Skiing Mt Marcy

My weekend partners (both "established" and online) all fell through, but I was not to be deterred and drove up to the Adirondack Loj to ski Mt. Marcy (New York's highest peak). The worker at the Loj excitedly told me it would be a great day to ski Marcy so I was stoked and tried not to be worried when I saw this at the trailhead.

Okay, maybe it was a little icy here, but surely it won't be like that for long! After carefully walking this section of road for ~1/2 mile, I turned off on to another access road that I could actually ski. Mostly. There were quite a few bare spots that I either walked across with my skis (and kick skins) or took off my skis. I finally got to Marcy Dam around 11:30. It took me over an hour to go just under 3 miles and 200' gain. Not good.

A guide at the dam warned me that I should reassess at Indian Falls, as it was getting late. I should have also picked up on the fact that he was taking his client in the other direction to find some corn in one of the slides.

But the day was beautiful and long, so off I went. There were a ton of people at the Dam, most seeming to head up to Marcy, but once on the trail I only saw 2 or 3 groups going up and a few more coming down. I started to wonder what I was getting myself in to, especially since the trail was narrow and icy. Oh well, it will soften up for the ski down.

The summit cone had a nice coat of snow on it, but unfortunately a not so nice coat of ice on top of the snow. Oh, back East when they say ice, they mean ice.
Summit cone:

But the view on the summit was wonderful. You can see some slides on Wright's Peak in the distance.

To my surprise there were three snowboarders and one other skier up there. The snowboarders and I did find some decent snow off the SE aspect of the summit, but only about 500' vertical. Then I cut over to the north face to see if there was any good snow there. All ice. When I say "ice", it was so slick that traversing across a moderate pitch my skis just shot out from under me and I quickly started sliding down the mountain. "Luckily" some rocks and shrubs were there to break my fall!

Here's what skiing off the summit was like:


The rest of the decent to Marcy Dam was mostly a scary snowplow down an icy trail.

A little ways above the dam the snow finally softened and I was able to enjoy the winding trail. I did try to go off trail once, but quickly found myself ensnared by trees and branches. Not like Tahoe, I mean REALLY dense trees and branches!
Here's the opening into the trees, it gets MUCH denser:


All in all, I'm glad I climbed the peak. I had climbed it one summer with my brother and father when I was 11, and since I'm out here to help my father recovery from surgery, it seemed a good tribute.

But I will be VERY happy to return home and ski some fine Tahoe and Sierra snow!