Seward Mountain
The 24'th highest peak in New York State with an elevation of 4,361 ft.
Climbed with my son Josh and good friend Evan on Sunday 7-3-16. We got up and left Speculator after 5:00 am and drove to the Corey's Road parking lot. The parking lot was full and we had to park on the road with several other cars.
We signed in and were on the trail toward Seward at about 7:10 am. The forecast was for a beautiful clear day and we got what we expected. At the first split we went left and took the foot trail not the horse trail. We met a Canadian woman there and she took the horse trail. When we got to the truck road we went right. We met the Canadian woman a bit later after 7:30 as she emerged from the horse trail. It really is about the same time to that point no matter which trail you take. It took us a little over an hour to hike the mostly level or slightly descending trail to the upturned metal bucket marker on a pile of rocks just before Calkins Brook around 8:20.
At the bucket we went left and started to climb towards the mountains. The trail was very muddy this day and mostly up with very little flat spots to catch your breath.
Most of the trail looked familiar to me since I had hiked this several weeks ago with my other son and Paul and Peter. Josh was out in front, I was in the middle, and Evan brought up the rear.
For a change I wasn't the last man in line. Not sure why I was feeling better this weekend maybe it was because I had hiked this same trail last month but for whatever reason I was feeling better this hike. I had mentioned to Josh that Donnalson was just about a five minute climb to the right from where we were going to split off to the left and down toward Seward. I wasn't totally surprised that when Evan and I got to the split around 10:25 he wasn't there. I figured he had gone right to also bag Donnaldson. We called and waited and sure enough after a few minutes he called back and descended from Donnaldson. He said there were several people up there and also the Canadian woman we had started the day with. I was quite surprised because of all the cars in the lot I figured we would see more people. We had seen a few others but not many.
Now that Josh had returned we all headed down toward Seward. We met several more people coming from Seward than we had seen previously in the morning. I guess this makes sense since a all the others had been in the lot and on the trail ahead of us. The trail down and then up to Seward actually wasn't as bad as I had expected it to be. I had heard of a false summit or "bump" that had to be crossed before the summit of Seward. I must have missed it because I bet Josh a coffee milk shake at Stewarts that the next rise was not the summit. Of course this was a bet I had actually hope to loose. In fact I did loose the bet because the next bump was the Seward summit. Evan said he was buying anyway so even though I lost I didn't have to pay up this time. It was a almost perfect cool and clear day but the summit of Seward is totally treed in when we got there around 11:30 and not a good picture to be had, except with the summit sign.
After a short break and a few snacks we started the descent. There were a couple nice spots for pictures on the way to and from Seward, just not on the summit.
I really like this panoramic shot.
Although the descent is always easier for me, I don't get as winded, it is tough on the knees. The descent typically feels longer because you always think you are right around the corner from the parking lot but it never seems to come. But in the end you just put one foot in front of the other.
Eventually you pass the split to Donnaldson around 12:45, pass over over Caulkins Brook several times, pass the overturned bucket around 2:45, pass the horse trail, pass the truck trail, and there you are back at the Corey's Parking trailhead around 4:05. All in all another great day in the High Peaks. We project our mileage to have been around 13.4 miles and our time hiking to be a bit under 9 hours. Another great day climbing in the ADK High Peaks and excited to only have Cliff, Redfield, and Allen remaining!
Getting close now Number 43!
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