being in a carwash as I pushed through the branches impeding on the trail. Finally breaking out into the alpine zone I figured I was finally free of the wet trees, but the trail still managed to find some wet bushes to crawl through here and there as it meandered up towards the summit.
Finally the sight of a 25 cent tourist binocular pole appeared out of the fog and I knew I was nearly on top. The foot rings of this contraption made a good handhold for the final scramble and then I was on top of Whiteface. Got a photo by the sign and then hiked around to the far side of the summit castle to find a place out of the wind to rest and eat my lunch. The clouds parted a bit, with even the occasional glimpse of sunshine, but the views were only fleeting as I turned around to head back down.
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As I made my way carefully down the slippery snow covered rocks the clouds parted briefly once more and I could see all the way to ski jumps at Lake Placid. I briefly contemplated heading back up to the summit again to take in the view, but the clouds quickly closed in again and then threw a graupel storm at me. The descent was somewhat treacherous as the ground was now covered in ball-bearing snow pellets but I made it down safely to the leanto, even more wet than earlier as I sat down for my second sandwich before continuing.
I had intended to make a side trip to Eagle Eyrie on my way back, but encountering another graupel storm as I arrived at Whiteface landing, I made the decision to just head back to the car. Mercifully though, the precipitation stopped shortly thereafter and remained that way for the rest of the hike. Eagle Eyrie will have to wait for another day. As I strolled along the wide trail, enjoying the moment of not being rained, graupelled, or dripped on, I encountered a couple of trail runners and three dogs, the only other critters on this route today. By the time I got back to the parking area I was almost dry!
Since it was still fairly early and my car needed a bit of juice, I parked in Keene at the public charging station and did what the sign encouraged me to do; "Explore the town and see all that Keene has to offer". Wandered around for a while and on this day Keene offered me a cup of coffee, a delicious chocolate chip cookie, and a six pack of Ubu. Post hike cravings mostly satisfied I retired back to the farm to fix my final craving with a couple of the Ubus.​
Pics:
https://web.ncf.ca/mbowler/hiking/ad...whiteface.html
May 3, 2026
Another good rest with only the occasional rainy lullaby, I awoke at first light to a cloudy but brightening sky. Fixed up a quick breakfast, packed my things and drove up to the ASRC to take a shot at Esther before my drive home. Today was cold, but at least it was not raining. There even seemed to be a promise of a view as the weather looked like it was going to improve. I parked behind a truck adorned with many stickers, several of them proclaiming High on Life. Pretty sure this vehicle belonged to the famous Nancy LaBaff and I laced up my boots quickly, hoping I would get to meet her on the trail.
The climb up Marble mountain went quickly and I stopped at the lookout for to catch my breath before continuing on. Climbing a little bit higher, the first traces of snow appeared. At 1000m it started to get icy and I even put my spikes on at one point which make negotiating the icy slabs easier. As I approached the Esther junction, I spied the old herd path, untravelled, and covered in fresh snow. I thought, what the heck, let's see what it looks like these days. The first bit was passable, though somewhat hard to follow, but then a large field of nasty blowdown blocked all traces of the old trail. Not wanting to mess around with that, I bushwhacked back to the main trail and followed that to the marked junction to Esther. I had put away the microspikes during the brief side excursion as they were not useful in the fresh snow.​
The path out to Esther was in good shape. In fact this "unmarked and unmaintained" trail was better marked and better maintained than the officially marked and maintained trail I took up Whiteface yesterday. The spikes remained in the pack, for this stretch. I met three other folk along the trail, all returning from the summit and stopped to chat briefly with each. At the summit the sun came out, and I enjoyed my sandwich basking in its warm embrace. The view of Whiteface however remained obscured by clouds.
The return journey was fairly uneventful. Did not need to put the spikes back on as the ice was melting off as the day warmed. At one point the unsettled sky through some more graupel at me, but this was a very half hearted attempt at slowing me down compared to the stuff from yesterday.
Reached the car after 4.5 hours of walking and drove home to a warming day and sunny skies. Unfortunately did not manage to cross paths with High on Life, but found out later from the Adirondack face-palm page that indeed she was out on the mountain too.
Pics:
https://web.ncf.ca/mbowler/hiking/ad...26/esther.html
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