Middle Mountain(Lake George Wild Forest-Adirondacks)

Headed north today on a refreshingly beautiful late spring day to do a little exploring in the Lake George Wild Forest around Jabe Pond and 1867 foot Middle Mountain to its west.  I chose to park at the beginning of the dirt access road to the pond(Elevation 1070 feet) and walk it, although it looks like it has been recently graded and smoothed out.  There are a couple of small steep spots so low clearance cars still may want to walk the one mile in.  In any case, it is a very quiet and pleasant road walk mid week.

Just about one mile south, the road comes to a large parking lot and information board about the pond.  From here, a trail drops down to the pond and then follows its north shore providing access to several small campsites.  Here is a view across the open water of Jabe Pond with Middle Mountain to the SW in the distance.

The trail around the pond was nice and easy to follow until it came to a cove and adjoining wetland on the west side of the pond.  I lost the trail here and had to circumvent my way around it, circling around to the spot I wanted to begin my bushwhack.  

 

Once I began my bushwhack, it was a pretty straighforward route west between a couple of small peaks, then towards Middle Mountain's east slopes.  At the foot of the peak I came across this pretty beaver pond.

 

Pink lady slipper well off trail.

The climb up Middle was fairly pleasant through mostly open woods and even a large area of fern glades near the top.

The area around the summit is surrounded by small cliff bands and sedge grass making for fun bushwhacking.  Although it is open, the true 1867 foot summit unfortunately offers up no views. 

Just a short distance south off the summit are a series of small viewpoints to the west from extremely steep and nearly vertical ledges.  Although each view is nice, there is one open ledge on the SW slopes in particular that offers up tremendous views.  This is a look NW with Beech Mountain in the center from the open viewpoint.

From the open area, the view southwest over the Fly Brook valley is quite dramatic.

Circling around the ledges, I found an impressive view of Catamount Mountain to the south. 

Stellar views south towards Catamount, which almost looked close enough to touch!

I could've stayed here all day soaking in these views, but unfortunately the deerflies had other ideas.

After enjoying the amazing views, I headed back down the east side of the mountain and back over to Jabe Pond.  Instead of heading straight back to the car, I made one last pit stop to Little Jabe Pond, which sits just north of Jabe Pond.

From Little Jabe, I bushwhacked straight over to the dirt access road, which I then followed back to the car.  A very nice 6.8 miles RT with 1300 feet of combined ascent, and only saw one other couple out walking their dog early in the morning.

Blue X=Parking   Red X=Summit  Black X=Appx area of ledges