Spruce Mountain, NY
By most definitions, this isn't really a mountain. It's not very
steep, and not very tall so don't get any visions of gut-wrenching high-danger
climbing scenes here. This mountain is located in the southern reaches
of the Adirondacks in New York state near Saratoga Springs. I flew from
Colorado to NH to visit Mom in early January 2000. While in NH, Mom
and I drove over to NY to visit Uncle Gary and Aunt Carol in Greenfield
Center, which is near Saratoga Springs. As fate would have it, my
good friend Dave had just moved out to Scenectedy from Colorado, and was
going to be in town that weekend. Scenectedy is not far from Greenfield
Center, so we got together and hiked this mountain. Unfortunately,
the weather was dismal. The wind was blowing and it looked like mush
in the sky. We had quite a difficult time finding the place, and
finally resorted to stopping and asking a really scary redneck who lived
in a trailer where to go. The hike took about 2 hours round-trip.
The whole way, like much of the northeast, was heavily wooded. Not
much snow was on the ground, but the ground was frozen nonetheless.
At the top of the mountain, we were pleasantly surprised to find an old
fire tower. Naturally we climbed right up. It didn't seem very
tall from the ground, but it was very tall seeming indeed looking down
from the top. The top platform which was accessed by a trap door
in the floor from stairs was about 7x7', with an open view of the countryside
all around. On a pleasant day, it would have been a real treat, but as
it was, the wind blew and the metal was so cold you could hardly steady
yourself on the rail. We figured the tower was roughly 100' tall.
We didn't stay up there long, but it was a nice diversion from the ordinary.
A very
poor picture of the firetower.
A view
from the top of the firetower.
Dave in
the firetower.
Tragedy
strikes when a very large tree lets go on an unwary hiker.