Hiking After a Hurricane

When we went camping within a day of Hurricane Irene, we were not expecting any real problems. We were heading into the mountains! It's far inland. No problems there, right?   Wrong.  Lots of wind, lots of rain, lots of places for all the rain to flow downward, lots of wash outs. From the State down to the local government and all the utility people did an incredible job of getting everything back on track for the tourists, but the Adirondack Park has a million hiking trails that are still a bit beaten up from the storm.

I thought you might like to see some pics of tiny Deer Leap Trail outside of Lake George.  We picked a short one with little elevation figuring that would be doable.

What can happen in less than two miles?

Well, in some areas the washout was so wide it was difficult to know if you were on the trail or just following a washout.  We were barely on the trail when we met two hikers who had turned around rather than go through the downed trees.

Sometimes you could go over and/or through

These were the easy ones.

It think he wanted to come home with us.

Stopping constantly to assess how we could get through through made this  two mile walk seem like  it was taking forever!

It's always good to have  a friend to go ahead for you.

These spots were tough.  You just could not see the path beyond because so much was down.  My husband and I made the mistake of both going off the trail at one of these spots.  We spent what was probably five minutes but seemed like twenty to me trying to find the trail again.  I have the "keep someone on the trail and stay within shouting distance" rule firmly ingrained now.

Nice place for a picnic lunch, but I think I'll wait for the clean-up crews to come through first the next time.