First Brother: A secluded summit in Brant Lake

The hike to First Brother near Brant Lake’s northeastern edge is a challenging Adirondack winter hike

By Tim Rowland

Better than a year ago, maybe two, a friend from Brant Lake was good enough to give me a fistful of hiking ideas in her neck of the woods, and up until now, do you know how many I had gotten around to doing? Less than one.

I’d made plans, and sometimes all but gotten out the door, but something always prevented successful execution. Finally in early February, though, the stars aligned and I scurried off to a little knob called First Brother on the northeastern end of beautiful Brant Lake.

The Three Brothers

If you have planned your day well, or are in the longer, more forgiving days of summer, there are three brothers in total and conquering all three in a day is quite doable.

Technically, the Three Brothers (not to be confused with the High Peaks Brothers) are all bushwhacks, but there is a herd path up to the First Brother that I feel sure is a piece of cake in summer, but in winter is not even a scone. Still, if you are moderately comfortable off-trail this is a pretty straightforward ridge climb.

Bushwhacking the trail

There is no trailhead to speak of, but since cars come around this lonely country road about as often as drywall subcontractors, parking won’t be an issue.

To get to the trail take Northway Exit 25 (Brant Lake, Hague and Chestertown). Go 8.5 miles to a left on Palisades Road. Go 0.65 miles to the only utility pole on the right-hand side of the road, for some reason. You will also be clued in by a dangling pink ribbon and some yellow blazes, marking the boundary of the First Brother Primitive Area.

Related reading: Following the links between North, South Boquet mountains

Even with all this, spotting the trail isn’t a slam dunk in snow cover. Fortunately there were some footprints in the light powder, so I followed them up a rise to a steep(ish) pitch where some ropes offer vertical assistance.

The snow was too deep for spikes, not deep enough for snowshoes, and too rocky for skis. So about $1,000 of good equipment rested unemployed in the trunk of the Silver Flash while I made do with a couple of ski poles to maintain balance and parry beech whips.

Innovative trail markers

The trail to the First Brother is marked, but not really. Every so often you will notice a snip of red or pink ribbon, including maybe my all-time favorite trail marker, two small sticks tied daintily with pink ribbon and jabbed into the snow.

If you’re a hemlock fan you will love this trail, which pierces a charming evergreen wood throughout its lower reaches. It follows the yellow blazes of the property line until, at just shy of 0.1 miles, it makes a 90-degree turn to the left.

That is to say the trail turns, but I didn’t, since there is nothing to suggest a change of course was in the offing. In my defense, I was still following the aforementioned bootprints, assuming they were headed to the summit. They weren’t. As they started to return to the valley, I came to understand I was on my own — no great problem, since the ridge is obvious and easy to follow.

At some point I noticed I was back on the trail, which skirts a rock wall to the left, and then passes behind that same outcropping with some decent views of Brant Lake before making a last steep pitch to the summit, which it reaches at 1.1 miles and 780 feet of elevation gain.

The view is glorious, both of the lake and the familiar profiles of Crane and Gore to the southwest. The day was cold but clear, and oddly the wind dissipated the higher I got. It was still mid-afternoon and — did I mention there were two more brothers?

When some hikers leave the house the last thing they hear is “See you later, have fun.” For others — and it can’t be said the reputation is unearned — the last thing we hear is “Don’t do anything stupid.”

Turning around on a brilliant day was hard, but necessary, and in short order I was back on Palisades Road — and already planning for summer and two more brothers.