An Awesome Weekend in Adirondacks
Are you planning to visit Adirondacks for 1 day in a weekend? But of course you have to plan for it. So what to do first?
We wanted to go to Adirondacks especially when I saw how beautiful it is during autumn. and wanted to do a casual engagement photos too. Hitting 2 birds in 1 stone 😊
So I searched on how to go to Adirondacks, if there’s entrance fee or park fee etc. I found out that you need to register to Adirondack Mountain Reserve before going. There’s just a limit slot for each day. Not sure if this started during the pandemic, and to limit the visitors they enforce this rule. If you don’t have reservation from the site, you will not be able to enter and might ask to turn around, or get a reservation online first, it is also a parking permit to the park. It’s free anyway, so it’s good. But you need to be quick, if you don’t want your preferred date and time to be gone. Actually maybe this is a good thing, cause it minimize the visitors in the park, and it help to preserve the cleanliness of it. As they say, Leave it the way you found it or leave no trace. 😊
Once we have the reservation, we took note of the parking lot address which is “St. Huberts parking area“. We downloaded an offline map, since they said that signal can be poor or lost while hiking. And we don’t have a map, not sure if we know how to follow the actual map if we have one, LOL.
We just wanted to go to Indian Head Trail and Fish Hawk Cliffs, that’s why we decided to do it in a day. But I don’t want us to be so tired especially we are driving. So we went there late afternoon in Sunday, and stayed in some motel that is closest to Lake Placid. Maybe around 30mins to the parking lot. The room we stayed in, don’t have television, the WIFI signal is not that great, and it’s like it hasn’t been used for a while. Some accommodations may have TV or WIFI, but we just picked the cheapest one, since we’re just planning to sleep 1 night, and leave after hike. So no biggie. We had dinner to nearby downtown, and watched some football.
Packed some snacks or sandwiches for the hike, there’s no food store nearby, and the hike will take around 6-7hrs roundtrip, depends on your speed. We prepared our snack and sandwiches, the night before, we bought bottle of waters too but not too much, since there’s no washroom. There’s public washroom in the parking lot though. Also if you are about to hike in the morning, better don’t forget to bring flashlights. And the most important thing, wear the right shoes, for beginners, it can be a lot of hike, and a bit tiring especially you are hiking up and it’s not a flat ground for some.
We left our motel at pat 5:00am, cause we have a reservation at 6:00am. On our way, we heard something under the car, we were so worried that we might have hit an animal, but we didn’t see it when we turned around. Later we found out that the sound we heard was from the porcupine, they saw some spikes under the car when they brought it for maintenance. Anyway, when we got to the park it’s still dark, We checked it in, a guy asked the name in the reservation, and how many people, then we’re in.
We parked and bagged our snacks and sandwiches, have our flashlights too, we have our hoodies, since it’s so cold during dawn. The walk to the entrance of the park is a bit far from the parking lot, it’s like 15-20min walk to the entrance. Once you get to the entrance, you will need to check-in again and sign your name on the notebook. This is for if any situation, a visitor get lost, so they know who to contact with.
The hike was breathtaking especially in autumn, the leaves are all in falling, so the hike was good. We found some signs, so we know we are on the right track, until we got lost, or not sure where to turn, cause the map, was not so clear. I think we were trying where to go for 15mins, but the path was not clear, and a bit dangerous. Until we saw a sign, an arrow to Indian Trail Head. We follow that one and tried, and know that we are on right track again, cause we saw some small log stairs.
It was slippery so just be careful especially during autumn, the so much leaves that kind of hide the cliff, just watch your step while hiking. Maybe another 20mins until we saw the light to Indian Trail Head.
The view was so amazing, but we were so hungry so we ate some before taking some pictures. of Indian Train Head and Fish Hawk Cliffs. It was just so pretty. The pictures just doesn’t do justice on how beautiful it is.
We spent maybe an hour of taking a picture, cause it was so windy even though we still don’t want to go down yet. But we still want to go to the falls too, and I read it’s not that long walk. But with the long hike we had, we are already tired. But we made it to the falls 😊.
Going back, we took a different path, which I think was kind of harder than on our way to the Trailhead. Or maybe we are just exhausted. We made it to the parking lot around lunch. And that was it, we are on our way back home.
Oh and since you’re in Adirondack, don’t forget to try their milkshakes, it’s so good. We tried on this place called Stewarts. It’s not in Adirondack but it’s on our back, and it’s so creamy! If only it’s close I will have it once a week.