HIKING

Hiking Catamount Mountain

One of the most delightful trails in the northern Adirondacks

by Barbara McMartin

Photo by Barbara McMartin Catamount view from the base of the cobble, looking up through the fog to the northeast.

Catamount is a huge mountain whose summit seems all the more imposing because there is so much open rock. The mountain was burned twice, once in the late 1870s and again in 1941. Half the time you are on the trail to the small bare cobble on its southern slopes and on to the summit, you walk on open rock, enjoying views all the way. The 1.9-mile route is a 2 hour-hour hike one way with a 1,568-foot vertical rise.

The trail to Catamount Mountain starts from Forestdale Road. The northeast end of Forestdale Road splits and joins Silver Lake Road at two places in the Town of Black Brook. The southern branch joins Silver Lake Road at East Kilns. From this point head northwest on Forestdale Road and bear left at 1 mile where the northern extension of Forestdale Road forks right.

Continue west and southwest on Forestdale Road. The Catamount Mountain range rises abruptly to your right, north, and the Wilmington Range is on your left. At 2.2 miles you reach a clearing that was once the Middle Kilns. Here you have a good view of the cliffs of Catamount. At 4.7 miles two large red paint blazes on maple trees on the right side of the road mark the beginning of the trail. Just past this, the land along the road is marked with posted signs. This point is 0.7-mile east of where the Clinton-Franklin county line crosses Forestdale Road, just west of West Kilns.

The hike begins at an elevation of 1,624 feet (495 meters). The trail heads north in a mixed forest of balsam, maple, and yellow birch. In seven minutes, at 0.2-mile, you reach a stone cairn with a survey marker and posted signs marking the property to the west. A side trail leads into these posted lands.

Continue northwest as red paint blazes mark the posted land to the left. Cross a flat clearing that provides a view of Catamount to the northeast. After 20 minutes, at 0.7-mile, the trail descends slightly to cross a dry, sandy gully and then turns northeast. The forest becomes maple, beech, and white birch as you begin to climb moderately. At 1-mile (elevation 1,870 feet, and about thirty minutes into the hike), the trail jogs sharply right. The trail is alternately steep and level. It crosses a stream, then climbs steeply at 2,130 feet and heads northeast out of the stream valley. Occasional red DEC markers are visible; they are nailed on backwards as this is not a DEC trail.

The first bare rock view point is at 1.2 miles and 2,490 feet elevation, about fifty minutes into the hike. Across the open rock, the trail is variously marked with cairns white paint, and red DEC disks. The trail levels off over bare rock as you hike past the cliffs that form the cobble, elevation 2,790 feet. The view from the base of the cobble looking up to the northeast is impressive, as is the panorama to the southwest. The trail dips briefly through a spruce forest and then climbs steeply out of the forest onto bare rock again.

The climb from the base of the cobble to its summit follows cairns and at one point is entrenched in a chimney formed by the erosion of a black mafic dike intrusion in the granitic gneiss that constitutes the bedrock of the mountain. Views south are unobstructed during this steep climb. An hour and twenty minutes into the hike, at 1.5 miles, you reach the summit of the cobble. You can see in all directions, although the looming main summit of Catamount fills the field of vision to the north.

From the cobble, the route follows cairns and white paint blazes across the exposed gneiss heading northerly. The trail dips into a shallow col with scrubby white spruce trees, then continues to climb steeply over bare rock to Catamount’s summit. It takes about thirty minutes to hike the 0.4 mile from the cobble to the summit, for a total hiking time of a little under two hours from Forestdale Road.

The summit view is truly spectacular and is only obstructed by the ridge of Catamount itself as it heads off on a bearing of 20 degrees. You can see Silver Lake Mountain, Taylor Pond, Silver Lake, Union Falls Pond, Duncan Mountain and the Alder Brook Range, Whiteface and Esther, and the Stephenson and Wilmington ranges. Two benchmarks, Catamount No. 1 and No. 2, both dated 1942, mark the 3,168-foot (966-meter) summit.

As you leave the summit note the cairns initially head off on a bearing of 100 degrees true and gradually bend to the right as you descend to the cobble on a bearing of 170 degrees true. The hike back to Forestdale Road takes about an hour and a quarter.

Print out the Catamount Mountain Map.

Barbara McMartin (adirbarb@telenet.net) is the author of many guides to the Adirondacks and several histories. For more information on this region, consult her Discover the Northern Adirondacks guidebook (Lake View Press).

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