It had been about a week since my hike in New Hampshire which I was hoping would prepare me for the daunting task of ascending Mt Redfield and Cliff Mountain in the same day. Andrew and I left Clifton Park just before 5:00 a.m. A long drive and a few pit stops later we arrived at the Adirondack Loj parking lot for 8:00 a.m. Despite the late start we still had it in out mind to tackle both Redfield and Cliff and with that in mind we bolted for Marcy Dam. As usual Andrew and I made very quick work of the 2.1 miles to Marcy Dam. The walk provided us with a really nice warm up paired with the chilly morning we really could not ask for better conditions. From there we signed in at the register and took off down the trail towards Lake Arnold. Once again Andrew and I were very familiar with the trail although we did notice that work had been done putting stones and gravel on the ground in some of the wetter areas. We reached the next trail junction where the trail forks to Avalanche Pass or to Lake Arnold and we decided to take a quick break. I noticed along the way that there were a lot of new out houses along the trail leading up to this point. My guess is that this was in effort to cut down on trail poopers but who knows.
From here Andrew and I knew that we had a little bit of an ascent in front of us so we tried to get a quick pace going as we wanted to set ourselves up to have enough daylight to complete the two mountains. We went non-stop until we reached another trail junction at which point Andrew and I stopped to hydrate and catch our breath.
After joking around for a bit we took off for Lake Arnold. It didn’t take to long before we reached the high point of the trail. The whole portion of the trail leading up to this point is a very consistent gradient but not overwhelming by any means. As we started to descend towards Feldspar Brook Andrew noticed his pack open and his jacket missing. So Andrew decided to go looking for his jacket and I decided I wanted no part of that crap so I sat and ate a granola bar. About 10 minutes elapsed and Andrew finally popped out of the woods with his jacket in hand. Andrew quickly got a drink and we continued towards Feldspar. Along the way we came back to the floating logs in that small pond/bog thing which once again we crossed without any issue other than a few loose logs. After this portion the longs lining the trail were not all that secure making the footing shaky at best. Loose logs aside we managed to get through it without issue or injury and finally came to our next trail junction near Feldspar Brook.
From here we did not waste any time heading towards the Uphill Lean-to. Along the way we noticed that the trail had been re-routed away from the brook. Upon observing the brook we noticed that a large part of the banking had completely washed away likely from a flash flood a couple years ago. Aside from this the hike to the herd path for Cliff and Redfield was a pretty straight forward walk through the woods. After about 15 minutes or so we came across a cairn marking the herd path
We walked along a pretty muddy path looking for another cairn which would mark the trail junction for Redfield and Cliff. After about 5-10 minutes we found the second cairn.
The plan was to go ahead and hike Cliff first and then if we had the time go and run up Redfield. The trail to Cliff was immediately very muddy and we slowly started to ascend. The trail had several logs laid down along the way telling me that it used to be maintained. Andrew told me that it was an old trail to Mt Marcy which I did find a little interesting. After very gradually ascending for a bit we came to another cairn where we would take a right to follow the herd path. From this point you can add a bunch of blowdown to the mud issues we were experiencing. The blowdown then turned into a bunch of rock scrambles, the likes of which we hadn’t really seen since we climbed Saddleback last year. Although the scrambles are trickier than your basic hiking its always been my favorite parts of any hike.
We made pretty quick work of the rock scrambles and from there I was expecting to arrive at the summit. Turns out we still had some walking to do…The summit is never as close as you think it is as Andrew and I had to walk on what was reasonably flat terrain (or at least compared to the last half mile) for the next half mile or so until we reached the summit of Cliff Mountain.
The summit itself was very heavily wooded and offered little to nothing as far as a view went although we did get one nice lookout point along one of the rock scrambles we had to traverse.
We spent close to a half hour on the summit after we pretty much gave up on the idea that we would be able to reach Redfield and get out by dark. The situation was compounded by the small group we encountered on the summit. There were three people. The first was a 46er who resembled Buffalo Bill, a woman who seemed perfectly normal, and a veteran sitting next to an empty 6 pack of Shocktop. He told us there was 3 keys to life.
#1. Don’t hike Cliff ever again
#2. Don’t hike Sawteeth via the Scenic Trail
#3. Don’t get married
After the weird conversation they took off, we got a few pictures, and took off for the Loj. We slowly worked our way down Cliff rather slowly, and along the way we passed the 3 amigos, and managed to avoid any more conversation in spite of their efforts to part more sagely wisdom upon us. By the time we made it back to Marcy Dam essentially coming out the same route we used to get to Cliff we were spent. From here Andrew and I took a slower pace for the last 2 miles until we reached the Loj with about an hour of daylight left to spare. For Andrew and this marked the 38th high peak we had climbed to date.
Recommendation for Hikers: Average hiker will probably hike this and never want to go again. Its a long day with and a rugged herd path. For the aspiring 46er you may want to get an earlier start if possible and combine this with Redfield. Although long and grueling its best to get them both done at once….unlike us.
Cliff: Views – 3 Difficulty – 9
myroadto46 