Located in the Hammond Pond Wild Forest in the eastern Adirondacks, Belfry Mountain barely qualifies as a hike -- it is more like a very short walk. In fact, that is how I explained it to Frankie: it would be like a walk around the block, only with a fire tower halfway. And that about sums it up... The "trail" is actually a gravel access road that services a couple communication towers just below the fire tower. After passing the second right hand turn, the road narrows to a two track with a strip of grass in the middle. Stay left/straight for the fire tower (i.e., keep going "up"). Roundtrip, the hike is just 0.8 mile with 120 feet elevation gain.
Even though the walk itself is not particularly interesting, it is short and easy and totally worth it for the fire tower. It isn't the tallest tower we've been in, but it doesn't need to be: the cab offers beautiful 360 degree views, marred only by the presence of the other lower communication towers. It was a bit hazy today, but notable peaks visible to the west included Dix, the Great Range, Cascade, and Whiteface, with the Green Mountains off to the east. Fire towers are always super fun!
We stopped at Belfry on our drive back home from a long weekend in Keene, and it was the perfect little hike for our travel day. It was a tiny bit out of the way, going a tad north and east of 87 instead of heading south, but it was fun squeezing in a fourth hike, and we would never drive all the way up north just to hike Belfry. It's definitely an add-on hike. It's already got me thinking about driving back a different way next year so we can hit up another of the easy fire tower hikes on our drive home.
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| Frankie kissed the tower goodbye before we headed down |
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