With Jeff and Meenu - peaks 24 and 25 of ADK 46 for me (and 2nd and 20th of round 2 for Meenu and Jeff). We left home about 3 am (a late start for us!) and arrived at the trailhead around 6:30 am. We took a bit of time to eat and take a power nap (Jeff) and then started off. It was a beautiful clear morning, about 35 degrees - it has been unseasonably warm and there was no snow or ice to speak of at the start. We headed out about 6:50 am to start the climb towards Giant and Rocky Peak Ridge. From AllTrails recent recordings, people had done the hike in 6-8 hours recently so we went in hoping for that, but I was also mentally rounding up to 9-10. I had also been well informed that this hike was steep from the start and I had read a few things and my friends had hinted that the route to RPR was "tricky" so I was also prepared for it to be hard. And it was, but I really liked this hike. The trek up was steep but there were switchbacks and some fun scrambles. We almost immediately got too hot and shed the outer layer - it was definitely a day of taking gloves and layers on and off.. The trail was clear for about the first hour or so and then we began to encounter some ice. We got to a rocky ledge and decided it was time to put spikes on, which we definitely needed from there on as the ice was significant and there was snow as we got higher. The views all the way up were gorgeous and there were some great colors from the sunrise and then the fabulous clear blue skies. We encountered a couple of people who told us they had intended to do another hike and someone had seen a bear on the Lake Road that wasn't backing down, so they changed plans and were doing Giant.
It was about 2 hrs 45 minutes to the junction, where Giant is .1 miles to the left and RPR about 1 mile to the right. We decided on the way up that we'd do RPR first and then come back and go up Giant. I immediately could see what they were talking about (or so I thought) as the trail headed down steeply and I could see that RPR looked really far. We ran into a guy who told us he was turning back because of the ice conditions - specifically the icy waterfall below - that he didn't want to risk falling. Meenu couldn't believe he had come this far and was going to abandon peak #40 for him, and offered that he could go with us. But he said he "wasn't feeling it" today and wished us well. Every icy patch we saw we were wondering if this was it, but then we saw what he was talking about. The ice waterfall was no joke! We found someone had tied a rope - very thin like string/cord - but it didn't look very secure. Finally Jeff figured out a way to climb down using a tree that we could hang on to and climb down the trunk and roots. Still a test of the spikes as well as our climbing and strength. I could see why the guy had decided to turn back being by himself. Not too long after that we ran into another guy who was also turning back - and this guy was the one who had seen the bear on the Lake Road! He was worried about getting back up the ice waterfall and had decided just to play it safe and head back rather than go all the way to the summit. We were still heading down at that point, but it went fairly quickly and then a brief leveling and we were going back up steeply again. It took us another half hour or so to get to the summit of RPR – where we arrive at about 4 hours 5 minutes in, around 11 am. It was beautiful up there. I was starving at this point and it was nice to sit and rest and eat a good sandwich (rotisserie chicken and brie cheese with pickles that I pulled together from Thanksgiving leftovers). I ate that and a pear and a kind bar.

We headed back down RPR, seeing how far and how high Giant looked in the distance, and knowing we had that steep climb up including the ice waterfall. The descent portion went pretty quickly and then the climb was slow. Things were really melting though with the sun and lots of areas were better than they trip down. We made it back up the trees at the ice waterfall, just a tricky start to find the initial footing and then climb the roots. I was happy to have some rock climbing experience to fall back on for this hike, but we also decided ice axes would be a good thing for the next winter hike. We kept going up slowly, this was the hardest and steepest part of the hike. I slipped at one point and scraped my shin hard against a sticking out tree branch but fortunately avoided any serious injury. We got back to the junction at about 5.5 hours in and headed up the short climb to the summit of Giant. This was relatively easier and quick and I was so glad we had done the hard part first. Again the view was amazing. It was windy up there and I had taken my coat off again earlier and was really ready to put it back on. We took another little rest trying to shelter from the wind a bit and enjoy the view. A few people arrived at the summit while we were there and we saw several more on our trip back down. Surprisingly several of them not wearing spikes, and we were already kind of pushing it ourselves to get back before the sun started setting so we hoped they would be okay. The descent took us another 2.5 hours to navigate slowly down the steep and icy/wet terrain. The rock slides were tough being wet and/or icy. One of them I was ended up sliding on an ice patch as I was trying to kind of crab walk down and thought I was going to slide all the way down the mountain. I caught myself, and was able to navigate sideways a little to a safe spot. It was scary for a second and I thought I was ok, but later realized I had kind of jammed my shoulder stopping myself – it started to ache on the way out. We were happy to get past most of the ice and take off our spikes, and then get to the switchbacks which made it a lot easier than the rock slides. We saw the Giant’s Washbasin and it was just .7 more miles left. We got to the car 8.5 hours after we started, at about 3:30 pm. A little sore and tired but happy to be done with a fun and challenging hike. I enjoyed this one and would like to do it again in summer conditions, I think it had a lot of fun elements.