Trap Dike: No easy climb
Beware the hazards of the Trap Dike if you're unfamiliar with this rocky path to Colden
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Climbing Colden’s Trap Dike tests hikers’ abilities
Risky climbs on Mount Colden's Trap Dike leads to 2 recent rescues in July
Trap Dike is an exhilarating, potentially risky scramble
By Phil Brown
It’s more than a hike. Some might call it a scramble, but that seems to undersell the risks. On the other hand, calling it a rock climb makes it seem more difficult than it is.
Classic Rock-Climbing History Gets Update
By Phil Brown
The new edition of Yankee Rock and Ice describes Matt Horner’s efforts to repeat a notoriously difficult ice climb called Gorillas in the Mist on Poke-O-Moonshine's cliffs.
Avalanche Lake Trail To Close On Tuesday
By Phil Brown
If you’ve been planning to climb the Trap Dike on Mount Colden, you might think about doing it this weekend. That’s because the state Department of Environmental Conservation plans to close the trail along Avalanche Lake from Tuesday, August 15, through Friday, August 25. Most climbers reach the Trap Dike by hiking to the lake…
Video of skiing the Trap Dike
By Phil Brown
When I skied to Avalanche Lake a week ago, the bottom of the Trap Dike in Mount Colden didn’t have much snow. Evidently, there is enough snow higher up to ski the dike and the upper slide. The video below is from Drew Haas. 2/20/2012 from ADKBCSKI on Vimeo.
Remembering Matthew Potel
By Phil Brown
The death of Matthew Potel, who fell in the Trap Dike on Mount Colden last week, has led to an outpouring of sympathy for a personable young man who loved the outdoors. Potel, 22, of Croton-on-Hudson, slipped in the dike while leading a group of fellow students from Binghamton University. He expected to graduate in…
Climber dies in Trap Dike
By Phil Brown
A student at Binghamton University died Friday morning in a fall in the Trap Dike, a classic mountaineering route on Mount Colden. Matthew Potel, 22, of Croton-on-Hudson was climbing the Trap Dike with seven other members of the school’s outdoors club. Although details are sketchy, sources say he fell on the dike’s second waterfall, the…
Avalanche Pass ski video
By Phil Brown
The trip to Avalanche Lake from Adirondak Loj is one of the most popular ski tours in the Adirondacks, and justifiably so. You’re treated to a variety of spectacular scenery along the way, culminating in the lake itself, a frozen sliver of white immured between the cliffs of Mount Colden and Avalanche Mountain. On the…