LOCALadk Magazine

60 Spring 2018 LOCALadk Magazine LOCALadk My daughter, Cassandra, had been hiking with me since I slipped her into a Baby-Bjorn the autumn she turned six months old. But now she was nineteen, in London, and studying at the Globe Theater for a semester. Fall hikes without my sidekick were not the same. In her absence, I consoled myself by scouting the newly official Cobble Outlook trail, in preparation for a hike on her return. Wilmington, NY has long needed more trails for close-access hik- ing, skiing, and snowshoeing. I thought others might also be excited to have a new official trail just a short drive up the Bloomingdale pass road (Whiteface Mountain Highway to Gillespie Drive / 431 to 18A), but was nonetheless surprised by the trail traffic. Lots of peo- ple going in and coming out, even late in the afternoon in autumn. And a good mix: locals were out for exercise and visitors for the view and the panoramic photos from the Lookout. Clearly, I was not the only one thirsting for new paths to wander. However, with ever y afternoon walk out to Cobble Lookout I chaffed at the repetitive nature of one-way trails. Wilmington needs the kind of loops found in the High Peaks. There are the Winch, Copperas, and Owen Pond loops. And the straight-line Coo - per Kill (sometimes called Kiln) Pond Trail, plus the trail from the Atmospheric Sciences Research Center up the shoulder of Marble Mountain to Whiteface. But one can only do these same trails so often; and, there are opportunities for other logical trail develop- ment. While the DEC and environmentalists urge hikers to venture out- side of High Peaks Central, there has been little movement over the decades to give hikers what they want, and what it would take to lure them out of the over-trafficked High Peaks. It's not complicat- ed. Chatting with hikers on the trail yields some simple answers: hik- ers want views – outcroppings, brooks, waterfalls, ponds – and they want loops – trails that offer a variety of forest and terrain. As I enjoyed the views from the rocks of Cobble Lookout, I be - came increasingly aware of the Cooper Kill Pond trail over my shoul- der and the mountain ridges behind me. Before backtracking to the trail head, I poked around on the abandoned road that extended from the Lookout to the north, into a drainage. As winter approached Cassandra returned to the mountains. I took her out to Cobble Lookout, and then into the forest to where the old road fades downhill. The leaves were down. With the for- est open, a route over the top towards Cooper Kill Pond became apparent. "There, and there," I said, pointing to two notches in the ridge, "I think we can alley- oop over the top and end up right on the Cooper Kill Pond Trail, and then make our own loop back to the road from there." "Uh huh," she grunted, likely thinking about previous grueling hikes, and the difficulties my idea might get us into. Over the winter we skied and plotted our early-season backpack to find at least one loop-route to Cooper Kill Pond from the Cobble Lookout Trail Head. " We can do an overnight – camping, or maybe we'll make it to the lean-to and can stay there," I suggested. "That sounds OK," Cassandra said. I looked at the topography with her, and eyeballed the ridge from the parking lot of the Adirondack Chocolates and Two Flies shops. Then, in early May, nature presented the perfect weather. And, as it had been dr y, no mud! With day-time temperatures projected in the 70s, we packed up one morning, and started wandering the first mile up the mountain in T-shirts with our and packs on our back. We reached the Cobble Lookout in the afternoon. There is freedom in backpacking a new route, without an estab - lished trail to follow; your gear is on your back. You need only find a flat spot, preferably within range of a water source, to overnight. This makes lingering possible. The Germans call hiking Wandern. The word implies that nature should be absorbed in the context of Gemütlichkeit (here, best understood as "easy- going") – a concept that seems increasingly outside the ken of the hordes speed-hiking and peak-bagging in the High Peaks. After winter, it seemed deca- dent to loll on the rock chaise lounges of Cobble Outlook, like cats in the sun, with views of Marble Mountain, the Sentinel Range, and the more distant mountains of Keene sprawling in front of us. But the harder part lay ahead, the route to connect from the Lookout to the Cooper Kill Pond Trail. With the afternoon sun sliding into the south, we shouldered our packs and picked up the old logging road we'd probed months ago. As the road tailed off and downward, we cut a traverse up the ridge along a ravine. We mounted the ridge, towards what would be the Ally-Loop: Blazing an alternative ADK Route By Michael Zeugin

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