Almost on a whim, Nolan and I decided to get a taste of winter climbing in preparation for taking on the Adirondack 46 high peaks. Blue Mountain is not an official "high peak" but we wanted to see what it was like climbing in winter conditions, as this seems to be the more elitist and hard core way to accomplish the 46er odyssey. We selected Blue Mountain because there seemed to be enough of a base to snowshoe up, and by all weather accounts it was going to be a fairly comfortable 20 degrees and sunny that day. And finally because it was a "manageable" 4 mile ascent/descent. What started as a 4-miler turned into a 10 miler on snowshoes.
After arriving at the trail head which is about a quarter mile up from the Adirondack Museum in Blue Lake, we rigged up the shoes and headed out around 12:30. We headed down the Tirrell Pond Trail which was a gradually ascending moderate climb for around 3 miles. We turned back just before Tirrell Pond after discovering we would be taking a chance by trying to use a private service road up the back way of the mountain. To make sure to leave enough time to get up Blue Mtn we headed back down Tirrell Pond trail and to the trail head, so we could get up the mountains summit and back down by dark (around 5:30). By around 2:45 we were headed up the trail towards Blue Mountains summit..... I'll post more details
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