What a weekend! Due to scheduling conflicts the girls came to Lake Placid to celebrate my birthday and Mothers' Day on the same weekend. A win win for me. For my birthday I wanted to climb a fire tower and the Tupper Lake Triad was just the ticket. We would climb Mt Arab (fire tower), Coney Mountain and Goodman Mountain and we would all earn a "patch."
Lara, Alex and Chris arrived at 11 pm on Friday night. It was pouring rain and driving was difficult. Lara's trip from PA was awful. She left the office at 2:30 pm. Ugh! She headed straight for bed and said not to wake her. Brodie had other ideas and woke her up earlier than all of us. We had breakfast and loaded ourselves, including Brodie and Foster into Subi 1. First on our list was Mr Arab. The black flies were in abundance and we brought out the bug spray. The little buggers liked me too much. I spent a lot of time swatting at them and adding more OFF. The trip up Mt Arab was short but steep, exactly one mile to the top. We got to the top at 10:40. We, including Foster, climbed to the top of the tower to see the views of the surrounding countryside. It was a beautiful day. After all the rain the night before the views were stunning. The trees had not yet budded so the views were more winter than spring. There were some flowers along the path. I believe they are called Trillium Flowers. They are white, red and a combination of white and red.
After Arab we replenished at the Stewarts in Tupper Lake. Water, root beer and beef jerky and more OFF. We then went to Coney (pronouched Cooney). The guide said it was a short hike, 1/2 mile each way, the sign said 1.1 miles to the summit. The sign was spot on. The path seemed to do a lot of back and forth. It may have been changed to a serpentine trail to make it more family friendly. Who knows why there was a difference from the website and trail marker. The black flies disappeared, of course, we had more bug spray. Brody was on a leash and kept a good pace, I had trouble keeping up with him but I managed to bring up the rear and was comfortable with that spot.
Onto the last of the Tri, Goodman Mtn. This was the longest of the hikes 1.6 miles each way but the first mile was a paved walking path with what appeared to be wooden runouts every 10-15 feet. We surmised that runaway roller blades would have a place to bail out should need be. The remainder of the trail was a gentle switchback. There was no medallion at the top so we improvised with a discarded orange peel. We were back down the mountain by 2:50 pm. Total mileage almost 8 miles. Great day for mom!
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