Seventh and final peak of an amazing day exploring the Great Range of the Adirondacks. After my brother turned around at top of Saddleback (aka bailed), I decided to press onward for one final peak. It started out with the gnarliest section of the day -- descending the rock slabs of the west face of Saddleback. After that it was a steep, ledgy climb up to the top of Basin. On the way up, passed a couple of guys who were en route to finish their 46ers with Saddleback, a fitting final tough ascent. Congrats guys.

No one was on the Basin summit when I arrived, a private view of Haystack & Marcy in the late fall afternoon light. Admired the view as I chugged my last water, ate my last bar. The plan had been to backtrack to Saddleback and try to catch up with my brother, but the difficulties of the trail behind me made this mentally impossible. So I decided to take the long way out, down the west slopes of Basin. On the way down I passed a solo older man climbing up and asked if it got steep ahead. He just said, "Yup. Couple steep sections." A minute later the trail plummeted down ridiculously. Man, ADK hikers are hardcore.

After climbing up and out of a hole, I started a wet, rocky, rooty descent on the Slant Rock Trail. Filtered some water when finally reached Johns Brook; that revived me a bit. The hike to Johns Brook Lodge wasn't as easy as planned; any uneven footing had grown annoying in my fatigue. No joke -- the last 3.5 miles on the very easy & flat Johns Brook Trail were the hardest of the day. I completely ran out of energy -- at one point I would count 60 steps at a time and then see if the blue dot moved on my phone's route map. I was so grim. But at least I finished honorably in complete darkness without putting on the headlamp, a true Day Hike.

All in all, an 11 hr day over 20 miles, 6700 vert, and 7 peaks on the most rugged trails I've ever hiked in the Northeast. An all-time classic!