Lake Arnold Trail - Feldspar LT

The NYSDEC website says the Lake Arnold Trail, just north of Feldspar lean-to, maybe impassable due to beaver activity. Anyone have an update as to whether this trail is passable or not right now.

Marc

I have not been through there in the summer in a while, but I have read that extensive recent work has improved the trail. Search here, and at ADKForum and AdkHighPeaks for a thread with info.

I've heard the same thing. Apparently, the ADK professional trail crew spent quite a bit of time back there improving the trail this summer.

Even before the bog bridges were fixed, it wasn't impassable, just tricky. You had to step carefully, and watch out for the bog bridges that would sink 2 feet into the water as soon as you put your weight on them.

bachand said:

The NYSDEC website says the Lake Arnold Trail, just north of Feldspar lean-to, maybe impassable due to beaver activity. Anyone have an update as to whether this trail is passable or not right now.

Marc

Click to expand...

We were through there in August. The trail was no worse than any of the other trails in the high peaks. With this snow and rain it might be a bit nasty but I wouldn't call it impassable.

A friend attempted to climb Cliff and Redfield via Lake Arnold (from Loj) this past Monday (Oct. 18) and his account of the day reports lots of “bad news”: first as one can imagine the trail are extremely wet, second there is two (2) feet of snow on the ground near Lake Arnold and third considerable blowdown in places! The Uphill Brook vicinity sported “only” 18 inches of snow cover and since it was obvious nobody had recently visited Cliff and Redfield our friend not looking forward to re-climbing over Lake Arnold decided to return via Lake Colden. Once over the dam he went to have a look at the Marshall herdpath and somehow kept climbing and reaching that summit. There was much less snow but considerable blowdown along the lower elevation of the Herbert Brook herdpath. Returning he met the Colden Caretaker who was on her third day of clearing big trees on the trails around the lakes with still no end in sight for that job!

PS: Lots of work has been done through the swamp this past summer and the bridge over the Opalescent rebuilt as well.

That "caution" on the DEC site has been there for a few years now. We hiked that trail in September '09 and May '10 and had no problems whatsoever...like Mike said, no worse than other Adirondack trails. (and that was prior to the work done this summer)

Sounds a major difference from when I hiked that trail in September. More work for the trails crew!