Discovering Carl: The unassuming mountain that rises above Poke-o-Moonshine

Key takeaway: Don’t underestimate the tame-sounding Carl Mountain

By Tim Rowland

From the tower on Poke-o-Moonshine, the gaze naturally turns to the horizon, where in the distance are the visual treats of Vermont’s Greens, Canada’s Laurentians and the Adirondack High Peaks.

But if you look to the west and lower your eyes a bit you will see, close by, a rocky hump that at 2,238 feet is actually a bit higher than Poke-O, although still a dwarf compared to Whiteface and the Stephensons further west. 

This mountain is named Carl, which isn’t likely to inspire many alpinists. In the world of mountainous place-names, if you have the Matterhorn, Kilimanjaro, Denali — and Carl. It’s not a fair fight.

Yet if you want to put this unassuming little trooper in the running for the finest view in the Northeastern Adirondacks, you will have a serious argument. The catch is that — although from Poke-O it appears you can almost reach out and touch it — it’s not that simple.

A bushwhack from Poke-O-Moonshine

Carl has no trail, as you might expect. Who in the name of Old Mountain Phelps would want to be forever known forevermore as having cut a trail up “Carl?” There are snippets of herd paths here and there, and random cairns that perhaps mean something to somebody, but they tend to be about as helpful as an upside down rain gauge.

You could reach Carl by hiking the ridge from Poke-O-Moonshine, but much of the elevation gain from Poke-O is lost in the deep saddle between it and Carl, so you’re effectively climbing two mountains instead of one.

Instead, start from the southern Observers trailhead for Poke-O-Moonshine and at about three-quarters of a mile you will reach a rather elaborate barricade signaling the trail is leaving the old woods road and turning right. Shortly thereafter you will cross a little bridge and the trail will jog right again, as it rejoins the old road. Shortly thereafter, between a couple of water bars, you will see a white birch with a large scar near its base. This is the place to leave civilization  and head left into the brush at about an 11 o’clock angle.

You will wade uphill through a few feet of scrub until another easily followed trail magically appears. This route is apparently an ancient driveway to an old homestead whose remnants will be visible later on. 

The path, which will be your guide for about a mile, is easy to follow as it parallels a brook down below on your left. I say that, but you know how it is. Herd paths are like those subatomic particles whose behavior can change just by being observed. If you’re walking along a herd path in the depths of the forest you’re fine as long as you’re not thinking about it. It’s only when you stop to wonder whether you’re still on the path that all trace of it disappears from beneath your feet. Who was it that walked on the water and was OK until he looked down? Either St. Peter or Wile-E-Coyote, I forget, but it’s the same principle.

The herd path will grow fainter the further you go, but in the meantime you will pass stone fences, the foundation of an old bank barn and random piles of stone that my brother Bruce suggested might have had some transcendental significance, like Stonehenge. Or the farmers could have just been clearing their fields.

You will have been gently gaining elevation all this time, and at a little over a mile and a half in, your route will turn to the west (left) aiming for the low ground between Deerfield Mountain and Carl. It’s here that you will find more in the way of old woods roads and cairns and faint trails that you might or might not find helpful.

On the topo map, you’ll notice a drainage coming down from the east side of Carl, and, although it was steep and rocky, it was a dependable handrail that we followed as it bent to the northeast. At the top, Carl stood to our northwest, so that’s the direction we took, more or less on a straight line. Where we encountered towering cliffs — those rock outcroppings that looked so inviting from the distance of Poke-O were less so when meeting them in person.

We doggedly fought on, but it wasn’t easy. Probing the cliffs we found little slits here and there to climb through, hoping and praying that our route wouldn’t dead-end against another impassable rock face. Carl, the mountain with the name of an accountant, was fierce in defense of its summit. Cliffs  to the left, crags to the right, small windows of opportunity clogged with saplings and spruce.

When trekking in Norway once, our guide (name of Bjorn, no lie) had pointed to a mountain of bare rock, its summit rose to a sharp point, then, like the beak or a raptor, curled sharply down. Bjorn said a poet had taken one look at this intimidating eminence and penned an emotional ode to “a mountain that would never be climbed.” 

What the poet didn’t know was that the backside of the mountain from bottom to top was no steeper than a wheelchair ramp. Anyway, I have since heard from a person who knows that Carl is somewhat similar. So if you’re willing to hike on the contour another tenth of a mile or two further north before fishhooking back south to the summit, you might be spared a good crack on your dome as you’re hoisting yourself through protrusion-studded rock chimneys.

Whatever. When you get to the summit by any means, you will forget about the journey. First up is a unique look at the tower on Poke-O with the backdrop of Camel’s Hump and Vermont’s Greens. Lake Champlain glistens, with towns and camps on the shore, and in the foreground is a slice of the Adirondack Northway. Yet all this humanity is forgotten from the western overlook, where no hand of mankind is apparent. Perhaps the most interesting view is the great chasm between Long Tom and Bald mountains known as The Gulf, and the sheer cliffs of Eagle Mountain. The summit has plenty of open rock, with blueberries and reindeer lichen, stubby and scattered evergreens and old, long-dead logs the color of bleached bones.

Thinking we might find a better route, we descended further to the south, and while there weren’t as many cliffs it was still ungodly steep, so unless you enjoy this sort of scrambling, the gentler northern option might be best, even if it adds to the 5-mile round trip (with 1,500-feet in elevation gain — that we experienced. But whichever way you climb it, the meekly named Carl is worth it.