Crane Mountain – Adirondacks

Today was what seemed like the first dry day in weeks, and it happened to fall on the day of this hike that I was leading for Schenectady ADK, so 12 of us headed north to try to find the trailhead for Crane Mt. There’s a confusing maze of roads in that area, but with Google’s help, we found our way.

Though it’s only 1.4 miles from the trailhead to the summit, it’s a very steep climb, and the sweeping views definitely need to be earned.

Some topo maps show Crane’s northwest ridge, at 2800+ feet, seen across the pond in the second picture below, as the summit. But the actual summit is the southeasterly ridge we were on in the picture above, at over 3200 feet.  We stopped for lunch and a cheeseburger on this true summit.

After lunch, we descended to Crane Mountain Pond far below, but still a considerable height above the trailhead.  The lower NW ridge is seen in the background.

Several of the group went for a swim off the rocks surrounding the pond.

Then we headed for a brief foray up the untrailed northwest ridge.   Last year on this trip, we found blueberries by the bagful up on this ridge.  This year we seemed to be a little late, and came away with only a few, but also had some more interesting views. The view of Crane back across the pond made it worth this extra excursion.

After returning the the pond and its outlet, the descent to the cars was almost as steep as the earlier ascent, and we were all glad to finally reach some flat walking.  Ice cream in Warrensburg capped off a great day.