Mad about Moxham

A hike up Moxham Mountain, a new-ish trail in the Adirondacks with a rich history and stunning viewpoints

By Lisa Ballard

It’s not every day that a new trail is cut in the Adirondacks, old mountains explored by humans long before modern trail-building techniques provided moderate grades or stabilized soil.

Large tracts that are forever wild cannot be altered in man-made ways. As any local peak bagger can attest, most ascents are direct and eroded, but we endure every heart-pounding, cobbled, foot-soaking step for the jaw-dropping views. Moxham Mountain is different.

When I first heard about Moxham in the Vanderwhacker Mountain Wild Forest near Minerva—a new hike that boasts a host of views—I asked Liz Venesky, to explore it with me. Though the 2.6-mile trail opened a decade ago, it still qualifies as “new” in hiking terms. It was constructed by the state Department of Environmental Conservation with the Student Conservation Association, a conservation corps founded in the 1950s to “protect and restore national parks, marine sanctuaries, cultural landmarks and community green spaces in all 50 states.”

It was midweek in mid-August when we tightened our laces at Moxham’s trailhead. The mountain is named for Robert Moxham, a surveyor in the area during the late 1700s who purportedly fell off one of its cliffs. We wondered what lay ahead with niggling trepidation. Part of the attraction was the chance to traverse the route’s open rock ledges, a treat in the Adirondack Park where viewpoints are typically exactly that, narrow points, until one reaches a bald summit.

From the trailhead, we climbed moderately through peaceful hardwoods. It was a lovely day, clear in the 70s. A few leaves had turned red and gold on the trees and shrubs, hinting at fall. The footing was a joy, smooth with only a few tree roots crisscrossing the winding trail. The only sounds to tickle our ears were the wind rustling through the trees, several birds with their sing-song tweets and twitters and the occasional chattering chipmunk.

A half-mile into our trek, the trail turned left up a steeper pitch. We crossed a length of slab to a view of a nearby hillside. From there, we paralleled the first of Moxham’s ledges, separated from the drop-off by blueberry and other low bushes. “You would need to jump on purpose to fall off a cliff here,” I mused. Liz giggled.

In another half-mile, we reentered the woods on a long descent, passing the dry outlet of an old beaver pond. A moderate grade flattened into an airy forest, and we encountered boulders—glacial erratics left behind from the last Ice Age.

We crossed another seasonal stream, then humped it up a short, steep pitch to a 10-foot rock wall, where the trail took an abrupt 90-degree right turn. A stool-high, square-topped rock beckoned to me. I plopped down on this natural seat and put my feet on a tree trunk.

“A little hard on the butt, but not a bad seat,” I said. Liz laughed again.

At 1.6 miles, the trail broke onto a bald spot where we ogled the first of many views of Gore Mountain. Just before heading back into the woods, Liz spied a balancing boulder that looked like an oversized exercise ball. She arched her back over it, stretching as if she were at the gym instead of a mountainside. My turn to chuckle.

From there, we hiked by several ledge-top breaks in the forest, each offering increasingly better views. The trail was more open than not.

By 2.3 miles, we could see the sheer cliffs of Moxham’s summit cone ahead. The hulking rock face looked intimidating, and the wooded backside, where we figured the trail went, looked steep.

“If I were a rock climber, I’d be drooling about that cliff,” I mumbled. Indeed, climbers can now rope up Moxham thanks to the
Adirondack Land Trust’s recent purchase of 250 acres that includes this impressive precipice. The acquisition protects the viewshed of the mountain’s landmark cliffs in perpetuity.

“Do we really need to climb up that?” asked Liz, but the rest of the hike, though uphill, remained reasonable, loosely following the cliff but in the woods. Upon breaking onto the summit, we touched the benchmark, then pondered the metal rings also embedded in the rock, remnants of Verplanck Colvin’s Adirondack survey. Colvin visited Moxham’s summits between 1872 and 1896.

“Verplanck Colvin came up here four times and never fell off,” I smiled, minding the drop-off while eyeing the magnificent view.

“I wonder how Robert Moxham managed to take a tumble?” asked Liz, soaking in the scenery.

The view was not 360-degrees, but it didn’t matter. Clear, Long and Fuller Ponds lay below us, with much of the central Adirondacks to the west. Gore’s ski trails and the Barton Mine on Ruby Mountain dominated the view to southwest, and the Hudson River, which looked like a silver ribbon, wound through a valley to the southeast. After having our fill of the summit, we headed back across the ledges and down to the trailhead, happy with our hike, which would undoubtedly be a regular one from now on.

At 2,418 feet, Moxham is a modest height but it rewards hikers in major ways. It’s one of the few half-day routes in the Adirondacks that crosses long lengths of open ledge. The views just keep coming, and it’s not nearly as crowded as High Peaks trails, especially midweek. Don’t worry about falling off the cliffs. Perhaps Mr. Moxham was so awed by the panorama that he forgot to look where he stepped.

Directions

Take Exit 26 off Interstate 87 onto US 9 south. Turn right on Olmstedville Road toward Minerva. At the junction with AP Morse Memorial Highway (County Road 30), turn right on AP Morse Highway. Go 2.4 miles. Turn left on Town Shed Road (County Road 37). Go 0.2 mile to the junction with the Roosevelt Marcy Memorial Highway. Continue straight following the sign to “Moxam Mountain Trailhead” (different spelling of “Moxham”). The road is now Fourteenth Road. Go 2.3 miles to a hiker parking lot and trailhead on your left by a small sign that says “Trailhead Parking.” A second parking area is slightly further on your right. Trailhead GPS: N43 46.227’ / W74 00.720’