The second part of the trip was hiking Hough (pronounced "huff") mountain. It is considered an unmarked trail or primitive trail mountain because it isn't officially marked with color coded trail markers nor is the trail maintained by the Adirondack Mountain Club. There were a couple hikers who had written blog posts about the difficulty of the unmarked trail. However, the trail from Dix to Hough is well used and therefore could be easily followed.
Coming down the Beckhorn there are two trails, one leading to the right and the other left towards the ridge leading up to Hough. The unmaintained trail is very noticeable because its very brushy and narrow. It was a very warm day and therefore we all wore shorts and short sleeve shirts exposing more skin to potential scrapes and scratches. We got away with mild scratches. The trail itself is packed soil coated with pine needle coated. The descend down to the col was easy on the feet.
Along the way, there were 3 small rock outcroppings where we stopped for a few minutes to enjoy the views looking back at Dix mountain as well as appreciate the slide coming down Hough. During this part of the hike, Dima and I ran out of water and we couldn't find any along the trail.
The final ascent to Hough was moderate with an occasional steeper rock climb. For the most part the trail zigzagged up the mountain. The 1.3 miles from Dix to Hough took us about 50 minutes.
Hough slide from trail leading up to Beckhorn
The summit is tree covered except for a couple larger exposed rocks. We took a few photos and relaxed for about 20 minutes and started heading down the other side of Hough towards Lillian Brook. On the trail we ran into a couple female hikers coming up to Hough, their third summit of the day. Both of them looked pretty exhausted and they had 2 peaks to conquer as well as hike back to the Elk Lake parking lot.
Dix-Hough col
Peak #24 for me
Once we descended to the col between Hough and South Dix (aka Carson Peak) we were faced with 3 potential trails. One heading East towards East Dix, another South towards South Dix, and yet another Northwest towards Elk Lake. The northwest trail was marked with a cairn. At this point in the hike I decided to verify the direction by looking at my Garmin GPS. It indicated towards the northwest trail marked with the cairn and therefore we continued down that trail.
Twenty minutes on the trail we came to a small brook that fed into the Lillian Brook, so we decided to fill our empty water bladders. I had the opportunity to try out the new Katadyn Hiker Pro water filter. It worked really well and we had our 3 containers equaling 7.5 liters of water filled in under 5 minutes.
The trail conditions were very muddy at times once we got to the Lillian Brook. But it was easy walking with minimal rocks. It was almost 2 miles from the Hough summit to the bottom of Brook trail.
On the way back to the car, we decided to stop by the Slide lean-to. It was newly renovated, with the smell of new fresh wood. Andrey and I exchanged some old memories of past hikes and the lean-to's we stayed in before.
Eventually we came to this sign on the road which quickened our pace even more. Although the 0.3 sometimes feels like forever when nearing the end of a long hike.
Overall the hike went really well. It was Dima's first two ADK peaks and it made a positive and lasting impression upon him. Maybe one day he will aspire to become a ADK 46er.
Trip Timeline:
July 12, 2015
Elk Parking Lot: 7:03 am
Slide Lean-to: 7:50 am
Lilian Brook: 8:14 am
Dix trailhead: 8:49 am
Beckhorn: 10:35 am
Dix summit: 10:43 am
Departed Dix: 11:32 am
Hough summit: 12:23 pm
Hough/South Dix col: 12:55 pm
Lilian Brook trailhead: 2:03 pm
Parking lot: 3:20 pm
Hike Stats:
#24/46 for me
13.2 miles
8 hrs 17 mins
2800 ft elevation gain
Video of hike to follow soon!
On our way home, we decided to stop by Cafe Adirondack because of the great Trip Advisor reviews. However when we reached the restaurant we found out it opened at 5 pm and so we decided to look for another place to eat instead of waiting for 40 minutes.
We went further up the road to a place called Black Bear restaurant. To make the long story short, the customer service was terrible and the food wasn't all that great. So we had some regrets about choosing this place and we definitely don't recommend it.
LOOKS CAN BE DECEIVING!!
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