Time for another Adirondack hike! Saturday was a good day for hiking, not so great for biking because it was pretty windy.  We chose the Prospect Mountain hike, which is one of the most popular trails. It starts pretty much in the village of Lake George, so easy to get to. 

It starts with a staircase to the bridge that crosses the Northway. Lots of steps!

Then the bridge over the highway:

I must admit here that my heart was pumping faster crossing this than going up all those steps. You can see right through the bottom!

On the other side, the trail started going up right away. It was pretty rocky, too.

The trail isn’t too long. It is an out and back route. The length of the hike as the crow flies is 3 miles, but it ended up about 5 miles. You never quite go straight up, but because of the rocks you go back and forth, which adds a lot of steps.  The elevation rise is around 1500 feet, which is a lot of climbing.

The trail crosses one more road, which was a nice resting spot.

Thumbs up – going well so far!  After crossing this road, then we hit the really steep part.

See John looking up to where we will be climbing? LOL.  It was challenging.  There were a fair number of people on the hike in the morning as well. It was in the upper 40s, which was kind of nice considering how hot and sweaty we were getting while climbing. I can’t imagine doing this on a hot and humid day.

There was leapfrogging of people because of the stopping and resting during the climb.  People coming down would say “You’re almost there”. I’m thinking their idea of almost there was not my idea of almost there.

Finally we made it and the views were worth it!

We started down there at the water level. Now that was a hike! The interesting thing is that you can actually drive to the summit here, which is why it is a popular destination. There used to be a cable tram that would bring people up to the hotel that once stood here. This is the last remnant of the tram line:

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There is a really nice picnic area with tables and outdoor grills. I would love to come back and picnic here.

More views:

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After a rest and snack, it was time to head down. It was almost as hard coming down. The flat rocks with pine needles were actually a little slippery. Good thing it wasn’t wet!

We passed some kind of memorial. Not sure what it is for as there was no signage.

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Rocky from top to bottom!

Then back across that scary bridge. Wave to the nice people!

Seriously – that bridge was really scary to me.

When I checked my health app after we were done, it said we climbed 99 flights! That’s a lot of stairs 😀  Our legs are feeling pretty sore today after all that climbing. It was definitely a challenging hike.