Unraveling the secrets of Buck Mountain

Unexpected twists and views of more mountains to climb on future trips to this North Hudson spot

By Tim Rowland

In the rough rectangle formed by the Dix Range to the West, Blue Ridge Road to the south, Route 73 to the north and the Northway to the east, there are perhaps 10 mountains between 2,000 and 3,000 feet with rocky, bushwhack-able summits from which the view goes on forever and a day.

Access to this treasure trove is the issue, the Northway being notoriously free of crosswalks, and after you have scaled mighty Grace Peak, what appetite can there be for descending to the east and climbing something 2,000 feet its junior?

Fortunately, designers of the Interstate anticipated this issue, and installed out-of-sight culverts beneath the highway for pedestrians, or in rarer cases, cars and light trucks. Safe to say, though, these tubes are put to use more often by spiders than humans, and I strongly recommend you hold a pole or stick out in front of you when seeking passage, lest you want to emerge from the other end looking like an extra from “Tales of the Crypt.”

On the first day of black fly season, my brother Bruce and I set out for a mountain called Buck which, when it is climbed at all, is often paired with its close neighbor Bear. Two Adirondack hiking blogs I find incredibly helpful, “Off on Adventure” and “Walking Man” suggested two different access points — both off of Route 9 north of North Hudson and south Exit 30 and Route 73. One attacked it from the West Mill Brook Trail, while the other engaged the hike through the pipe under the Northway at Shingletree Pond, a couple of miles to the north.

In search of Shingletree Pond

West Mill Brook is a beautiful trail, but it involves fording the Schroon River, and spring water levels can be inconveniently high. So we parked at the pullout on Route 9 just south of the Sharp Bridge Campground where there used to be a DEC sign for Shingletree Pond. It was missing on this particular day, but no matter. A sizable, attractive pond marks the spot.

This is not Shingletree Pond, however, this is Courtney Pond. In the grand Adirondack tradition of naming things after the wrong pond (Placid/Mirror, Saranac/Flower) Shingletree is a mile and change down the footpath on the other side of the Interstate.

The marked trail ends there at the Interstate tube, with a heart warming DEC sign washing its hands of your hiking adventure from here on, in classic “Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here” style.

Shingletree Pond isn’t much to look at, truth be told, so we didn’t linger and headed instead to the southwest, roughly paralleling the Northway until we skirted a small knob on our right, then turned to the northwest on a vector that headed to the saddle between Buck and Saunders mountains.

Heading up the mountain

In half a mile we came to an unmarked trail that was in better shape and easier to follow than the “maintained” trail we had left behind. It proved to be a delightful walk through a hemlock and hardwood forest along a pretty brook coming down from the col between the two mountains.

We maybe ought to have stayed on this old woods road longer, but you know how it is when you get a sniff of a mountain flank and can’t wait to start the ascent.

So that’s what we did — and after a couple of steep pitches wound up on a stretch that was side-of-a-building steep. After maybe 50 yards of that nonsense I was gassed and, rather than admitting it, suggested we abandon our frontal assault and instead follow the contour to the southeast to where there appeared to be some blue sky indicative of open cliffs and the possibility of a view. I don’t think Bruce was fooled, but this new approach did indeed lead to wide open slabs of rock with brilliant views of other low peaks in this neck of the woods, including Camel, Old Far and Niagara. (From Route 9 the closest of these mountains would be Old Far. Naturally.)

But this little side trip had not prevented further misery, it had just delayed it, and in fact made things worse, since we were now in a wonderland of toothy crags and tight spruce that twice we negotiated up and up only to find our route blocked by unassailable cliffs. Then it was down and down back to walkable terrain and a search for another opening in the fortress walls.

When we finally found one it was pretty easy, at least by comparison, and in no time were on the summit. 

Mountains for another time

Our fits and starts had taken up too much time for an ascent of nearby Bear Mountain that afternoon, but we had a great view of it, along with the higher mountain of Wyman with its famous “igloo,” a stone dome resembling a 1960s hairdo that from the looks of it is probably better reached from a bushwhack off the West Mill Brook trail.

Beyond Wyman is mighty Grace and the towering ridge that includes South Dix and Macomb. You will be struck by the amount of open rock all over the place, but of course seeing it from a distance and getting there are two different things. For this day, we were content just bagging one, with a respectable, for an afternoon, 5.7 miles round trip and an elevation gain of 1,150 feet.

We walked out the way we probably should have come up, on the southeast side, although even this would have been stuff of scrambling and crawling here and there — but at least there were no sheer cliffs of the sort that spell a dead end. Overall, it was enough exertion that on our way back out the sight of Shingletree Pond, which had seemed so pedestrian on our way in, was now a sight for sore eyes.

Photo at top: Bear Mountain in the foreground with Wyman behind, on the top of Buck Mountain. Photo by Tim Rowland