Blue Mountain overlooks (naturally enough) Blue Mountain Lake. The peak is 3750 feet high and, in a hike from the trailhead at 2,200 feet, we gained an elevation of 1550 feet in two miles. The fire tower is on the National Register of Historic Places. The first tower was a wooden structure. It was replaced in 1917 by the current metal structure. The fire tower was operational for 80 years and one of the longest operating towers in New York. During the operation of the fire tower, there were four different cabins provided for the observer. The first was a log structure and the replacements were of frame construction.
Our hike was 2.3 miles each way, for a total of 4.6 miles. The first half of our climb was level or gently rising, so that the second half was quite steep, climbing over 1,000 feet in one mile. Still, most of the steep sections ran along rock face, rather than clambering up large boulders as our climb did on Snowy Mountain. We were grateful, however, that the day was sunny and dry, because the wet rock face, especially with fall leaves, would have been treacherous.
On the way up, we encountered some beautiful rock stairs, which, had they been uninterrupted, would have counted in the hundreds and continued for nearly a quarter mile. However, it appeared that nature had taken its toll on the stairs, and there were sections where the rocks had gotten tilted and eroded, to the point where we had to pick our way through boulders between sections of the stairs. Here, Kathy enjoys the sunlight halfway up one rank of the stairs:
About two-thirds of the way up the trail, the rock slabs rose into subalpine fir trees that were small enough to give us an open view of Blue Mountain Lake. Here is what we saw:
Eventually, the trail flattened out and we hiked across the top of the mountain to the fire tower near the summit. To our mixed feelings, we encountered a large group of teenagers, members of a local high school group called, "Learn 2 Lead," who had decided to climb Blue Mountain as part of a local multi-day trip. Here they were, gathered for their group climb photo:
The young people were pretty boisterous, and one young fellow almost beaned David with a small stone he golfed from the rock outcropping at the tower as David climbed out of the surrounding trees. Luckily, the golfer's aim was faulty and David escaped injury. The juvenile delinquent slinked away without apologizing, but one of his compatriots who had taken the maxims of "Learn 2 Lead" to heart stepped up and apologized for him. David allowed that there was "no harm - no foul."
We waited until this group of 27 finished taking their own turns climbing the fire tower and started back down the trail before we took our turn up the tower. But the wait was worth the views! Here is a look to the southeast toward Blue Mountain Lake ---
-- and here a look to the northeast toward Tirrell Pond:
Climbing down from the tower, we explored the mountain top a bit. Kathy got excited with the adventure and hunted down the survey marker for the summit:
We also ventured out to one of the two huge radio towers on the mountain and found a spectacular view of Lake Durant to the south:
No visit to a fire tower is complete without a group selfie. Here are Kathy, Tower and David, all looking happy on such a bluebird day:
Having sated today's firetower appetite, we headed back down the trail. The sunlight filtered through the fir trees and lit up the moss and a cute little red-capped mushroom on the forest floor:
Since we had a little time to kill on the way back down, Kathy tried some trail maintenance by clearing a glacial erratic from the center of the path:
David, meanwhile, experimented with a one-legged yoga position on a sequence of rising boardwalk stairs:
Glacial erratics were one of the themes for the day, and we encountered several of them. Here is another memorable fellow:
Coming back down, we reached a junction we hadn't noticed as we had climbed up: a spot where it appeared the trail forked. Luckily, someone had planted a cairn to indicate the proper turn for us to take. Kathy interprets for the camera:
On the way down, we caught up with one of the parental chaperones for the "Learn 2 Lead" group. He was older and clearly in weaker physical shape than the others. The rest of his group had undoubtedly reached the trailhead at the bottom, but we overtook him at least 0.7 mile from his destination. He asked us to tell the rest of the group that he was okay and just moving slowly. We eventually ran into two other parental group leaders who were on their way back up to check on him, and we assured them that he was proceeding apace. They were appreciative.
We finished the hike without further incident, packed our hiking gear into the truck, and took a picturesque drive along the Central Adirondack Trail, following Routes 28 and 30 along part of the Adirondack Scenic Byways back to our campground. Check another firetower off our long list.
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