Cascade Mountain
4098 ft. | ranked 36/46 in height | 2nd peak climbed | 44 to go
Porter Mountain
4059 ft. | ranked 38/46 in height | 3rd peak climbed | 43 to go
Memorial Day weekend provided us with two days of beautiful weather; Jayme and I took advantage of the first one to climb two more peaks!
Cascade was a great hike despite a few black flies on the way up. The sun was hot, and we both got a touch of sunburn, but warm day felt great after a long upstate winter. Jayme was very proud to have her second High Peak.
The peak had quite a few visitors that day, and the 360-degree view was well worth the effort. We could see the Great Range and the Lower Range to the South. To the Southwest, we could see Giant Mountain (see our previous posts) and were shocked to see snow where we had been last fall!! It was May, the temperature was approaching 80 degrees, and quite a few of the peaks still had snow. Marcy, Algonquin, Dix, and Giant had enough snow you could see it from the highway. Perhaps the only aspect of Cascade that we didn’t care for was the lack of views on the way up. Near the top of the climb there was a ledge offering a nice view southwest, but otherwise you’re beneath the treeline so long you don’t see much until the end of the climb.
After a bit of sightseeing, we started back down Cascade to where the trail split off to the summit of Porter. The trail to Porter was considerably muddier than the trail up Cascade, and even had snowbanks. Jayme took great pride in pelting me with a snowball…. in May.
Porter was only a short climb up the spur trail, and Jayme got her third High Peak!
From the summit of Cascade, the summit of Porter was just under a half an hour’s hike. You can see the summit of Cascade behind Jayme above. While Porter didn’t have the spectacular views offered by Cascade, it did have a nice bench-like rock near the top that made a nice place for lunch.
All in all, the view to effort ratio on this climb is probably the highest we’re likely to find in the Adirondacks. The view is great, and the climb takes approximately two hours (to the top of Cascade). I would recommend this hike as a day trip to anyone.
New to our bag of tricks this time were our camel-backs and hiking poles, but Jayme will handle the gear review in the near future.
