We entered the high peaks region of the Adirondack Mountains from the
southern corner, an hours drive around from our regular starting point,
Keene Valley. The little town is, from the point of view of this city
slicker, an ideal trail head town. It has one main street, the Ausable
Inn with plenty of beds, excellent food, and microbrews on tap, The
Mountaineer outdoor gear store, a good hipster-ish coffee shop and
multiple entry points to the back country. We chose a different corner
to access Colden Lake, the frozen lake saddle within the highest peaks
of New York . As it turns out, two of the brooks we hike up and around
are headwaters to the might Hudson River. The fallen house is a remnant
of the iron mill town that existed for a very short time much more than
a century ago. It was operational for two years, was shut down because
of an economic depression nation wide and then a few years later was
destroy by a big flood event.
This memorial sits in a marshy clearing about five miles from the road. There is a good chance the name of the brook, Calamity, is tied to the event that happened in 1845, when this area was being cleared for logging.
We stayed the night at the Livingston Point Lean To. It sat on the edge of a frozen marshy little tributary to the the dammed lake. Down the trail a half mile the spectacular Hanging Spear Falls dropped in multiple steps some 500 feet, the largest waterfall more than a hundred feet. The river is named Opalescent and combines with Calamity to start the Hudson's journey to the Atlantic Ocean.
