Sunday, October 21, 2007

Azure Mountain family adventure

View from Big Rock


Azure Mountain: 2518 feet
Parking lot: N44 32.265 W74 29.080
Turn off from highway 458 onto Blue mountain road: N 44 37.819 W 74 29.986


Sunday morning we left Ottawa at around 8:30am and headed south to the Adirondacks for some fresh mountain air. With a little bit of research the day before I decided to take us to the top of Azure Mountain to see one of the 22 fire towers in the ADK.

A tunnel of yellow

We arrived at the parking lot at about 11am joining 4 or 5 other vehicles. The weather was amazing for anytime of the year let alone late October. 22°C and nothing but blue skies - definitely shorts and t-shirt weather. Each loaded with snacks and drinks we started out on our day's adventure.

We didn't get too far before I spotted the big pile of rocks and remembered that hikers were being asked to bring them up to leave on the pile up top in order to be later be redistributed in an attempt to fight off erosion. Happy to play our part, we took 10 in all.

Azure Mountain view
Soaking in the amazing view.

The hike up was steep but we had no complaints. When we neared the top we could just make out the fire tower and then the erosion fighting rock pile. Then BLAMMO! The view took our breath away. Amazing. I snapped some photos and we then made our way to the top of the recently restored fire tower to get the full 360°.

Windy on top of the fire tower
It sure was extremely windy at the top of the tower.

After taking in the views we found a small sheltered area out of the wind to rest and enjoy our lunch in the afternoon sun. Life doesn't get much better than this.

Following lunch it was one more trip up the tower and then back to what was now a jam packed parking lot.

Fluff balls Bronchial tubes
Azure Mountain rest stop Azure Mountain rest rock


All in all it was a successful trip and the weather more than cooperated. We'll definitely be back to tackle the remaining fire towers next summer.

1 comment:

Kenmore said...

Outstanding! New converts to the joys of firetower peaks. Everyone still smiling at the end to so that's a good sign.... of course with the weather you had it's hard not to smile.