Time for our annual labour day hike! We pre-purchased sandwiches at Subito to speed up lunch time later and hit the road at 10:45 a.m. We decided to head straight for the first-come-first-served primitive camp sites at Corey’s Road (which becomes Ampersand Road) since we didn’t know how early they would fill up. The first couple of sites were occupied, but there were several still available when we were looking at 2:30 on a Friday.

Corey’s Road/Ampersand Road

We ended up at a site not on the map, past site 10, which was on a semi-driveable trail. We couldn’t get the car all the way to the site, but chose it anyway since it was on the water and near an outhouse!

Our outhouse

We ate lunch, set up our tent and then headed back to Tupper Lake for groceries at Shaheen’s IGA, followed by a flight of beer at Raquette River Brewing. We had a great time hanging out, but by the time we went to order food from the food trucks, it was a looong wait. We headed back to camp in the dark and settled in for an early-ish start the next day.

Our tiny nylon home in situ

Delicious beer flight at Raquette River Brewing

Day 1: Donaldson, Emmons, and Seward

We woke up at 6:30 and were a little slow because we had to collect water for coffee. It was a very short drive to Seward Trailhead where we parked on the road and hit the trail by 8:45.

Signing in for the day

Horse Trail

We decided to do the hike as an out-and-back via the Calkins Brook Trail because we heard that the back side of Seward, which would have made it a loop, was brutally steep. The hike started off gently. We didn’t notice the turnoff to the Blueberry trail and ended up taking the horse trail, which included slightly more climbing. We reached Calkins Brook Truck trail after about 30 minutes and continued on this flat and wide route until we hit the bucket/cairn marking the Calkins Brook Trail at 10:30.

Calkins Brook Truck Trail

Cairn at the junction with the Calkins Brook Trail

This trail followed the brook for a little while. We slightly overshot when the trail crossed over Calkins Brook and had to back track a bit. From there, the trail started climbing increasingly steeply (but not technical) for the next two hours until arriving at the cairn marking the connection with Seward Range Trail.

Right about where we missed the river crossing (probably what that log was trying to signal, in retrospect)

Up we go

Still climbing…

Looking back toward Seward where we would be heading later

A quick and tricky scramble led to our first summit of the day: Donaldson. The summit was marked by a baseball card of Josh Donaldson and boasted views of all the high peaks.

This summit marker was a little different

Peak 36

We ate lunch there and then continued down the other side toward Emmons. This is where the trail became seriously muddy! There was some elevation loss and gain, but not too bad. We reached Emmons by 1:30 p.m. after about 1 hour of hiking. The small summit was mostly viewless. When we arrived there was one other hiker already there: a young man reading a novel. We didn’t waste much time before turning around to head back up and over Donaldson.

Lots of mud

Peak 37

We took a quick snack break at a lookout just before the peak of Donaldson. Past the junction with Calkins Brooks trail, the trail went steeply down on a slab. We used the trees for help.

Descending with assistance from trees

More tricky descents

The trail didn’t descend too far before rising back up and over a false summit. As we approached the top of Seward, we started climbing over boulders. A passing hiker compared it to Saddleback, but confirmed she’d not done that one yet. We didn’t have the heart to tell her that it was much easier than the Saddleback cliffs! Before not too long, we reached the summit (3:30 p.m.) We ate another snack just off the summit on a little rock shelf with good views.

View from our snack ledge

Peak 38

Descending Seward, looking back at Donaldson

Then we headed back down the way we’d come. Calkins Brook Trail felt very long on our tired feet. We caught up to a couple we’d first crossed paths with as we headed to Emmons. We kept leap frogging them all the way down the truck trail, though ultimately we were faster. They said they were planning on hiking Seymour the next day, but we think they came to their senses since we never saw them again. We were thrilled to see the car again at 7:35.

Dinner was sausage and veggies in the dark. Then off to bed!

Night at camp

Day 2: Seymour

We had a slower wake-up on day 2 (7 am-ish), but we managed a quicker breakfast, so we were back at the trailhead by 9:20.

We followed the gentle Blueberry trail for the first two hours to Ward Brook lean-to. The trail was flat and very muddy. We decided to eat lunch at the lean-to. The lean-to residents introduced us to a really neat plant apparently called Touch-me-nots that exploded and spiralled when you touched the seed pod. Cool! We observed that both Ward Brook and Blueberry Lean-to were very nice.

A cairn marked the turn-off to Seymour, which started fairly moderately, then became steeper over roots and mud. After one hour, the trail turned into just an expanse of crazy-steep rock slabs that felt very sketchy. We used trees to pull ourselves up the edge of the slab.

Rocks, roots, and climbing

Lots of mud

Even once we’d passed the slabs, the trail just kept going up, higher and higher. We came to a bit of a false summit and then had to continue on to the actual summit. We arrived at 2 p.m.

We decided to backtrack a little to a great lookout where we took a 45 minute break. One of us even enjoyed much-needed nap. She felt much happier afterward.

We had felt nervous to descend the slabs, but with lots of grasping and swinging off trees, it was ok and actually pretty fun. We were slightly quicker on the way down.

Made it down the slabs safely!

The two hours along the flat trail felt loooong on our weary legs.

Dinner was our fave tinfoil tex mex dinner. We enjoyed a quick wash in the river and listened to a podcast interview with a 4-year-old 46er named Thea. A nice evening to cap off our intense weekend of hiking.