Neil
Well-known member
- Joined
- Apr 26, 2004
- Messages
- 3,434
- Reaction score
- 487
After this "interesting" hike I drew in a new bushwhack route to Averill and ended up enjoying a perfect day.
Trip reports that chronicle suffering and hardship, near-death experiences, epic proportions, major screw-ups and bitter lessons learned tend to make for better reading than hikes that go off in text-book fashion and procure nothing more than pleasure. So, you might want to quit reading right now.
2 weeks ago I had a rough time trying to combine Lyon and Averill and turned around 300 yards from the summit of Averill. Yesterday I went back with new HP forum member Bib and chose a different route. We spent a perfect day (mostly sunny, no wind, 40 degrees, dry conditions, open woods, easy navigating) taking 5 hours to reach the summit from the Chazy lake Road. After checking out a set of cliffs with 270 degree views, including Whiteface and the Lyon fire tower, not to mention Brushy Knob we headed east, side sloping through gentle slopes and very open woods with excellent footing.
When we under the summit, about here , and whose cliffs we could see, we made a hard right turn and headed straight up 700 feet until we were under the cliffs, which we contoured left. From the summit we had a perfect view of the High Peaks plus Mansfield in Vermont and what I figured were a few of the Sawtooths.
Things got interesting when headed east along the summit ridge towards my previous turnaround spot. There was a well maintained and flagged trail leading off the summit. The trail split in two and the more traveled one headed north in the direction of Lyon while the lesser one continued due east. There was red paint and orange flagging showing the way clearly. Gradually the trail petered out but the flagging continued for a couple hundred yards. I saw that I had turned around a mere 50 feet from the definite path and had my mental coin toss taken me to the north side of the cliff rather than the south I would probably have easily made the summit.
However, I would have missed out on yesterday’s amazing hike.
We followed the summit ridge on its south side (last time I tried the north side) and it seemed a lot easier in spite of thick balsams. There was a lot less blowdown and more obvious seams. We paralleled our inbound route eastwardly but at a much higher elevation and over much more rugged and feature-filled terrain. We then turned southeast and re-visited the same set of cliffs, which was a perfect way to close out the hike before dropping 900 feet to the car.
We came across a few cut and flagged trails over the course of our rambles, which gave the impression of a fair bit of human activity in that neck of the woods.
PICTURES
Trip reports that chronicle suffering and hardship, near-death experiences, epic proportions, major screw-ups and bitter lessons learned tend to make for better reading than hikes that go off in text-book fashion and procure nothing more than pleasure. So, you might want to quit reading right now.
2 weeks ago I had a rough time trying to combine Lyon and Averill and turned around 300 yards from the summit of Averill. Yesterday I went back with new HP forum member Bib and chose a different route. We spent a perfect day (mostly sunny, no wind, 40 degrees, dry conditions, open woods, easy navigating) taking 5 hours to reach the summit from the Chazy lake Road. After checking out a set of cliffs with 270 degree views, including Whiteface and the Lyon fire tower, not to mention Brushy Knob we headed east, side sloping through gentle slopes and very open woods with excellent footing.
When we under the summit, about here , and whose cliffs we could see, we made a hard right turn and headed straight up 700 feet until we were under the cliffs, which we contoured left. From the summit we had a perfect view of the High Peaks plus Mansfield in Vermont and what I figured were a few of the Sawtooths.
Things got interesting when headed east along the summit ridge towards my previous turnaround spot. There was a well maintained and flagged trail leading off the summit. The trail split in two and the more traveled one headed north in the direction of Lyon while the lesser one continued due east. There was red paint and orange flagging showing the way clearly. Gradually the trail petered out but the flagging continued for a couple hundred yards. I saw that I had turned around a mere 50 feet from the definite path and had my mental coin toss taken me to the north side of the cliff rather than the south I would probably have easily made the summit.
However, I would have missed out on yesterday’s amazing hike.
We followed the summit ridge on its south side (last time I tried the north side) and it seemed a lot easier in spite of thick balsams. There was a lot less blowdown and more obvious seams. We paralleled our inbound route eastwardly but at a much higher elevation and over much more rugged and feature-filled terrain. We then turned southeast and re-visited the same set of cliffs, which was a perfect way to close out the hike before dropping 900 feet to the car.
We came across a few cut and flagged trails over the course of our rambles, which gave the impression of a fair bit of human activity in that neck of the woods.
PICTURES
