Sewards

On what turned out to be possibly the most beautiful day in September, Lisa and I headed to Coreys, just west of Saranac Lake to hike the Seward Range. We left Wadhams at 5:00 and drove through the dark, arriving at the trailhead just as the sun was rising. While strapping on our boots, we made our plan to try to tackle Seward, Donaldson and Emmons that day via the Calkins Brook herd path and save Seymour for the next day.

We set out with down jackets and tuques for a few miles of quick walking before arriving at the "bucket cairn" marking the start of the mountain path. While heading up the mountain, we were impressed at how nice the trail was for an unmaintained route. We found ourselves at the "T" with a view of Seward to our left. Not sure what to tackle first, on a lark we headed right.

Within five minutes, we found ourselves on top of Donaldson, looking out at the Eastern High Peaks and the Santanoni Range with the Cold River Valley sprawled in front of us. We are always astounded that so much wilderness has been preserved in the northeast. With perfect blue skies, we sat and enjoyed the view before finally continuing along the path.

The trip to Emmons was a long walk. There were no real scrambles, but just some glacial erratics to climb over. We particularly enjoyed the views of Long Lake to the south while we hiked but when we arrived at the summit, it was mainly treed in. Ready for lunch anyway, we sat and ate our sandwiches with a limited view of Seward still staring us in the face.

On the way back, we couldn't help but stop at Donaldson again for another view. It was fantastic.

The trip to Seward had some steep sections which is not surprising since it is the tallest of the bunch. There were only two slides to contend with and the views along the trail were excellent at times. Again, we found a summit in the trees. We stayed long enough to chat with other hikers and scarf down the doughnuts that we had brought with us.

We descended the same trail that we had ascended even though there was a loop possible off of Sewards' northern face. We hear through the grapevine (and the internet) that route was treacherous. It was an enjoyable descent and we found ourselves back at the car before sunset! We couldn't help but head to Little Italy in Saranac Lake for a warm meal in a warm building before camping out for the night along the Coreys Road.

The next morning, we were up before sunrise again with Seymour on our minds - the fourth mountain of the Seward Range. We repacked the bags, strapped boots on our tired feet and set out for the long walk. It was a pleasant walk through warmer weather than the previous day. However, by the time we arrived at the Ward Brook lean-to, the skies were becoming overcast.

Hoping that the clouds would linger higher than the peak that we would be climbing, we started to ascend the herd path towards the summit of Seymour. There were dangerous sections of trail that climbed wet slides with little to hold onto. When we walked into the cloud at 3300 feet, we knew that we wouldn't have a view at the top. We pushed on and despite some bumps and bruises, we made it to the summit where our view ended about twenty feet from our noses.

The descent was slightly easier than the ascent and we celebrated with a picnic at the Ward Brook lean-to. The long walk out seemed even longer than the way in. We plodded along, happy to finally see the car where we could sit and let our muscles seize up for the next few hours on the drive home.