ADK Hiking: Pilot's Knob Preserve

If you're looking for a short yet breathtaking hike in the Lake George area, this one is calling your name!

I had the opportunity to stop and hike this short path up to a gazebo after doing a day of training just down the road at a YMCA camp. Off of the I-87 exit 20 (where Six Flags and the Outlet Malls are), this is off of route 9L on Pilot Knob Road, only about 10 minutes from the exit.

The hike itself only takes about 20 minutes if you're a regular hiker, and even with children, this hike would be manageable. It's steep, but quick, and I went in February, so was able to spot views of Lake George all the way up through the barren trees. I did have some troubles keeping with the trail... I didn't find the blazes to be too well placed, but it could've been the barren winter hiking made it more difficult to spot where the trail was.

Either way, the short hike up was incredibly worth the stop when I arrived at the gazebo. Considering it was a Monday in winter, I had the whole place to myself. The views of Lake George out of all angles were absolutely stunning, and I could've laid out in the sun there (40 degrees in February in the ADK is a big deal!) forever.

The gazebo

Throwback Thursday Review: Memorial Day Weekend 2015 Camping in Warrensburg, NY

Since I've been doing reviews and summaries of places we've been recently, I thought I'd throw one back to our Memorial Day weekend last year when we went camping in the Lake George area. This was our first attempt at planning a camping trip as a couple, so while it's not really a trip I'd do again, it had some great features. If you're looking to be in a prime spot for a mix of ease and comfort and beautiful natural settings, Warrensburg outside of the heart of Lake George is absolutely the perfect place for that. However, if you're looking for something more off the grid - like no amenities, or fast food, or cell service - this is not the camping spot for you. It was great for us as our first camping trip, because the ease of the nearby town - a Tops grocery store, a Dunkin Donuts, a McDonalds, a few locally owned restaurants - was really nice when we hadn't fully thought-out our planning and had forgotten some things.

That being said, we stayed at Lake George Escape Campground. Having now taken a liking to DEC Campgrounds (talked about in this post), for the price of this privately owned campground compared to the amenities provided and what we actually took advantage of, I wasn't terribly impressed. It was sufficient... however, we paid a little extra for a spot along the river, and the river view was crowded by trees, and the river itself was murky and slow-moving... not worth the price for that river spot. Then, on top of that, the "bathrooms" nearest to us were port-o-Johns, which I have no problem with, aside from the price would make you think all the bathrooms were real! All that aside, they had a lot of amenities for families and kids, and it was large, so it would be good to bike ride around, and there was a lot to do if you wanted to just stay on the campground, like swimming and canoes to rent.

It's funny how something so natural to someone is so fresh to someone else! This trip was my millionth time setting up a tent (first time using the camping equipment we got for Christmas though!), and it was Daniel's first. So bizarre, but so exciting... first of many to come!

I mentioned this a little bit before, but one of the real benefits of this campground was its proximity to "civilization". We had a lot of half-thought out plans going on, so when we got in that night, we set up our site and then ventured back into town for something for dinner - we ended up eating at the Luck E Star Diner, which was absolutely delicious and reasonably priced! You can almost never go wrong with a cute, local diner.

That next day we had decided to go to Six Flags Great Escape. Given the name of the campground and the fact that they offered a shuttle to Six Flags, I had mistakenly assumed they were nearby (similar to how the Old Forge campground is so close to Water Safari), however, it was a 20+ minute drive. We had planned on taking the shuttle, but after learning the true distance and wanting to be on our own time table, we drove.

It was tons of fun! A nice commercial amusement in the Adirondack region... again, this was a GREAT area to be in if you're looking for that, and is especially very family friendly.

Our second day there we took in a mountain - Sleeping Beauty! It's a fantastic mountain, but I wouldn't recommend going at such a busy time. The initial parking area is a long ways off the main road on a narrow dirt road, and we ended up having to park alongside the dirt road due to the parking area being full, which is not ideal. That being said, after talking to my grandfather about this (I had done this mountain with him as a kid), what appears to be part of the hike, is actually more road. If you visit when it's not a peak weekend like we did, make note that there's a road off of the parking area, and you can actually drive down into the clearing, and that's another parking area (no one did this the day we went), and that makes the hike much shorter and more attainable. So, for us, we ended up hiking 8 miles, with a good chunk of that coming from walking into the clearing parking area.

It's another family friendly activity in the area - easy grade, and awesome views of Lake George at the top!

Almost to the summit!

And the views make it all worth it! Such a clear day... Daniel's first Adirondack mountain - done!

That night Daniel experienced another first (that makes 3!), my all-time favorite campfire meal, foil dinners. It was perfect after a long day of hiking. We went classic on these - chicken, potatoes, carrots and italian dressing!

Dessert was banana boats... bananas wrapped in foil with chocolate and marshmallows, melted over the fire. I have a picture of them, but they're not pretty, but they're definitely super tasty!

