A Giant Day: Hiking Giant and Rocky Peak Ridge

by Bill Ingersoll

When I developed a desire last year to do some mountain hiking in the High Peaks, I formulated a plan to climb Giant Mountain and Rocky Peak Ridge. Giant is a distinctive-looking mountain that I had long wanted to climb, having seen it from a number of different angles. Rocky Peak Ridge, its neighbor, was more of a mystery to me because so few peak baggers seem to discuss it. It appears on the list of mandatory 46 Adirondack climbs, and so it is visited frequently, but I had never met anyone who had ever claimed to climb it simply for the sake of enjoying a beautiful day on a mountain.

The Sunday that I did this hike was picture-perfect: 72 degrees with not a cloud in the sky. Since my friend Doug and I had driven to Keene Valley separately we had two cars and could therefore do the through trip to New Russia. This would take us over Rocky Peak Ridge in its entirety – and as it would turn out, it would be one of my finest days ever on the trail.

After spotting my car at the New Russia trailhead – which was already nearly filled to capacity – we returned to Chapel Pond Pass on NY Route 73 and joined the growing crowd of hikers and parked cars alongside the road. Setting off into the woods, the trail began to climb without any prelude, making a few broad switchbacks that offered some encouragement about the future of Adirondack trail design – switchbacks being notoriously absent in most of the Adirondacks. The experience was short lived, however, and soon we were following a typically eroded trail straight up the mountain.

Our mountainous route would take us past two small tarns. The first was Giant Washbowl, located high on a shelf on the side of the mountain. Beyond, as the trail continued to climb it led to a series of open rock slides, where the early views of the Dix Range were outstanding. We were able to judge the relative progress of our vertical ascent by judging the level of nearby peaks: first we topped Round Mountain, and then we seemed to be eye-to-eye with Noonmark, elevation 3,556 feet.

But when I thought we might still have a ways to go before we reached the top we arrived at an intersection. The summit of Giant was just a short jog to the left, which we reached shortly after two hours of hiking. It was a long spine of open rock offering a wide panoramic view of the High Peaks region. There was indeed a small crowd here, but we were able to find a vacant spot on the rocks where we ate lunch in the warm sunlight.

We still had a lot of mountainous terrain ahead of us, so next we turned to follow the yellow trail to Rocky Peak Ridge. After a few initial ledges with exciting views, we began the long, steep and eroded descent into the col between the mountains. The apparent height of Rocky Peak Ridge was discouraging.

However, once we began to climb again we found we were in for a treat. The trail up the mountain was a narrow, attractive footpath with little erosion and a moderate grade. In no time at all, it seemed, we were at the summit, although it had been an hour since we left Giant.

This summit was a wide-open platform of rock thrust up into the sky, with an oversized cairn at the highest point. As we arrived, a large group of young hikers was just leaving, and afterwards there were just four other people besides ourselves. As I said, this does not seem to rank among the most charismatic peaks, in a system that seems to rank a High Peak based largely on its view of other High Peaks.

I was hooked, though. This was an alpine summit, with deer grass and various mosses growing where they could, but it did not appear trampled. The alpine environment extended down the ridge toward Lake Marie Louise, creating an open landscape such as I had never seen in the Adirondacks before. One of the highlights of the view was the backside of Giant, which had been blasted away by natural forces into a raw rock wall.

We still had seven miles of trail to cover, so we struck off along the ridge toward Lake Marie Louise. The trail continued to be in great shape – in several places just a faint track – and we could see the tarn well before we actually reached it. The trail wrapped sinuously around its shoreline, with several opportunities to view the shallow water dotted with lily pads. Another exposed ridgeline followed, and then a long descent notable for its steady relentlessness, which brought us to the foot of Bald Peak.

There was a sharp, steep pitch leading up to this summit, where we found an Atlas-sized boulder poised as though it could roll off its ledge if given a good shove. Views overlooked the Boquet River valley on one side, and the wild valley of Roaring Brook on the other.

The trail, marked mostly with cairns, snaked along the ridge and then began another long descent. Oaks began to appear in the woods, followed hard upon by red pines. When next we reached a ledge with views, we were not impressed. It was not that the views were poor. Rather, the hour was getting late and covering miles took a higher priority.

We bypassed the Blueberry Cobbles and continued out of the mountains into the low-elevation hemlock forest in the New Russia valley. At 5:30 pm this long hike came to an end when we reached my car – and what a spectacular trip it had been! I have done several superlative ridge walks, and each one has been an exhilarating experience. This one would certainly be worth doing again.

If You Go
The New Russia trailhead is located is located on US Route 9, 4.8 miles north of its intersection with Route 73 near Northway Exit 30. Chapel Pond Pass is located 6.2 miles north of the Northway on Route 73. Both trailheads are extremely popular and fill up early on many summer weekends.

The route described is 11 miles long with roughly 4,000 feet of climbing overall – it is not for the weak-kneed! Save this trip for a day with stunning weather, and bring plenty of food and water. While this is one mountain traverse that does have water, none of it is anything you would ever want to drink.

Bill Ingersoll lives in Barneveld. He is revising Barbara McMartin’s Discover series and is co-author of several books. For more information about this region, consult “Discover the Northeastern Adirondacks.”

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