Mount Arab Fire Tower

Today was the last day of our end-of-summer Adirondack adventure, and would be mostly allocated toward getting home: school is starting back up this week.  We had breakfast, then packed up and loaded the car, departing Keene just before our 11 am check out time.  Frankie and I made plans to stop during the drive home for one last short hike: after being thwarted last month at Goodnow, we really wanted to climb a fire tower.  It has been way too long!  By taking a different, slightly longer route home, we would drive quite close to the trailhead for Mount Arab.  It was a perfect fit!  Erwin had driven up separately, and even though he had decided to drive home the same way on Route 3, he declined to join us for the hike.  I think after Catamount, he felt like he'd had enough mountains for a while. 

It was super hot and muggy today, and Frankie and I were moving slowly for the first half mile or so.  Mindful that he might be tired, I kept him in front, but it is only 1 mile to the stop, so even slow and steady, we'd have no trouble getting there.  But, man it was hot -- it must have been close to 90 degrees!  [I am SO ready for cooler temperatures.]

About halfway up, it started raining, lightly at first and then in a repeat of our hike into JBL, a torrential downpour let loose.  I had brought our raincoats, but it was too hot to put them on.  I had not brought the giant pack covers, so I just got the raincoats out and tied them over our packs to keep the bags relatively dry.  Might as well use the raincoats for something!  We listened carefully for thunder, and talked about how we wouldn't be able to climb the tower if an electrical storm blew in.  

We never did hear any thunder, and once we made peace with the fact that we were going to be very very wet, we discovered the cool rain was quite refreshing.  Frankie picked up the pace and started hiking much faster.  As we approached the top, the rain eased up, then stopped altogether.  Little bits of blue sky became visible again.  We flew through the first clearing with a bench; Frankie had summit fever.  To the tower!  As I chased Frankie through the clearing, I promised the steward we'd stop and talk after climbing the tower.  Hopefully this wasn't too rude, because Frankie was just so excited to get up...  holding him back long enough to wait for me torment enough. 

The view from the tower was somewhat limited by the low clouds, but also quite dramatic.  We could see the rain off in the distance, moving across the landscape.  It did rain a bit while we were up there, and no, the roof does not keep it off... it's windy up there and the rain just blew right in.  No matter though.  We were already quite soaked, and it was still pretty damn hot.  The wind felt great! 

Frankie was, as usual, thrilled to be up in the cab.  Another party arrived and spoke with the steward, but only climbed part way up the stairs.  I think Frankie was a little disappointed not to have visitors, but some folks don't care for heights. 

summit steward filling hummingbird feeders

shadows

We hung out for a long time, taking pictures and enjoying the view.  Frankie broke into spontaneous song and dance, substituting "climbing" for "dancing" in the theme song from the Peanuts movie: I feel better when I'm climbing, yeah yeah... Eventually the summit steward climbed up to take the flag down.  He said he would be packing up soon and heading down for the day, so I used that to motivate Frankie to climb down as well: if we wanted to see the little museum inside the cabin, we had to go now. 

The summit steward was great with Frankie.  He gave him a bunch of swag for his bulletin board: a certificate for climbing Mount Arab, postcards, stickers, etc.  Before we hiked down, we went over to check out the benchmark we'd spied from the top of the tower.  We also took a side trail to see another ledge with views the steward had mentioned.  From there it was a quick down and out.

We counted up on the way down and came to the conclusion that this was Frankie's ninth (successful) fire tower climb.  Being so fun, they're easy to rack up; it's just getting there that's hard.  Frankie and I had gone to the library before leaving for the trip and had the audio version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to listen to in the car.  This certainly made the time in the car pass more quickly and is something I'll repeat again for long drives, especially where the roads are too twisty to play games or read without getting carsick.

Anyway, Mount Arab is really nice.  I'm so glad we got to squeeze in another Adirondack hike before heading back to school!