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| Lower Ausable Lake from Scenic Trail to Sawteeth |
The Sawteeth seem to get zero respect. Most people seem to treat them as an "add on" on rather than a destination, probably because they so easily reached via a short spur from the Weld trail and most hikers just quickly grab the summit as part of a loop over Gothics and Armstrong. And since the views are not the 360 degree ones you get on nearby Pyramid Peak or from the open ridge of Gothics, people seem to disparage the actual Sawteeth summit as "meh."
But Sawteeth are actually one of the absolute best hikes in all of the Adirondacks if you incorporate the Scenic Trail as part of your itinerary. It's a long, winding, out of the way route that the everyday aspiring 46er won't even consider -- they often seem to be too obsessed with finishing their list as quickly as possible. Fine by me. Means I get one of the best trails in the High Peaks all to myself.
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| Dam at Lower Ausable Lake, start of A.W. Weld Trail |
I pretty much had just that on a beautiful late summer day with little cloud cover and no wind - the kind of day when the parking lot at the AMR is filled up by 6 a.m. I decided to do a Sawteeth loop hike with an out and back to Pyramid and Gothics and got to the parking lot by 5:30 a.m., geared up, and was on the trail at 5:45 sharp. I used the Lake Road to do easy-on-the-legs miles up to the dam. The AMR gatekeeper passed me twice on a golf cart, once going up, and once going down, sharing a friendly "You have it all to yourself!" shout out to me as he headed back to his hut.
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| View back to Pyramid Peak from Gothics Shoulder |
He was right. I didn't see a soul for hours. I was alone for the entire ascent up the Weld Trail, including the always-popular Rainbow Falls. I was alone during a long break on the summit of Pyramid Peak, enjoying what some say is the greatest view in all of the ADKs. I then did a quick out and back over to the summit of Gothics and had that entire jaunt, as well as another short break on the Gothics summit boulder, all to myself as well. I finally saw the first hikers of the day when I retraced my route back to Pyramid Peak. Several people had come up in the time I was over at Gothics and were taking a break on the summit.
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| View of Marcy from Sawteeth Summit |
From there, I headed back down to the col between Pyramid and Sawteeth and made the climb to the Sawteeth summit. There, I ran into a couple of aspiring 46ers and their border collie. They were friendly and quick to share the fact that they weren't impressed with the summit. We talked for 5-10 minutes and then they started out on their long trek back to the Garden parking area, cursing the NO DOGS ALLOWED rule that prevented them from coming in from the AMR.
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| Ladder on Scenic Trail |
But the absolute best part of the day was the amazing descent from Sawteeth via the Scenic Trail. This trail goes right through the "teeth," those rocky vertical slabs that you can see from various points in the valley that give the peak its name. The trail is pretty much all vertical, with wooden ladders needed to negotiate some particularly harrowing precipices. All along the way, you come to various rocky outcroppings that overlook Lower Ausable Lake. At the first outlook on the descent, the lake is straight down, more than 1,000 feet below -- A pretty daunting sight when you know that the trail you are on is going to take you there. I took several breaks along the way, admiring the views of the lake from the various outlook points, and even had the chance to listen to the calls of a common loon as I got closer to the water's edge. Once it makes its way down to the lake, the trail pleasantly meanders right along the water's edge and back to the dam.
Although it was early afternoon on an absolutely perfect hiking day in late summer, I encountered only one hiker on the Scenic Trail in the three miles between the summit and the dam.
If ever there was an overlooked, "sleeper" hike in the ADK, the Scenic Trail is it.
Peaks: Gothics and Sawteeth (via Pyramid)
Elevation: 4,736 and 4,100 feet (4,000 feet Gain)
Distance: 15.2 miles round trip in 9 hours
Route: Loop combined with out-and-back, Lake Road, to A.W. Weld Trail to Pyramid and Gothics, reverse course to Trail 37 to Sawteeth, to Scenic Trail, to Lake Road.
Conditions: Sunny, 75 degrees F
