Lake Placid hidden gem: Hiking Seymour Mountain

Why this 2,457-Foot Adirondack peak is the perfect alternative to busy High Peaks

By Tim Rowland

Seymour Mountain rises to its 2,457-foot glory right under the sunburned, deerfly-bitten noses of the legions of hikers who populate Lake Placid each summer looking for a relatively short, easy climb with great views and no crowds.

You could quite literally walk to the summit of Seymour from downtown Lake Placid in less time and distance than it takes to trudge to the High Peak that goes by the same name, and be back in time for happy hour and the ubiquitous bacon-cheddar burger with tomato jam.

The challenge: Finding the unmarked Seymour Mountain trailhead

What’s the catch? There are three. One, the trailhead, such as it is, is practically unfindable if you don’t know where to look. Two, the trail is not at all marked. Third, there are many, many trails that can be tough to negotiate, and the majority run into private property at some point, which you will want to avoid. I would strongly suggest (old map-and-compass dogs, cover your ears) using an app like Gaia, which depicts the trails accurately and shows the boundaries with private land

The best route up Seymour is off Averyville Road from an unmarked trailhead on the right, not quite two-tenths of a mile past the Northville-Placid parking area, at a small pullout on the left where canoeists access the Chubb River. It presents as a little nick in the wooded landscape that immediately runs into some recent blowdown. After a few more steps, one herd path continues straight, while the one you are after turns to the left. In less than a mile you make a left, then another left, stay put for a while and then make a right and another right.

At least that’s one way. But it’s not the cowboy way.

The adventure route: Bike-hike combo via Adirondack Rail Trail

For those of you out there, and I know there are some, who like to take an easy, simple, straightforward hike and make something stupidly hard out of it, you can turn this into a bike-hike adventure by starting at the eastern terminus of the Adirondack Rail Trail on Station Road and riding 1.25 miles to where it enters state land. 

On the Gaia app, you will notice that there are two herd paths off the rail trail leading to Seymour, but both are on private property, although the second one is just barely so. These two herd paths unite and quickly cross into public land. No problem, I thought. Undoubtedly other people have noticed what I noticed on the map, so by now time a nice little herd path will have been established connecting the rail trail with the public trail up Seymour.

Well, in point of fact, a nice little herd path had not been established, for the very good reason that the public boundary corresponds with the upper reaches of a lengthy swamp that runs for miles along the trail to the west.

So this meant crossing that primordial ooze, then picking my way through a jungle of alder, spruce and rotting logs and ice-slick stones, and even though it would have taken less time to get back on my bike, ride back to the parking lot and drive to the shorter and easier trail, I had committed to my course of action dammit, and if this makes no sense to you whatsoever it is because you have never been a guy.

Bushwhacking through the Adirondack wilderness

So 10 minutes later, I’m still picking my way through the muck and have made so little progress that I am still within easy hearing distance of the rail trail. If you’re a bushwhacker, it’s one thing to be inching your way through a sodden and prickly boreal quagmire if you are in the middle of an ethereal wilderness, where it’s easy to fantasize that no human has set foot before. But when you are enduring this wet, tangled, buggy misery and you can still hear behind you the laughter of small children and young women chatting about who they saw the night before at Stewart’s, the anger and bitterness begin to harden like arterial plaque on the walls of your psyche.

Fortunately, after a steep but short climb, the woods opened up, and in no time the obvious herd path heading toward the top made its appearance.

What to expect on the Seymour Mountain trail

Even if you were not headed to an overlook, this attractive trail would be worth hiking in its own right. It features some statuesque, old-growth pines, beefy hardwoods, and a scenic encounter with the Chubb River before a mild hike along a little ridge with the sounds of the water still bubbling away down below. 

After crossing the outlet of a beaver pond, the trail gains elevation where the forest floor shimmers in an emerald wash of club moss and ferns, studded with chunky maples and perfectly shaped young spruce. By my count, there are four junctions with other herd paths going up, and each time you bear right. The footpaths are obvious, but if you are not paying close attention, you can walk right past a turn, hence the need for the app.

There’s some steep climbing to be done, particularly toward the end. This route was 1.75 miles one way with an elevation gain of 920 feet, which is nothing to sneeze at. Eyeballing it from the map, the Averyville Road route would appear to be a bit shorter. The two routes meet about halfway through their respective distances.

Summit views: Great Range and Seward Range panoramas

When you reach the headwall, you’re about there, and marvelous sheets of vertical rock create considerable interest even before you come to the views. There’s a small bit of rope to help negotiate a protruding ledge, and at  the summit there is a sign-in canister — I hadn’t seen one of those in ages.

The open rock offers an excellent view of the Great Range to the southeast, but a more unique view was to the southwest toward the Seward and Santanoni ranges, as well as the more celebrated Seymour.

At the top I saw a party of four hikers, the only other people I’d seen all day. They had come up the “easy” Averyville way. When asked, I explained that I had come up from the rail trail, expecting to be applauded for my perseverance, along with my obvious route-finding and backcountry skills. Instead, one of them looked at me and said,“Oh.”

Top: The summit of Seymour, looking south. Photo by Tim Rowland.