Copy/Repost Hike

On Sunday, July 22nd, Michael and I broke camp at Lake Harris Campground in Newcomb and headed south to North River.  Along with Christopher, we had done MacNaughton Mt. the day before and had all stayed overnight at the campground.  Christopher was working on the firetower challenge and got up early and headed back over to the Upper Works to do Mt. Adams.

Michael and I arrived at the trailhead parking area for Thirteeth Lake at about 9:40AM.  We took our time getting ready...just in the rare event that someone might have signed up for the trip the day before.  At 10AM we headed out.  It was already a really nice day out...warm with most clear skies.

The trail immediately headed to the camp sites and beach on the northern shores of Thirteeth Lake.  From here the trail headed south along the western shore and was pretty easy going.  About a third of the way down the shore and where we reached the Peaked Mountain Brook the trail turned westward following the cascading brook.  A short distance further we reached a relatively new trail, which led over to Hour Ponds (the trail wasn't on my maps).  We continued modestly climbing in elevation as we made it to the first of several unnamed ponds on the way to Peaked Mountain Pond.  There were magnificient views of the rocky cliff faces of Peaked Mountain as well as Slide Mountain.  We made good time, but before we reached Peaked Mountain Pond, the trail seemingly ended and this caused some confusion, which led us to backtrack along the ponds and then back out to this point again (I had read that the DEC had though about re-routing this trail and with the flagging tape at the end of the trail, this seemed to be why).  Anyway, on our second approach to the "end" of the trail, we finally discovered a DEC trail tag on the other side of a beaver-flooded area (also on our return we noticed there was additional flagging beyond  this point, but the color of the flagging had changed from red to yellow-green, which was barely discernable from the forest leaves...go figure!).

With the confusion straightened out, the walk to the Peaked Mountain Pond was fairly easy.  We reached its ledged shores at 12:15PM.  This spot also provided a wonderful profile view of Peaked Mountain over the pond.  We proceeded along the eastern shore and in no time we reached the base.  The trail up the mountain is steep and we took our time, reaching several ledges and the summit by 12:50PM.  There were incredible views over to Blue and Snowy Mountains to the west, Gore Mountain to the east and from another ledge the High Peaks to the North.  Thirteeth Lake as well as the entire watershed that we had hiked along was prominent, as well.  We took a relaxing lunch break.  It was getting progressively hot and humid through the day, but there was a slight clound cover on the summit, so the sun was not as intense.  I was also very surprised we had the trails and summit to ourselves considering how crowded the parking lot was.

The return was via the same route and we made good time.  We made it back to Thirteeth Lake and the trail head by 3PM.  We got settled again and headed to Trappers Tavern at the Copperfield Inn in North Creek for a burger before calling it a day...and weekend!

This beautiful hike was a perfect end to another wonderful weekend over in the Adirondacks.  I would highly recommend this hike for all it has to offer in views!  Thanks to Micheal for sticking it out, despite the difficult MacNaughton hike we had had the prior day!

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