Lake Placid from Whiteface

15 Photos

Route:

• From Wilmington Reservoir ascend Marble and Lookout Mtns 
• Detour on herd path to Esther (assuming you are climbing Esther and Whiteface together) and back
• Ascend Whiteface Mtn
• Back-track to reservoir 
  

View Rankings       Printable Whiteface

The Hike In A Nutshell:
This hike was done as a two mountain hike that included Esther.  If you are dead set on climbing all 46, then definitely include Esther with your Whiteface climb as it amounts to less than a two mile (r/t) detour over easy ground.  The one obstacle if you include Esther is a small swamp which (based on experience) calls for shin-high gaiters if you aren't lucky.

You can begin the hike to Whiteface and Esther from either the Atmospheric Research Center or from the Wilmington Reservoir.  Each is on its own road leading off the Whiteface Memorial Highway.  Both eventually come together near the summit of Marble Mtn, from which point they follow the summit trails to Esther or Whiteface or both depending on your destination  

The favored route to both summits begins at the Town of Wilmington's water reservoir, which is on the left about a mile out of town on the Whiteface Memorial Highway (well before the toll gate).  From the reservoir, the hike begins gently on the RED  trail (McM #79, ADK #82).

Difficulty:
The only segment of this trip that might be viewed as difficult is the ascent of Marble Mt. as noted above.  Otherwise, this is a fairly tame hike, even the final ascent of Whiteface Mtn.  Whiteface is the high point of the hike, in more ways than one.  From Marble Mtn onwards, the trail is wide, straight and easy to follow through the saddle between Marble and Whiteface.  Gradually, the slope increases as you near Whiteface, but although the RED trail runs straight up the side of Whiteface it is a quick hike to the Whiteface Memorial Highway some hundreds of feet below the summit.  From there, the path is over bare rock parallel to and above the nearby highway.  It's not difficult.   

Views:
Whiteface is one of the Adirondack peaks that offers a 360º panorama from its summit.  One would think that that would put this summit's views in the OUTSTANDING column with the likes of Giant, Algonquin, Gothics, Haystack, and Skylight (see View Rankings).  If how far you could see was the only qualification for an outstanding view, then Whiteface would be number one, for sure.  However the view from Whiteface is plain vanilla in my own opinion.  It lacks the complex and varied views of most of the other Adirondack peaks which normally include mountains and valleys that are near and far.  Whiteface offers views only of a few lakes amidst miles and miles of blue forest thousands of feet below.  The rest of the High Peaks are far away, barely visible.  Of most interest is Lake Placid---the actual lake, not the town---almost at the foot of Whiteface.  The ski trails on Whiteface and Little Whiteface are of some interest, if only for their tattoo-like appearance against the blue-green of the conifers surrounding them.

Notes:
No disrespect intended, but another "view"---and a very weird one it is---is the sight of tourists on Whiteface's summit in their spotless bermudas and white tenny-pumps.  Imagine this: there you are, climbing, climbing, climbing, sweating up a storm as you usually do.  You are aware that there is this castle-like structure at the summit.  You see it draw closer as you approach it, knowing perfectly well that you're going to run into some very non-hiker-like folks at the summit.   Soon you find yourself standing just below the foundation of the observation deck.  It is surrounded by a stone wall so that the tourists don't fall off the mountain and so that there is a nice level deck for them to walk about the summit upon, without tripping (God forbid).  You climb the remaining ten feet and haul your butt over the stone wall and onto the summit terrace amongst the tourists.  All of a sudden, you're the only sweating, stinking, dirty human among all these bug-eyed, spiffy tourists who gawk at you as though you are an orc just off the bus from Mordor.  It's a good moment to ask one of them, "Hey, Legolas, where can I find me an elf-maiden?"  Great fun! 

Enjoy it.  The men, led around by their wives with blue hair, will be looking at you---the manly and adventuresome hiker with his Amazon woman.  Their manhood will fail them.   All in all, Whiteface is a different summit experience.

 Distances:

• 0.0 mi. Wilmington reservoir
• 4.0 mi. Cairn for herd path to Esther (see the Esther page for this side trip)
• 4.7 mi. Reach the paved Whiteface Memorial Highway 
• 5.3 mi. Summit of Whiteface

Whiteface USGS Trail Maps:

	(Left) USGS topo map of trail section from start at the Wilmington reservoir to Esther's summit.  Select "landscape view" on  printer set-up before printing maps.  (Right)  The trail from Esther to the summit of Whiteface.  (This portion of the hike is on 2 separate USGS quadrangles.

Ascent of Whiteface from Wilmington Reservoir (ADK #82) RED
1	The parking area at the trailhead at the Wilmington reservoir.  To get there from Lake Placid, take Rt. 86 to Wilmington.  Turn left off Rte 86 onto Whiteface Mt. Memorial Highway.  Drive just under a half mile to a turn-off on the left for the town reservoir.  The turn is also marked with the usual DEC trailhead sign.  A very short drive puts you in the parking lot shown in the photo at left.  The trail and trail register are across the bridge to the left of the shack.
2	This photo shows the relatively flat saddle on the trail between Marble Mtn and Whiteface.  It is in good condition, although there will be some wet, muddy spots in a wet year.
3	Continuing on, one finds the occasional low spot with a bit corduroy spanning wetlands.
4	The trail is steeper as it departs the gentle col separating Lookout Mtn from Whiteface Mtn.  This is the ascent to the Whiteface Memorial Highway.  While you do climb over this wall onto the road, you do not stay on the road.  The trail stays outside the road and rises fast toward the Observatory and summit.
5	A view of Esther from the RED trail as we near the summit of Whiteface.
6	Looking north.  The section of wall that is visible is approximately where you will first intersect the road after leaving the col (see photo two photos up).
7	As we continue up the slope the views continue to open up, but Whiteface is quite a ways north of the rest of the High Peaks.  This limits the quality of the view.
8	The observatory remains in view for most of the hike from Lookout Mtn to the summit.
9	There are some interesting slides visible, as well as the ski trails on Little Whiteface.   We're still not at the summit.
10	On arriving at the summit we see the phenomena of rain over on the High Peaks to the south.  It had rained there all week, almost continuously.  Yet we have great weather and visibility on Whiteface.
11	A salient of Whiteface to the SW.  The red trail continues on from the summit, although it becomes ADK trail #81, instead of #82 once it starts down the summit.
12	Lake Placid
13	The High Peaks... where the real hiking is happening!  Can't wait to get back there and away from this amusement park!
14	Looking toward Giant.
15	On the summit.  There were tourists in Bermuda shorts all over the place so it was no problem getting a nice ol' granny lady to snap our picture.  We looked a bit out of place!

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This page was last updated 09/11/06 08:28:31 PM