Azure Mountain- Santa Clara NY

Saturday April 5 ,2002

Weather: Partly Cloudy, cool, 30 degrees
Drove 2 hours to trail. Probably the most unprepared I've ever been hiking. Kendall Hudson and I started the fire tower challenge from the ADK Mountain Club.
Trail hard packed snow and ice. Ice was mainly in parking lot, snow was scattered across trail. Kendall complained about the cold because of the breeze which would gust every so often. We hiked in sneakers w/o packs and with only one bottle of water.
Saw what we thought were turkey tracks on the mountain. Niether of us really dressed for the trip. There were tons of deer along the road to the mountain. We met a father/daughter on the way down didnt talk much. Summit wasnt very windy. Good because we could enjoy the view clear to Whiteface. Caught a blast of arctic air on the top and headed back down. Kendall's hands were pretty pink and hard to move. I was fine, but didn't want to cool down too much. Going down was precarious because of ice/snow/mud. Made it without slipping or falling. We got back to the car at about 4:30. Stoped at natural spring on th way out. A new restaurant, Deer Valley Trails, has opened up there. Went to Kendall's parents for dinner.

Azure Mountain, Santa Clara NY 

Dan and Kendall in the cab of Poko-Moonshine. 

View from the tower 

Me from the top of the tower 

greetings

This blog is an extension of a journal I started documenting my hikes. The journal is just a blank book that I've filled with my thoughts while hiking. It was started to have proof that we, Kendall my finance and I, actually started (and hopefully will finish) the Glens Falls Chapter of the Adirondack Mountain Club's Firetower Challenge.
Most Adirondack hikers go for the big goal, aiming to become a 46'er by summiting the highest mountains in the massive ADK park.
The challenge was to get people off the eroded/over used paths of the high peaks and onto lesser, but just as beautiful mountains. Firetowers, as their name hints at, were perches from where spotters would spy fires and report them before they consumed too much of the forest or surrounding towns. The airplane replaced them and they started rotting. Now groups have sprung up around the state to preserve these towers and restore them to their original beauty. The great thing is that there is a veiw from everypeak, and they are often short day hikes.
I was a journalist for a couple of years, and I took one of my journal excerpts and intertwined it with an interview with an author of a book about the towers and some history for a large section cover of the "Out and About" section of the Press Republican in Plattsburgh NY.
My most recent hike was with a buddy and his friend (now my friend) up Lyon Mountain, just outside of the town with the same name. Since then, the mountain and surrounding land have been bought by the state. I did a search for groups who might be springing up to save the firetower, which is in pretty rough shape, but I couldn't find any. (photos above) That made me think of writing this blog. Maybe someone out there who wants to work on this tower will do a search and find me. If enough do, maybe we can save that tower and the beautiful view. If not, I still can include this address with my application to get my patch for the firetower challenge instead of mailing out my journal, which I've grown fond of.
Cheers.

Poko-Moonshine

Start: 1:30 p.m. Saturday April 13, 2002
Poko-Moonshine Lewis, NY
Weather: Rainy/Humid

Short drive to the trailhead. It starts from a NYS campsite. The campground is tiny and lies along route 9. We were better prepared this time. I wore dad's Vasque boots, Kendall, still sneakers. The trail was neat, steep and level parts. There;s good rick climbing on the mtn. Over the winter an ice climber died when the ice broke. Humid air was tough and my boots were heavy, and I had a new pack on my back. There are caves about .25 of the way up, and what we called table rock, it was shrouded in mist and very beautiful, off the side of the trail. The summit was either very large or not too steep. Near the top a leanto and old ranger cabin foundations. We ran into a couple at the leanto who were enjoying soup and coffee. They had come up a less steep part of te MTN> they said something about driving up part way. THey looked at us strangely whe we said we were having lunch on the summit. It was raining but we had raincoats and we were pretty wet already. Plust the fire tower is accessible, and that where we ended up eating.
They Thought a thunderstorm was coming, not the best place to be (on top of a firetower). But it only rained. We signed the guestbook at the leanto . The tower ebbed out of the cloud-choked air. One minute it wasnt there, the next it was. The tower box was graffittied, but still nice. There was nothing to see, but at least we were out of the rain. Materials that must have gone into restoring the tower were still on top of the mountain.
We at the sandwiches we packed her -turkey and a granny smith, me roast beef and a red delicious. We left the top just after lunch. I was still hungry. THe rain came down harder and we were both pretty wet at the car. We weren't cold, which is good. Once I took of the rain jacket I got a real chill. We had brought extra clothes, so I warmed up quickly.