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Wright Peak, October 2003
Number 13 on my 46er list, Wright Peak offered adventure, views, and a bonus. I went with Dennis, a friend I had been trying to hook up with for a fall hike for a few years now. The adventure part was the trail conditions, the high peaks had received 2 feet of snow above 4000 feet 4 days prior to this hike. The weather had been awesome all week, sunny and warm, so needless to say the trail was basically a stream from the melting snow. The original plan was to do Algonquin and maybe Wright Peak afterwards if we had time but on the way up Algonquin, the trail got a bit hairy. Running water, snow, and ice! For some reason Dennis thought we should save it for another day. We didn't bring crampons, or a kayak! I was ready to go, but it's probably a good thing I heeded his advice as I am sure coming back down the sheer face would have been a challenge on tired legs.     As I stated, the weather was awesome and so were the views. The view of Colden from Wright is one of the best I've seen to date. There are so many slides on that side of the mountain. Algonquin looked daunting from Wright Peak and I can't wait to get back and climb it. The foliage was a bit past peak but the valley around Heart Lake still looked awesome from our vantage point. The bonus was the plane wreck. There is a plaque mounted in the rock in remembrance of those that lost their lives that day and there is still quite a bit of the wreckage left up there. I tried to imagine what it would be like to slam into the mountain like that, I'm sure they never knew what hit them. The ironic part is that they only needed about another 50 feet of elevation and they would have cleared it. All in all, a great day to be out in the mountains, we had one couple sharing the peak with us for a short time. They were celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary by spending a week in Lake Placid and just enjoying the outdoors. They had hiked a few times and did some canoeing. What a vacation!     Dennis and I on the summit   Back to Top