"This was an absolute grinder of a day. Busted out of the lean-to around 9:30am and didn't get back until twilight around 8pm. Ran/fast-packed and filtered water the whole way. I made a loop out east of Colden Lake area and was able to pick off 6 of the Adirondack 46'ers (46 peaks over 4,000') on this route - Colden, Tabletop, Marcy (the NY state HP), Gray, Skylight and Cliff. Running through deep mud, rocks, climbing some class 3 rock faces (Cliff was a bitch!) and hiking/running up and down tree line. Long ass day, but wouldn't have it any other way. " — wiweasel • Aug 26, 2024

"We had been advised to skip lake Arnold and the floating logs so this loop hike turned into an out and back on the van hovenburg trail. Summiting Marcy a second time on our return was fun and so was grey and our little “fall” skylight was an easy up and down" — Anurseandapainter • Jun 21, 2023

"Got to the Loj at 6:15 am, lot was already full. Had to park about 0.75 miles down the road, added some distance to the overall hike. Easy hike to Marcy Dam, Lake Arnold trail was a good climb. Descended to the floating logs, which were tricky and wet. Mount Marcy climb was a long ascent to the Gray Peak herd path, which was also steep and muddy with a few technical scrambles. Gray summit was mostly wooded but had a few lookouts with views all around of Whiteface, Colden, Marcy, Dix, etc. Descended to the Gray junction then made our way to Skylight junction. Trail up to the summit was basically a creek bed, a little less wet and difficult than Gray's ascent. Skylight summit was wide open with amazing 360 views of all the surrounding ranges, one of the best summit views in the Adirondacks. Returned the same way we came. Overall an ideal weather, but long, wet, and muddy day." — gregoryskiba • Sep 26, 2021

"Hiked in the day before. Stayed at Colden Dam lean-tos. Was really rainy and terrible. After that the weather was beautiful. Left camp at 8:00 am. Summited Marcy at 4:02 pm. We hiked in from Colden Lake. We had a slow hiker so the trail took a bit longer. Had lunch and dealt with an emergency with the camp I worked at. Fun. Summited Skylight at 4:50 pm. Windy as heck. Quick going up and slow going down. Quicker than I thought it would be. We were gonna hike up Gray Peak but it was too late and we were losing daylight and needed to get back to camp. Hike gang." — mmeyerpflug • Aug 2, 2021

"After Redfield, we ate lunch at the Uphill brook campsite only to find a man had decided that of all the trees in this campsite area and in the entire wilderness, he wanted to pitch his hammock within arms reach of James' hammock. "You better not snore," I muttered as I walked by, not knowing he was taking a nap in there. There were open campsites around ours, but for some reason, this guy decided to just camp within ours! We pushed it out of our minds and then proceeded to Gray and Skylight. Gray was a steep, rooty herdpath to the top. View was good but we didn't stay long because we also had to do Skylight. We saw lots of people around Lake Tear of the Clouds. Skylight was our final 46er peak. The view was great and a nice guy at the top took our picture. We finally had good weather and it was sunny. On the way down, I convinced James to stay one more night at Uphill brook. This was a big mistake. The man who decided to pitch his hammock about 1 foot from James' snored loudly ALL NIGHT. Even when you hike 8 miles into the backcountry, you can still be kept up all night by someone else. We didn't sleep a wink. What a way to end the 46." — hanawalton • Jul 28, 2021

"This hike with Meenu for my peaks 21 and 22 and her 44 and 45 turned into the longest and most challenging one so far. We started at 4 am and it was cold and there were a few snowflakes here and there. The first few miles to through Marcy Dam toward Lake Arnold went well, but we were really ready for it to get light. It was wet and muddy everywhere and the logs/boards to cross were very slick. We had to negotiate the famous floating log area and it was not passable, so we had to navigate around which was still extremely wet and difficult. Meenu submerged her already wet foot (boots were leaking) and we were really concerned about her for the rest of the hike. The conditions really slowed us down. We got to the junction for Gray and started up, knowing we were taking a long time. This was a tough ascent with barely marked trails and some boulders and steep spots. I slipped down one big rock face that we should not have gone down that approach - it would have been fine in summer but there was ice and navigating a crack in the boulder did not work out. Fortunately my slide ended up in a muddy but ok landing, but it was very scary. Shortly after we ran into a couple of women we had see..." — kvander • Oct 25, 2020

"Hike with Gray (first) and Marcy (last) on a beautiful, sunny day - had all the summits to myself and only saw hikers passing other direction on the trail and a few far behind me heading to other peaks or the peaks in different orders. 20mi round trip taking the avalanche lake (scenic) route." — ionahscully • Sep 5, 2020

"Went from Upper Works to the Loj because I wanted to explore all of the above treeline of Marcy. Trip to Gray was great, including the climb down the ledge early on. Went up to Skylight where the blue skies were gone, it turned cold and I could see rain in the distance off to the west. Climbed steeply up the southern approach to Marcy. Arrived on the summit of Marcy for #44 in the rain. Stayed for only a couple of minutes then headed down while assisting a hiker who had lost the two women in the group she was hiking with. She was reunited with her hiking mates just below the summit crags and then the sun came out. I returned the 1/2 mile back up to the summit of Marcy where I could see my finish line in the distance: Whiteface. Stayed up at the summit to see the full 360 of mountains that I had climbed and had a bite to eat. Was so pumped that my ADK journey was soon coming to a close." — JMindlin12463 • Jul 29, 2020

"Kristin's hike for her final 2 summits with Dave and Paula. A beautiful day with lots of people with MASKS on the trails. 18+ miles in 13 hours! Left the house at 3AM. The ADK Loj parking lot was filling up fast! Not many dogs on the trail. Kristin posed for a flag picture!!" — lfrancois • Jul 18, 2020

"Three knuckleheads tried to do a loop of Gray, Skylight and Marcy in a high water situation do to recent rains and snow melt. Almost every trail was a stream including the Skylight spur. Tedious day of boulder hopping with wet feet practically the whole day. Fortunately we got splendid views from both Marcy and Skylight which was great for the two knuckleheads who did these for the first time. Left Loj PA at 7am and returned close to 7:30 pm. We bailed on Gray, our first peak, as it was it was already afternoon and we still had the other two peaks to do and we had to do Marcy in order to get back to our car." — Nimblefoot • Oct 23, 2019