Knob Lock Mountain: Less traffic, more adventure

Late summer is ideal time for hiking Adirondack herd paths

By Tim Rowland

Late August/early September is a good time of year to hike the myriad of unmarked herd paths in the Adirondacks, because it’s after a summer of use, making these trails more visible, but before the falling of autumn leaves, which causes them to largely vanish.

An excellent example is Knob Lock Mountain, whose trailhead (as such) is more or less across Route 9N from the mega-popular Hurricane. This time of year the trail, though unmarked, is obvious bottom to top, and, better yet, is in much better shape than anything you’ll find in the trampled-to-death High Peaks, its tread a soft dark ribbon in the duff.

But …

If you have driven 9N in this neck of the woods and eyeballed K.L., and performed some rudimentary engineering calculations, you have probably observed that the height axis well exceeds the length axis, meaning that there is a considerable ascent over a short amount of distance. 

I will offer that it is not quite as bad as it looks, but it is still bloody steep in spots and includes a bare-rock scramble at the top. 

To find the route, if you are heading toward Elizabethtown, look for two green, waist high utility posts on the left side of the road about a quarter mile past the Hurricane trailhead. The Knob Lock trail is directly across the road, and although unmarked it is obvious as it plunges into the wood.

Hop across two streams in quick succession, and then follow the herd path along the beautiful little brook to your right. Very soon the trail leaves the brook and climbs steeply up a hogback to a point where you will be on the rim of a wooded canyon with the water chattering away maybe 100 feet or more down below. 

The forest here is a lovely, open stand of red spruce, white cedar and blue birch. Actually it is not blue birch. There is no such thing. But “yellow” doesn’t have the same poetic resonance.

Forests are interesting things, though. At one point in the forest floor there is a thick swath of little maple seedlings, maybe 10 yards long and five yards wide, with no mature maple in sight. And virtually no other maple seedlings in sight, either. What rogue air current might have caught a couple hundred rogue seeds and deposited them in this one section of an otherwise birch and evergreen forest? And what effect might this one lone breath of wind have on the makeup of this forest a century from now?

Oh well, enough of that. All the hiker need care about is that the climb moderates a bit at this point until it sidles alongside a small cliff with gouts of frothy water spilling over the top. Soon you come to a real falls, Knob Lock Mountain Falls, which is an impressive cascade of maybe 15 to 20 feet, depending on whether you are better at measuring or lying.

There is a bit of a herd path leading to the falls, but the real trail turns away from the cascade and continues to climb to a small stream crossing at 0.5 miles. At 0.8 miles it crosses a (usually) dry rivulet and then steepens again before entering a blowdown field from some years back that has for the most part been hacked through by now.

At the 1 mile mark you have climbed 1,000 feet, which is not chopped liver. (By my own subjective standards, 750 feet of elevation gain per mile is what I consider to be a moderate climb.) The woods by now are almost all spruce and evergreens, and the climb eases a bit as it approaches the saddle between Knob Lock and Tripod, which is reached at 1.25 miles.

There is level ground here, but if you relish a good, stout climb, one glance at the ole topo map will assure you that this is your lucky day. Even better, the trail actually loses a little hard-earned elevation as it winds around the summit to the east, meaning you can, if you wish, get a nice running start.

This last pitch to the summit is much like a push to a High Peak, although it is significantly shorter. After clawing up a couple tenths of a mile you will arrive at the first real overlook in the form of a rock ledge that you follow to the end, and then pick up the trail again before arriving at the base of a broken cliff that offers up some delightful scrambling to the top. Or almost the top.

From here you have interesting views of the Great Range to the south, including Marcy, Haystack and Little Haystack, Algonquin and some others.

But to be official, keep following the trail through the balsam to a bigger expanse of rock and a cairn marking the summit. Great views are to be had of Hurricane, Rt. 9N winding over Spruce Hill and to the east, Owl’s Head and Lake Champlain.

A word of caution: retracing your steps across the open rock, through the scrub and down the cliffs to get back on the herd path is a bit tricky, so use a GPS tracking app or pay close attention to little landmarks that will allow you to find your way back.

The 3,200-foot summit is reached in 1.6 miles with a 1,550-foot climb. It’s easily done in half a day.

Maybe best of all, and I say this as the small, petty man that I am, you get a birds-eye view of the Hurricane trailhead way down below, and the 500,000 cars parked there. But for better or worse, there is unlikely to be anyone up there with you with whom to share the laugh.