Date hiked: 3/13/22
Trail name: Good Luck Cliffs
Distance: 4 miles
Total time: about 2 hours 15 minutes total
After a Saturday snowstorm, we decided to skip our original plan of a 7 mile hike in the Catskills and decided to do a 4 mile hike in the Adirondacks instead. It was one of those days we really just weren't feeling it. This left me feeling particularly conflicted. By opting out of the Catskill firetower hike, I was missing my chance to complete the Fire and Ice challenge this year. I had a lot of feelings about this but at the end of the day, I just wasn't up to doing it and that's okay because there's always next year.
So up we went to Caroga. We recognized this route as this trail is near Kane Mountain which is a great beginner firetower hike (Firetower challenge) and kayaking we had done at West Lake and Canada Lake. I was worried the parking area wouldn't be plowed from the snowstorm the day before but it was and there was one car in the lot when we arrived around 2:30pm.
The trailhead is situated across the street, you want to go to the trail to the right of the sign as the other trail leads to Good Luck Lake.
The terrain is gentle rolling hills to start which we were grateful for as only the second pair of hikers to break trail that day. We were grateful when we came across two snowmobilers near a major intersection. The trail is well signed. We signed in and headed for the direction of Good Luck Cliffs. You've walked about a half a mile at this point.
The rolling terrain continues, our trip made much easier by the grooming of the snowmobiles that came through.
Soon enough you'll see the lake on your left hand side. We didn't venture down as no trails had been broken leading down and with all of the snow it was actually hard to tell where the shore ended and the lake began.
After the lake you're going to come to the turn off on the right for the cliffs. This is easy to miss.
The elevation doesn't increase too bad to start but soon enough you start to climb. And in snowshoes and deep snow, this felt very steep!
The first part of the steep section you'll follow the base of the cliffs. Not too long after passing these huge rocks the trail will turn and you'll start to head straight for the cliffs. After this turn, the steepness will ease very briefly before you make the final push up to the top.
Then the trail will enter this beautiful pine forest right before you get to the overlook.
The overlook isn't huge but there's still plenty of space.
The great part about the steepness and the snow is we got to butt slide down!
Well, Luke did some butt sliding, I kind of glissaded down on snowshoes.
It was a pretty uneventful trip down. What took us 45 minutes to climb up through the steep section only took us 25 minutes down. And the rolling hills did not feel so easy towards the end!
And that concluded our snowshoe hikes for the year! There are so many great things about winter hiking but I'm ready for spring!
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