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On Saturday morning I hiked Hurricane Mountain (3964ft) with a group from AMC’s MLK weekend in the Adirondacks. This is 5.0 mile out and back hike with 2000 feet of elevation gain via the red blazed trail off route 9N in Keene, New York. Hurricane Mountain is not a “high peak” but it offers 360 degree views from the top making it well worth the 2.5 mile hike up.

Getting started is always the coldest part of a hike like this, leaving the heated car and getting snowshoes affixed correctly with my liner gloves still on is always slow going this early In the winter hiking season.

The starting temperature minus 4 degrees and sunny. Once on the trail I got warmed up quickly but not enough to really take too many layers off. The trail went through some nice forested areas covered in the beautiful snow. The hike started out with a gradual ascent and soon got much steeper towards the summit.

I took my snowshoes off and bear booted it up to the bald summit. After a few minutes admiring the great views and photo ops I headed back down and strapped on my snowshoes and headed back down the trail. Going down is always pleasant after climbing for a few hours but soon becomes exhausting in its own special way.

After finishing the hike myself and some other hikers in the group grabbed lunch at the Noon-Mark diner in Keene. And no hiking outing in Keene is complete without stopping by the local gear shop, the Mountaineer!

With day one of MLK weekend in the books I headed back to the ADK Trail Inn and got cleaned up for dinner with the other 30 hikers in our group at the ADK Cafe in town. We all sat around the table and talked about our hikes, adventures and mishaps on the trail over good food.