The Peru Gazette

Joanne Kennedy and Lori Clark are continuing their pursuit of the “Winter 46” often accompanied by their friend Colleen Kaulfuss. On Monday, January 19, 2009, the ladies completed a thirteen hour hike up Cliff and Redfield Mountains. A stomach bug kept fellow hiker Jean Ryan from accompanying them, but she’ll undoubtedly be back for their next adventure. Joanne Kennedy wrote an interesting account of Monday’s very difficult trek.  

By Joanne Kennedy

The weather looked favorable so we chose to attempt a hike to Cliff and Redfield, two mountains in the Adirondack high peaks.  We turned on our headlamps and began our trek at 6:40 a.m. from the Adirondack Loj. (See photos) We passed several landmarks such as Marcy Dam, Avalanche Lake and Lake Colden before arriving at the Uphill Brook Lean-to, the start of the herd paths to the two mountains. We chose to attempt Cliff first as it would be the harder of the two. The trail had been broken out a few days earlier, but about 6 inches of snow covered the tracks.  Lori using her GPS was able to direct us along the correct trail.  The trail was very steep with some icy ledges and blowdown to negotiate.  After a bit of huffing and puffing we finally reached the summit, which was marked with a sign.  As we retraced the trail down, it was much quicker as we were able to slide a good portion of it.  We began the approach to Redfield and were delighted to see that many hikers had been up that day.  This trail is a little longer but not nearly as technical.  We rejoiced as we reached the summit and after a few quick photos, we quickly descended.  At 4 p.m., we were back at the lean-to and we knew we had no time to linger as there were many miles left to travel to get back to our car.  At the end of Lake Colden we put on our headlamps as we met up with Margaret, a ranger at the Lake Colden Interior Outpost.  She asked us if we were the women hiking Cliff and Redfield and reminded us we still had a long hike out.  We assured her we were all feeling fine and had plenty of food and water.  Approximately 13 hours from our start, we arrived back at the Adirondack Loj tired but happy. (To see even more beautiful photos of a previous climb click here)