We set our sights high!
After hiking Colden in 2021, we knew we wanted to do a hike with more peaks in 2022. If I’m being totally honest, it had a lot to do with adding stickers to our tracking poster. It’s just not the same adding one when you can add five!
We set our sights fairly early on the Dix Range. The full loop is obviously five peaks (around 15 miles), but there is an option to do 2 or 3 instead of all 5 if you got up there and hit a wall. If we were other people, having that option may have been a comfort, but since we are incredibly competitive it was more of a worse case scenario.
A little on Schroon Lake
This was our first hike in the southern end of the Adirondack Park and stayed in Shroon Lake. I was a little disappointed to be missing an annual trip to Lake Placid, but we were both pleasantly surprised! There is much more to do in town than we had time for but…
- Mike is still raving about the breakfast sandwiches we got from Schroon Sandwich Shop.
- We had dinner at Sticks and Stones twice out of convenience, but definitely enjoyed it both times.
- Paradox Brewing is a must! We celebrated completing our hike with a pretzel appetizer and split a pizza – both were the perfect post-hike dinner. It was crowded, but the service was great
Pro tip at Paradox Brewing: order a wine slushie!
If you know us, you know that we always stay at AirBnbs in our travels. We chose one just outside of town in a remodeled barn. Wouldn’t recommend this particular stay, but would for sure go back to the area.
THE LEADUP
Our tried and true ADK hiking method has been to leave on a Thursday afternoon, arrive at our AirBnb in the evening, and wake up bright and early for a hike Friday morning. This was the plan, and we’ve always had great luck with weather…until this year. We woke up Friday morning with our 3AM alarm to down pouring rain.
You know when you don’t want to do something but don’t want to be the person to admit it? Yea, that was definitely me.
Normally, we might have sucked it up and headed out regardless, after all it wasn’t supposed to continue to rain throughout the day. Here’s why we were hesitant to make a choice in either direction;
- ADK high peak parking lots are risky on a good day. We had read that this one was particularly risky and we knew if we waited, hiking on a Saturday in October was playing with fire. If you know, you know!
- We were anxious about the Macomb Slide. Trail reviews by other hikers are always a mixed bag, but we had read enough to feel wary about hiking the slide in the rain.
- I loathe being cold. And it’s worse when I’m also wet. The temperature and rain combined with our anxiety about the slide was probably the deciding factor.
Luckily we had an entire post-hike day planned, so it wasn’t a disappointment. We toured Fort Ticonderoga, did a boat tour, went apple picking, and got to bed early. In the end, what felt like a horrible turn of bad luck was truly a blessing. If we had done the hike, we’d have experienced rain on and off all day and I honestly don’t know if I’d have been able to walk comfortably through the fort and orchard.
THE DEETS ON HIKING THE DIX LOOP
- Parking
I already hinted at this but, it’s a pretty big deal. This lot only holds about 20 cars, and the overflow lot is a 2 mile walk up the road. Because of this, we chose to get to the lot by 3AM to ensure we got a spot. On the drive down there was one car ahead of us, and as we pulled in we got the last available spot. There were cars that came in the 5-10 minutes after we arrived that improvised, but the fact still stands that if we hadn’t arrived when we did, we would’n’t have gotten a spot’ve been walking. Keep in mind that there is a camp on this route, so it’s not just out and back in a day hikers.
You can take this with a grain of salt – some people don’t have an issue, some do. All I can say is when you make that call let the deciding factor be whether or not you’re willing to walk 2 miles back to your car after the hike. Sure you can hitch a ride, but that’s obviously not a guarantee.
- Difficulty
If you’ve done the peaks, you know there are all sorts who come out, at all different levels of fitness, and that’s one of the great things about the peaks. That said, this is one I wouldn’t bring the kids to, and I would maybe hang back on if you’re not a strong hiker. We are two fit adults and it was challenging for us.
Going into this trip, we expected the slide to be the biggest challenge and definitely experienced some surprises. We’ve done a good variety of hikes, including ones with multiple peaks (in the ADKs and Scotland), but they weren’t quite this level of rollercoaster ups and downs. By the time we left Grace and started up Hough and on to Dix, we were starting to hurt. It took us a bit by surprise since looking at an elevation change map it doesn’t look too bad.
- Time
Generally, we complete our hikes faster than the average times we read reported on AllTrails (yes Mike, I’m partially to blame here since I refuse to take breaks). We anticipated this would be similar, and average times on AllTrails were reported to be somewhere around 9-10 hours.
My friends, it took us a full 11 hours. So if you’re more on the leaf gazing, friend chatting speed side of things, just keep this in mind. Maybe plan to start early or through the evening – either way, I’d suggest a headlamp (which we forgot) and extra food (which we blew through) just to be safe.
- Trail Markings
Most of the trails we’d done to this point had been pretty well marked. This one was a hair sparse. We missed the split off to ascend the Macomb slide because the signage was not easy to spot. Be prepared to look for it – it passes right in front of a campsite to the right. If you pass the camp, you’ve gone too far.
Another confusing spot was the signage around the South Dix and Grace peak. This is the spot where hikers can choose to take an alternative route down and not complete the full five-peak loop. It was tough for us to interpret the signage to be clear on which route took us onward to Hough.
If your don’t already, downloading a map ahead of time on AllTrails is incredibly helpful as a backup! The GPS will help you get back on track if you get off the trail.
- The Macomb Slide
The slide itself looks a whole lot scarier than it is. You’ll see bits of it through the trees as you approach and it’s definitely intimidating from the base. That said, I do recommend going UP, and NOT down. Because it was a colder day we experienced ice, so I’m not sure I would do this hike during the winter but otherwise, a slow pace and careful footing made it totally doable.
- The Beck Horn
Won’t lie, it was not my favorite. I’m not afraid of heights but I saw God a few times on those rocks. It’s certainly possible that since we were so close to the end, things felt worse than they were. All I know is I was definitely peeing my pants a little on some of the ledges, and when we got to Dix, it was a relief!
- The Descent
The descent from Dix and down the Beck Horn trail was ROUGH. Honestly I can’t really imagine if we had done this loop in reverse, going UP those rock scrambles at the base of the peak. I’m only 5’5” and I’m not sure I could have scaled some of the spots.
After that, it’s a pretty steep downhill for a very long time. Lots of big boulders. Rocks for days. You know how it is…you start to accept the fact that you’ll be seeing rocks in your dreams (nightmares?). It took us a good 3 hours from the completion of Dix peak to get back to the car. By then my toes were pretty numb from where they were hitting the toes of my shoes from stepping down so much.
OVERALL
Absolutely would recommend the hike, but wouldn’t do it again.
Unlike Colden, Dix was a challenge that, at least for me, a one and done deal. Beautiful views, an amazing challenge for sure, but I’m good with the one time 🙂
We were pretty beat by the time we made it to the car, but not as beat as I would be that night and the next day. I thought I’d sleep like a rock, but my whole body ached so much that I spent a whole lot of time staring at the ceiling. The next day we had a 6 hour drive home, but was probably for the best to let our legs rest!
And finally, to those poor souls we gave a ride from the trailhead lot to the overflow lot – I’m so sorry about how bad I smelled!
