Got to the trail head at 6:30 in the dark. Turns out I could have shown up at 7:30 and been better off. Why? Because I took the wrong trail in the dark! Started heading toward Duck Hole and had to get onto another trail to put me back on the right side of the valley. Probably an extra hour of hiking and a lot more up and down than the correct trail. Should I have had a better light, better batteries, a bigger cup of coffee to avoid this?
The weather was better than predicted. Blue sky with some clouds later in the day. They had talked about more clouds and also some snow mid day. Made for a nice day to be out. It was sunny at the flowed lands by the time I got there with the usual nice views of Colden. Also looked at access to Cliff from the flowed lands for the future. Not sure I see where to go. More research is required.
A lot of nice streams after going over Colden dam. This would be a nice stretch of trail in the summer. Some good swimming spots. Access to Redfield and Cliff is across from a Leanto sign. This is the up hill leanto but it didn't have the name, just a standard leanto sign. I met 4 college students from NY at this point. They were just about to head up Redfield. I went up with them. The trail had already been tracked so easy to follow. Redfield is a lot nicer than I expected. Good views toward Algonquin and Colden and also Marcy and Skylight. You can also walk a little bit off the top and get a view facing South. Going down Redfield was fast! Snow was deep enough to cover most things so it was easy gliding down. The College guys had told me they were going up Cliff also. This would require walking back in the dark, probably for about 2 hours. I started up Cliff with them, which is only 2 miles round trip, but decided fairly quickly to turn back. I thought about having my light fail or getting lost in the dark (again). Good decision to turn back even though it was very tempting having walked 7 miles one way just to get to the base of these mountains. I thought if the four guys were going back to the upper works I would have gone up Cliff because I would have had company. They were heading back to ADK loj though so I would be on my own.
Long walk back to the car. Got back to the car just about 4:30 so it was a 10 hour day. Pretty tired by the end of it. All in all a nice day.
Note for future upper works hikes: Start out straight until you go over the stream on the large bridge. At this point take a right to go to flowed lands. I did this part right and it is hard to miss since Duck Hole takes a sharp left at this point. The next turn was the problem. After walking less than a 1/4 mile the wide trail continues straight. You need to take a right on a wide trail at this point. I missed this in the dark. There is a sign pointing to Duck Hole if you continue straight. I didn't see the sign as it is on the side of the trail and small. This is easy to miss in the dark but would be obvious in the light.
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| Lake Colden and Mt Colden |
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| Colden dam |
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| Top of Redfield looking at Colden, Algonquin, and maybe Wright |
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| Flowed lands. Mt Colden. Cliff is to the right and can be accessed from here? |
