Dial and Nippletop Mountain
The 41'nd, and 13'th highest peaks in New York State with elevations of 4,020, and 4,620 ft.
6-2-13 For our first climb of the 2013 year we decided to do two in a day hike. My eldest and I had planned to go with a couple rookies from church but at the last minute they had to cancel because of back problems. The weather was supposed to be bad for the weekend with a 70% chance of scattered thunderstorms. Even though it looked cloudy before we left we decided to take our chances. We figured that after the 1.5 hour drive to Keene Valley if the thunderstorms started we would have a nice breakfast at the ADK Cafe and then return home. After we parked and walked to the trail head at the Ausable Club it seemed like we might get lucky after all, at least for the moment.
After a short walk across Ausable Club property we signed in the registrar at 7:50 am. The famous wooden gate is one of the coolest things you will see in the High Peaks area.
After passing through the gate and a short walk on the dirt road we split off on the Henry Goddard Leach trail.
The climb to Dial was a gradual steady steep climb.
The trail was pretty dry except in a few places.
We even saw some wild life along the way.
After climbing over Bear Den Mountain we finally arrived at the summit of Dial.
At the top of Dial we met the only other people we saw all day. Three guys were hiking the same two mountains as us but in reverse. The had already climbed Nippletop. After a quick Clif Bar lunch we set out for the summit of Nipple top.
The hike from Dial to Nippletop was comparatively easy after the steep climb to Dial. By the time we summitted Nippletop it was raining pretty steady. We didn't spend too much time on the summit but after a few quick pictures we started the steep descent down to Elk Pass.
This is where I had the worst slip and fall of my hiking career.
Fortunately I just had a couple scrapes and nothing serious.
We still had a long hike down and out before this day would be over.
We signed out again at the trail head at 5:17 pm.
The view of Giant Mountain over the Ausable Golf course is always a welcome sight.
