Exploring new hiking opportunities near Franklin Falls

An easy bushwhack on former logging roads in Taylor Pond Wild Forest near Bloomingdale’s Franklin Falls Road

By Tim Rowland

A new brown and gold Department of Environmental Conservation sign that pops up on some lost and lonely roadside is catnip to hikers for whom “t’ain’t never been there before” is reason enough to explore new ground.

Last year I noted maybe three such signs in the vicinity of Franklin Falls east of Bloomingdale, advertising easements in the Taylor Pond Wild Forest. I couldn’t swear they hadn’t always been there, but they looked pretty fresh, so I went to the DEC maps to see the extent of these lands and what the bushwhacking opportunities might be.

This was on the cusp of hunting season, so not wishing to go into the woods dressed like a 200-pound Baltimore Oriole I pushed it back the schedule. Then came the holidays, then a brutal stretch of constant wind, which is to winter cold what humidity is to summer heat.  

Finally though, a beautiful Friday made an appearance, with blue skies, soft fluffy snow, no wind and temperatures that soared all the way up to 22.

The tract my brother Bruce and I chose was called Plank Road East, where there’s a wide pull-out on the right (heading east) on Franklin Falls Road about a mile past the Franklin Falls dam.

The easement appears in brown on the east side of Franklin Falls Pond on the DEC map and backs up against the McKenzie Wilderness. So technically you could park at the Plank Road tract and hike all the way to McKenzie Mountain — although if you were to do that, you’re just a little strange.

There are tempting targets in the form of a few low mountains in the McKenzie Wilderness, but on a short winter afternoon our goal was simply to check out as much of the easement as we could.

Although this is a bushwhack, probably 85% of our hike was on well-defined logging roads whose ugly scars, mud pits and ruts were blessedly disguised under the snow. After squeezing around a gate we proceeded due west past a couple of logging landings and then bearing south around the east side of a small knob.

Our target was the high point on the easement that topped out at about 1,900 feet a little more than a mile from the road. The skies cleared to an aggressive blue, providing the beautiful and familiar Adirondack backdrop to conical evergreens draped in white snow. From our vantage point a mile or so on the distance, we could see that there had been an “event,” on the western slopes of Whiteface, I take it, involving some heavy snow and heavier winds in the form of updrafts or down drafts or some kind of drafts that created a vertical whirlpool that welded the snow to the trees much the way snow shot out a snowblower sticks to a wall. 

Even hardwood boughs and trunks were frosted with 3 inches of snow, creating quite an unusual and attractive effect. By contrast, the east side of Whiteface had significantly less snowfall from the recent storm — and was 10 degrees warmer on this particular day.

We continued on as we gained elevation, following the tracks of a deer who seemed to have known where he was going, and always being availed of a logging road that was heading our way. 

After bisecting a cedar swamp and a nice balsam and spruce forest we turned left on the logging road that headed uphill toward the summit, such as it was. The road held out for all but the last few hundred feet of the climb, which then became a genuine bushwhack through open hardwoods.

Not so open that you had a great view, unfortunately, although through the trees we could see the profiles of Esther and Whiteface, looking as if they had been spray-foamed by the recent storm.

One last push got us to a charming hemlock summit, which was reward enough, even though it lacked the long views. It had no name on the map, so we anointed it N’est Pas la Vue Mountain. I assume that will catch on. 

We descended into a saddle and then popped up on the next little knob, which had some obstructed views of Franklin Falls Pond down below. Yet another logging road had breached the little saddle, so we followed it back down and eventually it connected with our route up.

On checking the analytics, we found the hike had led us a total of 2.5 miles with, even though it felt like more, a lowly elevation gain of less than 300 feet — something of a disappointment to a hardened mountaineer such as myself.

While the easement itself might not have a lot of a wow factor, it is highly strategic, opening up a world of bushwhacks to some mountains in the 2,500-foot range and exploration of the south side of Franklin Falls pond and the Saranac River.

And the easement itself is a nice little leg-stretcher with plenty of logging roads to guide your way, and a virtually guarantee that you will have the whole place entirely to yourself.