Marble Mountain: An underrated Adirondack hike

A former ski resort, Wilmington’s Marble Mountain offers hidden history and dramatic winter views

By Tim Rowland

“Hey, let’s go climb Marble Mountain!” are words that are spoken about as often as “Look, I think that tornado is going to miss the trailer park!” So I rise today in defense of Marble Mountain, and to make the case that it is a worthy destination in its own right, and not just a forgettable waypoint on the trails that lead to the High Peaks of Marcy and Esther.

The rise and fall of Marble Ski Area

There was a time, a brief time, when Marble looked to be one of the preeminent mountains in the Northeast. On the eve of World War II, the Adirondacks had fallen behind the rest of the region as a downhill skiing destination and, wrote Phil Johnson in Skiing History magazine,  “Marble was to be New York’s answer to major Eastern alpine ski hills, like Stowe in Vermont and Cannon in New Hampshire, that were built in the 1930s.”

But it was the wrong answer. About everything that could go wrong did, but the main problem was the isolation of the Whiteface Range. With no other high mountains around, winds roared unimpeded up the western face of the range, creating ferocious downdrafts that roared even louder on their way back down the eastern slopes — and blowing off all the snow in the process.

Marble opened in 1948 and closed 10 years after that. It was, wrote the Adirondack Daily Enterprise as quoted in “Lost Ski Areas of the Northern Adirondacks” by Jeremy Davis, “a failure so egregious as to damage the reputation of the entire state as a winter tourist area … and has made the Adirondack region something of a laughingstock.” 

Well, we wish the editor had told us what he really thought, but all was well that ended well because the more thoughtfully sited and designed Whiteface sprung up in Marble’s place.

Remnants of the past along the trail

Today there is still some evidence of Marble’s existence, including the old lodge, which is now a state Atmospheric Sciences Research Center, and the old T-bar foundation, which is now the steep and arrow-straight route for hikers interested in ascending Marble Mountain. Uninspiring as it may be, there are points of interest, such as a toboggan shed and concrete piers from the old lift.

To access the trailhead, take the Whiteface Memorial Highway out of Wilmington past the North Pole and turn left at the Atmospheric Sciences Research Center. Loop past the center and park along the side of the drive where you will find the trailhead on the right.

After descending along a footpath and then a woods road for about a quarter of a mile the trail gets right to business and climbs about 900 feet in 0.6 miles. Indeed, this is a good, quick workout trail if you don’t feel like going to the gym.

It is also a more interesting trail in winter, because you can see through the birch-dominated forest to the fearsome ravines, crags and leges high on the flask of Esther and across to the Stephenson Range, where familiar features such as Cobble Lookout and Morgan Mountain are easily identified.

And you can hear the wind, those ripping downdrafts that did in Marble as a ski resort all those years ago. Another hiker was on her way to Esther and we chatted on the way up, finding landmarks and listening to the distant roar of winter winds blowing through distant chasms.

An underrated view

At the summit of Marble the trail continues on to the junction of the Whiteface-Esther trail, and most hikers do just that. The overlook is to the left and down some, to what I believe to be an underrated view of the mighty, chest-thumping Sentinel Range rising steeply from the West Branch of the Ausable River Valley.

To the east, solitary mounts rise up like islands in the sea of the East Branch of the Ausable Valley — Bassett, Hamlin, Winch, Clements — with the Jay Range towering behind. 

This view too is far more dramatic in winter,  when the shelves of black rock and bands of white snow create a more stark contrast and relief than the uniform greens of summer.

Two other things were interesting about this overlook: One, based on tracks in the snow, maybe only one or two people had visited it. The rest soldiered right on by in their pursuit of Whiteface or Esther.

Second, when I stepped out of the perfectly calm woods down onto the exposed rock, I was blasted by a savage wind like the lyrics in a Gordon Lightfoot song. It was really quite remarkable, and demonstrated how these snow scouring winds varied radically by topography, and at their worst were quite capable of dooming the Marble Mountain ski project some 65 years ago.

But it left behind a nice little winter hike with more of a payoff than might be expected.