That puts us up to Monday morning, Memorial Day morning. We stopped at Dunkin Donuts before our drive home (awesome perk of this area), and the drive was nice and easy (87 to 90) back to CNY, something always greatly appreciated after a busy, active weekend when you're ready to return home!

All in all, it was a great trip. It definitely taught me more about what kind of areas we want to camp in. Like I said, it was a great family-friendly area, but it was very commercial, and as two young adults, family-friendly and commercial camping are not our top priorities. That being said, it was a great trip if those ARE your top priorities, and there's a multitude of places to stay in this area too, so you can find just what fits your desires!

Camping and Hiking Review: Old Forge/Inlet, NY

With the warm weather coming to an end, last month during Columbus Day weekend, Daniel, Rudy and I made a quick trip up to the Adirondacks, just outside of Old Forge, for some hiking and an overnight camp-out!

My eyes have recently been opened to the wonder and splendor of NYS DEC campgrounds - they're cheap, clean and easy. They're not a "campground" with an overwhelming amount of amenities and too many comforts; they're really just a place to set up a tent or park your RV, and maybe go swimming, fishing or rent a canoe. I love it! We decided to stay at DEC's Eighth Lake campground, which was about 20 minutes outside of Old Forge, in the beautiful Fulton Chain Wild Forest area. I have to say - as a person who loves being around the water, to get to see all of the different lakes in this little region was wonderful, so breathtaking! For one night at Eighth Lake, with fees to register online, we only paid $31 ($22 for the site, $9 for fees). We also got a huge bag of firewood from them for only $7.

Photos of our site to come, but first! We made our drive up. From the CNY region, it was incredibly easy, it took us just under two hours - once you hit the Utica area, it's easy traveling on Routes 12 and then 28.

We left around noon, arriving to the trail-head of our first hike around 2:30 (included a lunch stop on the way!): Bald Mountain. Bald Mountain is just under a mile to the top, and it was one of the prettiest mountains. It was incredibly rewarding, because though it's such a short hike, the views are amazing the entire way up.

This was the view from one of the first landings we hit - amazing! It was unreal how beautiful the weather was this day - so crisp, clear and sunny, and the temperature eventually got up into the 60s and we were able to lose our hoodies!

It was nice to be able to stop every so often to enjoy another stunning view!

Now can I just say - this is Rudy and he is twelve years old (Aka 84 if you convert to human years), and he's never had more fun in his life than when we hiked Bald Mountain! It was his first mountain ever and I've never seen him so happy! So that really gives an idea of how easy this hike is. Aside from having some boulder-y patches you have to work at a bit (Rudy had to get lifted up these), it's definitely a very easy and doable hike for almost anyone who's mobile.

By the time we got back down to the bottom, it was nearing 5 o'clock, so we packed it in and decided we'd do our other two hikes the next day - which was good, because it got dark that night around 7, while dinner was still cooking! At Eighth Lake we ended up on site 41 - and if you ever stay there, the sites on the lake are amazing, no extra charge like a privately run campground has for being on the water and such an amazing and pristine view to have right off of your site.

For dinner we made my go-to campfire meal for life, foil packs - since we participate in CSA, we just threw the random vegetables that we had in our fridge from our share into the packs.

They ended up having chicken breast, carrots, kale and peppers, all topped with Trader Joe's Tuscan Italian Dressing. I've never done kale over the fire before and OMG was it good! Since we were only coming for the night, to minimize clean-up and things we needed to bring, I cut all of the veggies ahead of time, and took the chicken out of the freezer (still in the package) that morning, so we didn't need our cooler, a knife - and we made snacks and treats with what we had for the most part; it really took the hassle out of the weekend and made it such a nice, simple and relaxing overnight.

So from there we did just that - relax!

The next day we packed up and were out of the campground around 11. We just had some donut holes and fruit for breakfast. We did two more hikes - Rocky Mountain was the first - it was only .5 miles to the summit. By the way, all of these hikes and our campground at Eighth Lake were all off of Route 28, so easy! There's also Black Bear mountain right next to Rocky Mountain, but we didn't do that one because it's a little bit longer (5 miles roundtrip).

It was a little rough, and obviously very steep, but the views were so, so worth it. It was another just gorgeous day and totally clear at the top.

The lake is Fourth Lake, by the way.

There was this cute little island in the middle...

I told Daniel we should buy it... he didn't think I was funny.

From there, our last hike was to see Sis and Bubb Lakes!

This was just under a mile to see both lakes. This loop could be made longer if you go out to see Moss Lake too, but we were starting to get tired.

The view ended up being very much worth it - if only it hadn't been a fall day, the water looked so inviting (but you can bet that didn't stop Rudy from drinking at every stop)!

We ended up leaving that day around 1PM. All in all, we spent four hours in the car, spent the night tenting, and did two mountains and one trail for a total distance of just shy of five miles. I highly recommend this area if you're looking to see a lot of different things - you really get the most bang for your buck, time-wise! The only thing I would caution is that it is a very popular area with the waterpark being so nearby, so be prepared to not be alone on the mountains specifically. But again, definitely worth it for the amount we got to see in just 24 hours!