08/29/2026
My Friend Daniel was three High Peaks away from finishing his 46 when he asked me to join him for Allen. Now….there’s no secret that getting up and out early is not really ‘My Thing’. Then there there’s the eighty minute drive to the trail head, which doesn’t put any extra shine on the sh*tola. Luckily, Daniel was more than well and good with having a non-alpine start.
Daniel is Canadian, so maybe The 46 is more like The 33 High Peaks factoring the exchange rate (and don’t even talk about the tariffs).
At The Mountaineer the day before me and a new model of Altra’s became acquainted. For the last ten years or so, versions of their Olympus models were my go-to. After reading many reviews about the new Olympus redesign causing blisters, I opted to go with the Lone Peak 9+ (Vibram is a must in the Dacks). Altra has a thirty-day guarantee period with no questions asked if you want to return a pair if you don’t like them (even if bought in a retail store) so I figured ‘what the heck’.
I woke early (for me) on Tuesday the 18th, but for some reason this morning would just not come together. Topo sat patiently waiting atop my pack as I just struggled to get my mojo going and my crap together.
Daniel would do the driving, so Topo and I headed next door with my laces not quite sufficiently tight. In that very short distance my left ankle started to feel a little warm. My mind started to wonder if I’d not done enough stomping on the tiny ramp when I first tried them on at the store. Or it could just be the looseness. What the hell, what could really go wrong right? It’s only Allen, and eighty percent of the hike is basically flat to mountain flat.
Just before nine we hit the trail and before very long at all a lone hiker appeared who was heading the wrong way for the time of day. Without thinking a string of words left my mouth inquiring about how his day was going. That is where we might have gone wrong. Apparently he was on a mission-like quest to hike his favorite fifteen peaks. Unfortunately his (modest-sized) backpack now had a broken strap. His destination had been Allen, though once he had the gear failure, he said he then climbed Adams trying and get cell reception so he could let the person who had dropped him off (or was supposed to pick him up, there was some confusion) where to find him. He also planned on summiting Santanoni and Panther (again, not quite sure if all three were supposed to be done in one day – or maybe even more mountains than that).
Having Friends who have done some amazing feats in these hills, one of which is still ADK High Peaks FKT (I believe), the impression from him was not one where I could go ‘yeah, I see that’. He did let us know that the peak he had done the most was Redfield, and over a dozen times! A few minutes had passed, and it was time for us to be on our way. I wished him the best, and then asked his name.
There is a certain look you get from a human which is foreshadowing.
His response was “No one uses my first name.” Then you could almost a pall of indecisiveness cross his face. “My middle name is Mowgli.” Nice to meet you Mowgli was my reply, hope all goes well. After another half-moment he finished “And I sometimes use my last name, which is Vesuvius.”
Well, that’s nice.
As he began to tell us more, Topo demanded immediate extraction from the current situation. Topo was out here to hike, and not to hear someone’s life story. Come join us around a campfire maybe, but not a half-mile into Allen. For a third time I wished him well as we walked away, this time continuing on for a moment at higher and higher decibels until we were out of range.
“We could have been there for a half-hour” uttered Daniel as we peeled away. “Or more, and that was not going to happen” was my reply.
After four-squared trips to Allen, this one just felt different. Daniel was fully aware that in time the trail would become steeper. And then even steeper, before settling on super-steep until the last four hundred plus feet of gain which there has yet to be a consensus on what to define that particular type of steep as. I tried my best to install in him what the mud possibilities just might be. I’ve walked through the part around Lake Sally in almost knee deep muck during those trips when there just was no way of getting around it. It had rained a few days past, and a few small showers the previous day, but to my absolute surprise trail crews had done a fantastic job at remediating that once horrific portion of the trail.
On my previous trip to High Peak #26 last year, Topo spotted a large lumber drop just east of the muck pit. By this time bridging had been laid where the trail was normally exceptionally muddy, and they finally recognized that the hiker made ‘trail extension’ to the left (on the way in) made more sense than going through the worst of the worst. This was the first non-winter condition hike of Allen where I was able to keep my shoes from getting totally embalmed in that area.
