Microspiking in the Dixes, Thursday, December 9, 2010

[BlackSpruce]

First real cold day, 11F/11C, since our Caribbean-like summer found Matt, Gary, Ken and I parking at the Route 73 Stone Bridge ready for a Grace, Carson and Hough loop (12.5 miles – 3800’). To avoid the too high for my taste and now slushy water of the various brooks, we stayed on the South side of the Boquet North Branch. For a while we followed the excellent herdpath to Rhododendron Pond, then staying high at first we took a bee lineto the right in order to connect the “usual” herdpath shortly before Lillypad Pond. At this time of year the going is easy (even in the dark) and we got where we wanted in short order. It was bare ground till the Rock of Gilbraltar, then a dusting of snow to the East Dix Great Slide (the slide on the left is called the Zipper). which became a small inch all the way to the col. Mind you, the beautiful herdpath was quite icy and the use of microspikes a must. Along the ridge from Grace to Hough the snow cover was thin (2 inches on summit cone of Hough was the deepest snow we encountered all day) but ice was thick in places and too hard for the microspikes to bite. (Full crampons would have been impossible to wear for lack of root cover but likely a necessity on very steep trails.) We found very little blowdown... that is till we left the 4000’ Hough-Dix col to follow the drainage down to the Boquet to meet the “usual” herdpath at the 2500’ elevation. Even though the Lake Placid area received well over a foot of snow at the beginning of the week it appeared from the Pough lookouts that the Elk Lake valley had no snow at all and the Colvin Ridge as much as the Dix Range.
After a 10.5 hour peak bagging tour pleased with ourselves we went home, some of us even more pleased like Gary who having completed his 46 by 46 a couple of weeks ago much enjoyed the luxury of by-passing East Dix because he “did not need it” and Matt, extremely pleased as one more successful outing in January put him among the dozen or so Adirondack hikers to have climbed each of the 46 in every month of the year!