Hoffman Notch Trail: A rewarding, remote spring hike

An end-to-end jaunt on an understated route

By Tim Rowland

Pity the wilderness that has no overlook, no trail leading up to a dazzling mountain summit with infinite Adirondack views. Certainly any wilderness worth its salt requires legions of selfie-taking hikers plying its hills to be worthy of the name.

Until the recent completion of a trail up and over the thoroughly satisfying Jones Hill lookout, the Hoffman Notch Wilderness was infrequently considered a hiking destination. Trails at the southern edge of its 38,000-acre expanse lead to a couple of ponds, and the everloving species known as the intrepid bushwhacker can occasionally be sighted doing battle on sprucey ridgelines for reasons no sensible person could comprehend.

But as the mountains begin to warm and the forest floors begin to green up and burst forth with subtly vibrant wildflowers, there is a trail in Hoffman Notch well worth the effort, even though you will spend most of your time looking up, not down, at the Adirondack splendor.

This is the, appropriately enough, Hoffman Notch Trail, that for this report was hiked in spring 2024 with Dave McNamara, a friend from Westport, and Explorer staffer Mike Lynch, who snapped photos.

Although you could almost swing a cat and hit Interstate 87, the trail is walled off from civilization by Texas Ridge and mighty Hoffman Mountain, which falls just 300 feet short of 4,000-foot Adirondack immortality. Hikers are few, and this deep valley feels as remote is if you had just been dropped off deep in the bush by some chartered Alaska Cessna.

A remote route

Along with having no overlook, the 8-mile Hoffman Notch Trail is likely generally avoided because it requires some logistical planning, since it is a point-to-point hike with the northern end on Blue Ridge Road west of North Hudson, and the southern terminus on Loch Muller Road west of Schroon Lake.

It also has a bit of a “there be dragons” reputation, owing to a trail that can be faint in spots and subject to blowdown, uncertain water crossings and a particularly industrious set of beavers that appear capable of completing more tasks in an hour than ChatGPT.

The only group more industrious, in fact, is the Adirondack 46er club, which on the day we traveled the route had wrestled the problematic northern end of the trail into shipshape condition.

RELATED READING: Exploring the untouched wilderness of Hoffman Notch

Particularly at its midpoint, it is true that the trail can disappear in spots, and we indeed had to hunt around for the pale yellow markers that appear frequently enough to assure hikers that some human has been there before them.

But please. The trail extends along the bottom of a V-shaped valley, and getting lost would require a herculean effort of scaling the tall mountains that rise to the left and the right. This is one time that the path of least resistance will guarantee success

Hikers’ logistics

For those who do take the plunge, south-to-north is generally preferred, because you enjoy a net descent of about 450 feet. From the south, the trail descends through the first one-half mile then begins a long, gradual rise to an elevation of 1,750 feet reached at the 5-mile mark. For the next 2 miles, it descends 500 feet before leveling out for the balance of the trip.

If you do as we did, you will leave one of your cars at the northern trailhead on Blue Ridge Road west of North Hudson, 5.7 miles west of Northway Exit 29. The trailhead is on the south side of the road, but parking is on the north. Then, drive to Schroon Lake and take Hoffman Road to a right on Potash at 5.2 miles, which leads to a right on Loch Muller Road, which leads to—a great big ditch. This inconvenient washout added nearly three-quarters of a mile to the advertised 7.4 mile distance, but in the early May sunshine it was a better day for walking than driving, so we did not mind too much.

The lore of Loch Muller

Loch Muller itself has an interesting history, the classic mix of Adirondack business and pleasure, mixing rustic inns that were base camps for hunting and fishing with industries that bludgeoned the landscape in pursuit of any raw material that would sell. Before the woolly adelgid, hemlocks were destroyed by tanneries that would strip the bark and cast the bare logs aside to rot. So too were logging operations and iron forges, although much of the commercial activity had died out by the turn of the 20th century.

The obligatory bit of Loch Muller lore—and if you have already heard this 20,000 times, the Explorer sincerely apologizes—revolves around a white pine planted by a young Paschal Warren in 1845 when he and the tree were both aged 12. In 1920, Warren, by now a sentimental octogenarian, penned the sign: “Woodsman Spare That tree, Touch Not a Single Bough, In Youth It Protected Me, And I’ll Protect It Now.”

Big Marsh

At its high point, the trail arrives at the aptly named Big Marsh. More accurately described as a big pond, Big Marsh is set off by the high mountains to the east. Herd paths down to the pond/marsh are a bit disruptive to the through route, which we believe was set back some distance from the pond to the west—although this was not conclusively proved. Pressing on, the trail reappeared along a trickle of a stream that was now running to the north.

For people with one vehicle, Big Marsh is certainly a worthy destination, but you would miss out on an almost night-and-day change in the surroundings.

Dave noticed it first, how the rocks, instead of the copper and bronze to the south, had taken on the chalky color of bleached bones, first as washes of gravel, then as larger boulders as the trail descended to the north. The landscape was more dramatic here, with the brook plunging and crashing down the chasm as steep crags rising to great heights patrolled by screeching raptors. Maybe there were dragons after all.

A rewarding end

One improvement, though: The impediment of two problematic water crossings mentioned in some trail guides no longer exists because the trail has been rerouted in this section to remain on the same side of the brook. 

Further on, there is more evidence of old logging operations, with rusty, unidentifiable metal, discarded beer cans and what I have been told is the remains on an old Linn tractor, one of the early iconic machines used as the industry was transitioning away from horses and mules.

One final treat is the attractive view over the Sand Pond wetland and brook before the trail pops out on Blue Ridge Road. We did not see any moose, we did not see any dragons, but we did see a splendid Adirondack backcountry trail that deserves much more attention than it gets.