Silver bells on Silver Lake Mountain

What better way to celebrate the holidays than a short, crisp hike?

By Tim Rowland

Casting around for a holiday-themed hike, the carol “Silver Bells” came to mind. Silver Bells. Silver Lake. Silver Lake Mountain. What else do you need, a burning bush?

This was a perfect little mountain — a beautiful summit reached by a short trail, leaving time for eating, shopping, caroling, gift-opening, eating and eating. Heck, the climb is simple enough that you could even swap out a knit hat for a Santa cap, put a stuffed Grinch in your daypack and gather a bunch of friends to sing carols at the top if you wanted.

The forecast all week had called for sunny conditions, following an Adirondack deluge that now seems to happen about every other month.

Before I left, Beth warned that she’s seen a lot of social media posts about post-flood trail deterioration and I thought yeah, right, like there’s anything to deteriorate on this little candy cane of a trail. So of course you can about guess what happened, not one step after signing the trail register my right boot hit a thatch of freeze-dried leaves hiding a frozen flow beneath, and this ice on ice sent my foot rocketing laterally like a watermelon seed, with arms flailing and gear scattering, and I only stayed upright at the cost of pulling an anatomy semester’s worth of muscles and tendons that, with age, now have the plasticity of frozen peanut brittle.

Speaking of age, I had last hiked Silver Lake Mountain near the hamlet of Hawkeye in Clinton County on Silver Lake Road maybe 20 years ago, at a time when I was capable of hopping up mountains such as this on one foot. Somehow I had forgotten that this trail gains almost 900 feet in less than a mile, which is not exactly a gimme.

I also noticed on the Gaia app that the trail now seemed to extend beyond the summit, roughly doubling the distance for the adventurous hiker. That made sense. Viewed from a distance to the south, the Silver Lake Mountains appear as a long, toothy ridge of exposed cliffs. Sort of like a police lineup if it were populated by beavers. Certainly there were more overlooks than just the summit.

Unfortunately, the sunny forecast was not panning out, but no matter, the day was immeasurably brightened by, you guessed it, a descending band of carolers in seasonally valid attire, right down to the Santa caps and a stuffed Grinch.

The trail is not marked, but it is well trod; it starts out low and begins to grow in steepness, the copious ice adding general interest to the project. At the top, the view is dominated by the fjord-like Taylor Pond and Silver Lake, although on this day Catamount and the Whiteface mountains were socked in.

No matter, it was here that the adventure really began, because sure enough a faint trail headed into the evergreens to the east. Although faint in spots, it is easily followed, and since it follows a narrow ridgeline the chances of going too far astray are minimal.

It is a wonderful trail, soft and Christmassy, with scattered pine cones and flanked with cozy evergreens. Thick flushes of green mosses were dusted with white, feathery snow, looking like a cross between broccoli and cauliflower. For contrast, there were some truly massive and magical Seussian spruce, their slumped canopies suggestive of Whoville itself.

At 1.2 miles, you’ll come to the pick of the litter for views, a broad panorama of mountains and lakes that is well worth the small amount of effort it takes to get there.

But the trail soldiered on and so did I, deviating from it a bit to take in still more views, including some memorable vistas of the rugged craigs of the Potter Mountains to the east. These mountains are not part of the state holdings, but protected by easement and open to recreation the year around. (Some of these precipices plunge straight to the valley floor and can be ice covered, so be mindful for yourself and your dogs.)

By now the trail had vanished, and there was about a quarter inch of “sunny” on the ground, but the promise of future lookouts made a bushwhack along the ridge seem a worthy pursuit. 

The ridgeline ascends knobs and dips into cols with regularity. There is less blowdown than might be expected for such an exposed ridge, and although the spruce atop the knolls can make for some tight nipping, you’ll get stuck only once or twice for a moment or two before popping out onto the next series of open glades.

It was with great reluctance that, having reached my turnaround time, I turned around. By the time I got back to the lot I’d traveled only four miles, yet there were so many points of interest along the way that it seemed as if it should have been much more. Indeed, if you’re looking for a pint-sized epic adventure for a short winter’s day, this will not disappoint, and will get you home in plenty of time to carve the roast beast.