After my morning warm-up on the Three Sisters, I headed over to the Black Snake Mountain Trail to take on Mount Mohawk, Blacksnake Mountain, and the entire Black Snake Mountain loop which briefly crosses into Pennsylvania before heading back into New York. This is the second time that I completed this loop, but didn't make any side journeys up the mountains the first time around. Now that I'm a little more experienced with off-trail hiking, I felt more confident adding a little more adventure to the standard trail that 99.9999% of hikers do here.
Mount Mohawk, despite its relatively lower elevation, was vastly more difficult than Blacksnake Mountain. The steep incline up the side of the mountain was no joke -- going up or down! I was on all fours heading up Mohawk's snow-covered eastern face and had to resort to glissading a few times on my way down.
Blacksnake Mountain was longer, but much easier. There wasn't much noticeable elevation change, just a lot of snowshoeing around the trees.
Embarrassingly, I underestimated how much water I needed for the first time in years, forcing me to procure and filter my own water from a running stream. At least I had this option, unlike the last time I ran out of water on South Sandia Peak in the New Mexican desert.
Finally, if anyone in WNY, WPA, or any other areas near Allegany State Park wish to summit Three Sisters, Mount Mohawk, and Blacksnake Mountain without worrying too much about routefinding, feel free to follow my tracks all the way to their respective summits before the next significant snowfall or snowmelt. And then you can stand in awe of my totally awesome trailblazing skills (lol!) Or you can blaze your own path, which I guarantee will be a lot more rewarding!