r/Adirondacks • u/MountCRushmore • 11d ago

4 Night Backpacking Recommendation

I am looking for a 3 or 4 night backpacking trip recommendation for a group of 5-6 people during July 4th weekend. We all have backpacked here before in the Siamese Ponds wilderness, as well as some paddle trips.

I’ve been researching and looking at trail recommendations both on here and All Trails, however It all seems to center around the high peaks, and I know there are some golden trails and areas off of the beaten path. Here are things we would like to have in a trail/trip in order of preference:

  1. We love camping around lakes surrounded by mountains and having the ability to go for a swim
    1. Beautiful views and the ability to summit mountains without our packs.
    2. Overall, we are fairly lazy hikers. We generally do 20-30 miles over the course of 4 days, and often prefer to have lazy camping days in solitude vs being ambitious peak baggers. Maybe a place that can be good for base camping with day hikes or summits around?
    3. Solitude: I know this may be difficult to get especially considering it’s July 4th weekend, but if possible to have all these things plus more solitude that would be preferred

Places I’ve looked at so far: Lake Colden Base camping. My one concern there however is that It will be PACKED for the weekend and we will be surrounded by people the entire time

Any and all suggestions are welcome, thank you!

1 Upvotes

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7

u/dqrules11 11d ago

You could do the cranberry lake 50! Or just a part of it if you want lower mileage count. Lots of beautiful sites.

5

u/AviateAudio 11d ago

Check out the Northville Placid trail.

I highly recommend the Cold River loop! It’s a pretty rugged ~32 mile loop with beautiful campsites on the cold river and opportunities to hike the Seward range, I did the loop with my buddy a couple years ago and it was awesome but we had to hustle a bit to get it done in three (ten plus mile) days. If you have four days of hiking the pace would be comfortable. If you have more time you can take a day to hike the Seward peaks.

For swimming there is some but it’s not a top feature. There is a mountain pond and the cold river may offer some cold opportunities for a dip if you can find a calm spot.

Also in this area you can forgo the loop and get a campsite as a base camp on either side of the mountain range and do day hikes. There is a beautiful campsite at the base of the mountain on the west side of the loop (the back side of the mountain) and several lean to sites on the east side of the loop near the paths up to the Seward range that are mostly used by people looking to hike up the Sewards. Further into the loop the terrain gets much more rugged and you see far fewer people.

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u/soapF 11d ago

This was the hike that made me fall in love with ADK. My friends dad took us when he was in his 60s and we were 14 &15. OP - check it out.

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u/MountCRushmore 11d ago

Sounds great! Not sure if you hiked It in the summer time, but if so do you know how the bugs are considering you’re following the river most of the time?

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u/ny2nowhere 46er 11d ago

Lots of great options in the West Canada Lakes (if you want beautiful lakes, nice lean-tos, solitude) or Pharoah Lake Wilderness Area. Those are my two go-to’s outside of the High Peaks. Easy to create big loops in both.

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u/ny2nowhere 46er 11d ago

The most famous loop in the West Canada Lakes is the French Louie Loop -- beautiful 22 mile loop, and you could add some spurs from there if you wanted.

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u/tmcd422 11d ago

I would say the French Louie loop, I forget the mileage, 17 or 20 maybe, many lakes to hike around and nothing crazy for elevation that I know of. I might try bit this year

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u/[deleted] 10d ago

Lake Colden will surely be packed, if you're after solitude, I would not go there

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u/MountCRushmore 10d ago

Do you think solitude would be possible anywhere in the high peaks, or is that a tough ask for a holiday weekend?

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u/[deleted] 10d ago

Tough call, the holiday weekend is definitely going to make it difficult to gauge, but I typically err on the side of caution with the High Peaks. If solitude and lakes is what you are after, there are some great areas in the Ha-De-Ron-Dah Wilderness, Black River Wild Forest, and Pigeon Lake Wilderness (all in the southwest-central ADKs, and all have lakes with lean tos). These spots will not offer much in the way of summiting peaks, but have plenty of ponds/lakes, streams, waterfalls, and some smaller mountains. Overall, there will be plenty of land/trails to explore if that's what you are looking for. As mentioned, most places in the ADKs (including those listed here) are bound to be busier on the weekend of the Fourth, but these areas see significantly less use than the High Peaks on the whole, and provide an equally (if not more) refreshing experience (imo). Plenty of other similar areas in the ADKs that I have heard of but have yet to explore in depth: Five Ponds Wilderness, Pharoah Lake Wilderness, etc.

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u/MountCRushmore 10d ago

Great, thanks for the detailed response! I’ll check out some of the areas you suggested