Before we knew it we were at the Opalescent. Once across we took a right instead of a left and headed to the old roads. Even with the damage the DEC did to what should have become the main trail, it is still (in my opinion) head and shoulders better than slogging over those two up-and-downs and all the mud that comes with the ‘normal’ trail. The trail to the right was easy to follow, and this time instead of crossing Dudley Brook like Rick and I had done last year, we hung a left just before the crossing and continued along the brook. It was my first time on this ‘road’, but Rick had given me clear-ish instructions. There was one spot not far up where we took a minute or two of making sure we had the right trail, and then in front of us was a fairly clear mile before we hit Fujacks Rd. ‘Take a left here (were my instructions), and then take a right at every junction and it will kind of end at a clearing. There is a herd path that is hard to follow that will connect to the normal Allen herd path’.
‘Hard to follow’. Hmmm. Just a bit. At that point I lead slightly left when the ‘path’ went right. What should have been a quarter mile looks more like what my Etch-A-Sketch designs used to look like, and all of mine always sucked. But I do have Gaia, and without losing too much time (but ingesting many webs and just a few spiders) we came up the usual herd path not far before Skylight Brook. Once back on ‘trail I said “two and a half hours to Skylight Brook is pretty good, though I don’t think we’ll make it.” Daniel’s reply: “What about two-thirty-one?” “For me, sucks, oh well.”
I did kick it up just a notch, and seconds before my allotted time we were at Skylight Brook.
After a ten minute refuel, we started up. Daniel is in pretty good shape and less than half my age. As it started to get steep, he kept in front, sometimes out of site for a minute or three. Then it got steeper, and he was ahead and in sight. Once it got super-steep I was leading the way. By the time it got too whatever we are calling the last four hundred some feet of gain, I was looking back for Daniel.
We spent a solid hour admiring the view from the short trail north of the summit. You get to see the southern perspective of some of those amazing peaks, a view you can only really get from here and Adams. Topo likes Allen, spouting its grand view of Gothics. If the morning drive was not as long, he’d likely suggest Allen even more.
Going down was the reverse of the ascent. Topo and I billy-goated our way down with little trouble, while Daniel was much more careful. At Skylight Brook we made a left and found the trail that Rick led me on last year. It’s on the Gaia map, and except for one very short reconnaissance we soon left the herd path and rejoined the ‘road’. Here the damage the DEC had done was even worse than along Dudley Brook Road or Fujacks. Thankfully everything has settled fairly well, and many of the divots you can go around instead of up/down/up/down.
“It’s like a slalom course” I said. ‘No’ Topo replied, ‘it’s like a mogul run’. Both me and Daniel agreed. ‘Mowgli’s Moguls is what I think they should be called.’ Again, Daniel and I agreed with Topo’s wisdom.
And again, even with the senseless destruction it was a fast track for the most part until we were closed in on the normal Opalescent crossing. With about two thousand feet (if we had gone in a straight line) left before the crossing, there were two relatively clear routes shown on the map. While I thought I had chosen one of them, I actually chose a third way. Once more we were munching on webs and sputtering things incoherent. Fifteen minutes later we found something trail-like, and a few minutes after that we were in the Opalescent and rinsing all things arachnida off of our arms and face.
Soon Daniel was ten strides in front. Then twenty. Somewhere two-plus miles from the car and on a straightaway Topo (with his superior vision) spotted Daniel one last time. We slowed (just a bit) and again relished in the remarkability of not having to slough through what was not long ago unrelenting mud. Topo said he kind of misses the muck, but he does like not having to slow down in that area. And he is a frog.
We stopped after crossing the Hudson and I cleaned as well as I could. For some reason I had not brought a shirt to drive home in, and so I rinsed my sweat-laden hiking shirt best I could and made it up those last two minutes to the car.
Daniel was in his hatch and just lazing away, gnawing on some grub. “Once we get in range, how about I order a pizza from Stewie’s”? “Sound great to me” was his reply, and after we shower we can sit around the campfire with friends and tell some lies.
