Hiking ADK: Seymour, Seward, Donaldson, Emmons 8/19/14

I had been thinking about this one for a little while. These mountains are some of the more remote mountains and the furthest West from my house which means a long drive. The plan was to hike Seymour and then depending on how I felt attempt to go up the Seward range. I left my house at 2:30 AM to give plenty of time to hike all 4 mountains if that worked out. I arrived at the hiking trail at 5:30 and started toward Seymour. It was cool, 40 degrees, which made for some great early morning hiking. The first half hour was in the dark. As the sun came up it stayed cool for a while since there was some fog and no direct sunlight in the woods. The trail to the start of the Seymour herd path is flat and fast going. Once you reach the herd path the trail becomes steep and muddy and has the usual trail-less scrambling over fallen trees and rocks. The steep trail gets you to the top of Seymour in a hurry. The top of Seymour has some views of the high peaks in the distance. These mountains are pretty far away from the rest of the 46ers. Seymour also has a nice rock outlook close to the top that looks over to Seward, Donaldson, and Emmons. This gives you a clear view of what would have to be done to climb all four. It didn't look easy since you have to climb down Seymour and lose most of your elevation before going up Seward. You could also see that there was a fair amount of elevation loss/gain between Seward and Donaldson. I had arrived at the top of Seymour at 8:30 AM. So far so good!
Going down Seymour took as much time as it took to go up. The downhill was tricky and there are some long stretches of steep rock that required some careful attention. Once down the herd path it was a short walk, maybe one mile, to the Seward herd path. Now I had to decide whether to attempt the other 3 mountains or not. There was plenty of time and I felt pretty good so I decided to keep going. The Seward herd path was rough and muddy, similar to Seymour, but not as steep. It was a nice trail since it followed a stream for a while with many water falls on the way up. There were some views on the way up to some of the surrounding lakes and mountains. A whole new area to what I have seen hiking the other 46ers. The top of Seward was treed and nothing special. As I started to head down Seward there were some nice views to what I think is Long Lake and the surrounding area. After the top the trail heads down and a fair amount of elevation is lost. The trail goes down to the side of the ridge and then back up to the top of Donaldson. The top of Donaldson has a rock outlook and there is another rock outlook that looks to the other side of Donaldson. I had my second lunch at one of the rock overlooks. The temperature was about 60 by this point in the day with no wind.
Emmons is a ridge walk that goes out and back from Donaldson. The ridge goes up and down a few times before you get to Emmons. By this time I had a lot of up and down. This trail was also very muddy so hard going. Emmons doesn't have much of a view so I didn't stay there long. I decided to rest a while when I got back to the top of Donaldson (2:30PM). By this point I was getting pretty tired. The plan was to return via the Calkins brook trail which goes from Donaldson back to the starting point. This trail starts a short way down Donaldson heading back toward Seward. The trail is marked by a cairn. This trail seemed to go on for a very long time. It crossed a number of streams where I re-filled my water bottles since I had a filter with me. The trail was rough at the beginning but got pretty nice as it went on and eventually turned into an easy dirt path with few rocks or obstructions. At this point it was one foot in front of the other on auto pilot. This trail eventually meets a dirt road that heads back to a point one mile into the trail I started out on. The dirt road part was maybe 2-3 miles but it seemed to take a while. Finally I reached the trail I had started on and knew I only had 1.2 miles to go. This is a pretty nice relatively smooth trail so the mile went by fast and I had made it back to the car.
A long day! About 21 miles and 4 mountains. Nice trails since it is mostly a loop so you are always looking at something new. Also a very nice area in general. There are a lot of lakes and wilderness that you looked out on from these mountains. I made it back to the car at 5:30 so it was a 12 hour day of hiking. Plus 3 hours of driving each way to get there. I will return to these mountains to hike them with the group but likely as an overnight or two day trips.
These mountains were numbers 40-43 of the 46 for me. Three more to go... Haystack, Basin, and Saddleback.