The Pinnacle: 20 minutes to the top

Pinnacle offers views across the St. Lawrence Valley

By Tom French

As you drive toward Santa Clara in Franklin County from the north or south, the Pinnacle looks just as its name suggests. A small, pointy pyramid to the east of Route 458.

The Visit Malone website says the trail “has been around for quite some time,” though I could find no information on its past other than its history as part of the 72,000-acre Santa Clara Conservation Easement acquired by New York State in the late 1990s. 

I recall how large, Santa Clara Tract signs appeared on Route 458. The signs have since disappeared, though their empty, double-post frames still haunt the highway in at least three places.

At the time, I was immediately excited by the prospects for exploration which included the Deer River (here and here), two branches of the St. Regis (here, here, and here), and the Madawaska Flow. I still have the original four-page DEC guide, Santa Clara Tract/Northern Flow River Area, with its 17×22-inch map highlighting the “Canoe Route Network.”

Some aspects of access have changed. The gravel road to Madawaska Flow is now a couple miles north of Meacham Lake instead of two miles south of Santa Clara. Access to the Middle Branch of the St. Regis where the Blue Mountain Road crosses the river has been removed due to “boundary discrepancy.” The access at Indian Rock Hand Launch has also been changed.

The brochure, published in 1999, doesn’t mention any plans for the Pinnacle, but it is the 2000 Interim Recreation Management Plan and the trail was built in 2001 by the Adirondack Mountain Club Trail Crew. I don’t recall when I first noticed the DEC sign with the misspelling of Pinnacle, but I’ve been passing it for over a decade thinking I should check it out.

So recently, on a slow yet sunny day after the election, my wife Carrie and I decided we needed to get out of the house, and I thought the Pinnacle might be perfect. My buddy Doug Miller said it was the perfect hike as an afterthought.

Besides the drive from Potsdam to Santa Clara, the next longest part of the trip was the 1.7-mile gravel road from 458 to the trailhead. You’ll pass a couple forks, but take the road more traveled, turn left at a yellow gate, and you will gain almost 150 feet before leaving your car. The hike itself is only .5 miles and 300 feet.

An old, authorless Adirondack Explorer piece (about 5 Trips for the Family) refers to the Pinnacle as a shoulder of Conger, a small peak about one mile to the east, though the Pinnacle is only slightly lower and there’s a col of at least 150 feet.

Following red markers, a trail register is fifty yards around a bend from the parking area. The trail meanders for the first tenth of mile while ascending a little less than 100 feet. Then it turns westward as a narrow ledge for .2 miles and 150 feet up, traversing a steep slope on both sides. Although I felt perfectly safe, I conjured scenes of riding a mule to Phantom Ranch down the South Rim of the Grand Canyon.

The trail switchbacks at a large rock band as it climbs another twenty feet to a final turn and the last 200 yards to a rocky lookout with a picnic table (part of the easement, the trail is not on state land).

The north of the North Country unfurls before you with the upward slope of the Laurentian Shield on the other side of the St. Lawrence River. A small pond is below the cliffs beneath you with skeleton trees and one deadfall with roots splaying. Azure mountain is to the west along with a stretch of the Santa Clara Flow of the St. Regis River Middle Branch. The reservoir above St. Regis Falls also sparkles in the sun. 

After admiring the view, we were back to the car in less than twenty minutes. The gate at Route 458 is closed for the winter, though I’ve seen ski and snowshoe tracks heading into wilderness for those who want more for their adventures.