Silver Lake Mountain

Silver Lake Mountain is a short trail up a little mountain with big views.  It has been on our radar to hike for a while, and we had actually driven up this way intending to hike it on a winter visit.  However, as we drove there, it starting snowing really hard.  Road conditions quickly deteriorated and it took a long time to get there from the Lake Placid area.  Visibility was very limited, and since we wanted to see the views from Silver Lake Mountain, we put off the hike and went to nearby Silver Lake Bog Preserve instead -- which was magical.  Today there was low cloud cover; we could see that Whiteface was socked in.  But we gambled that Silver Lake Mountain would be low enough to have views under the clouds, and this proved out.

The trailhead sign indicated that it was 0.9 miles to the summit with a gain of 900 feet.  Woof!  That's short but steep.  The lower part of the trail passes through hardwoods, which then transition to pines. 

There is an exposed bedrock area 2/3 or 3/4 of the way up that offers majestic views.  We didn't pause long here on the way up, but did stop on the way back down (cover image).  Grades ease somewhat from here to the summit, not far along. 

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We had the summit to ourselves.  Erwin chilled out on the summit rock while Frankie and I kept going on a narrow herd path that continued in the woods past the summit.  We followed it for a bit, hoping to perhaps pop out on another ledge with slightly different views, but when it starting plunging steeply down, we turned back. 

Then we heading back down, stopping for a snack at the aforementioned view point on the way back down.  The views here are similar to the ones from the summit, but slightly different because both Taylor Pond and Silver Lake are prominent (whereas at the summit, Taylor Pond and an wetland pond are clearly visible). 

This is a great little hike!  We passed very few other hikers going down as we ascended and going up as we descended, but there was no one at the summit and ample parking available in the lot -- and on a weekend, too.  This was a great warm up hike to kick off our trip.