DSettahr
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- Apr 23, 2005
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Decided to head up to the summit of St. Regis Mountain to watch the sunset on Tuesday afternoon. As a Paul Smith's student, I would climb St. Regis several times a year (once even after having already climbed Cliff and Redfield earlier that day!), but this was my first time up the mountain in nearly 4 years, so it was nice to return.
The first couple of miles of the trail is pretty flat, and I made good time. I did notice the wildflower starting to come out along the trail- hopefully the colder temperatures forecast for early next week doesn't kill them all!
Before long, I was at the site of the old observer's cabin for the fire tower, now a designated tent site. I'd read recently that there used to be a lean-to near the cabin, and I spent some time exploring the vicinity, trying to find the lean-to site, without any luck (I think, based on the description that I read, that it may have been located in the same clearing, right next to the cabin). I did make an interesting discovery, however- a trail that I'd never seen before, marked with blue DEC markers.
Since I still had several hours before sunset, I decided to follow the unknown trail. It lead downhill to the southeast, soon joining an old logging road. At the old road, the DEC trail markers ended, and I found the remains of an old camp, with a rusting heap of a car abandoned in the woods. I continued to follow the old road to the south. It was wet in some spots, covered in blowdown in others, but overall easy to follow. Soon, the path left the old logging road behind, and dropped down to the shoreline of Spring Bay on Upper St. Regis Lake. There, I found a nice little floating dock amidst a grove of hemlock, with a sign that read "Teddy Roosevelt Trail" and another that read" St. Regis Mountain." (I found out after my hike from the SRCA UMP that this trail has been unofficially maintained for years, and follows the route that Roosevelt used to climb St. Regis. The DEC plans to finish marking this route and maintain it as an official trail, providing access to the mountain from Upper St. Regis Lake without having to paddle all the way up into North Bay.)
Having satisfied my curiosity, I returned to the site of the observer's cabin and began to climb. The mountain is steep, but the climb isn't as long as I remember it being from a few years ago. The trail is in pretty rough shape, though- lots of eroded, washed out, muddy, wet sections. There were some stone stair cases here and there, but most of these were falling apart and in pretty poor shape themselves. The mountain obviously gets a lot of traffic!
I made it to the summit with plenty of daylight left, and spent some time poking around. I found some views off to the east of Paul Smiths and Lower St. Regis Lake that I'd never seen before. Before long, the show really got going as the sun slipped low on the horizon, passing behind clouds and re-emerging again. I was able to get lots of great shots of sunset, although it was windy enough that the wind chill made it difficult to keep my bare hands on the camera!
Once darkness fell, I grabbed my pack, put on my headlamp, and headed back down. The descent in the darkness to the observer's cabin site was tricky with all of the mud, roots, and loose rocks, but once there, I again made good time along the flat stretch of trail. I did see some cat's eyes along the way, and I attempted to follow them to see where they might lead me, but they gave out soon after I left the trail.
Definitely a great way to spend an afternoon in the Adirondacks!
