With today being the start of the Columbus Day weekend, I decided to head up into a seldom visited area in the Hoffman Notch Wilderness where I thought I'd have a good shot of avoiding any crowds. My goal for the day was to hit what is labeled as Peaked Hills on topographic maps, sitting just east of Hoffman Mountain and west of the Northway between Exits 28 and 29. I got started from the Dirgylot Hill Parking area off of Route 9(just north of exit 28) and as expected, I had the place to myself.(Elevation 875 feet) A foot path leaves the parking area and swings around an active gravel pit NW before crossing under the two lanes of the Northway via a long tunnel.
Once on the other side of the Northway the woods road continues west to a T junction. At the T, I headed right continuing north on a very good old woods road.
The woods road eventually peters down to a herd path, where old hatchet marks on trees act as trail blazes. A little over a mile into the hike, I left the herd path and began my bushwhack towards "South" Peaked Hill. I soon picked up a small drainage, which I closely paralleled for much of the ascent.
The woods were very open and easy to navigate, with fairly steep slopes.
As I made my way up the east ridge of South Peaked Hill, I began hitting open areas around 1800 feet. To the south, the drop off is very steep and also very open, providing great views.
South views towards Jones Hill with the ridge of one of the neighboring unnamed peaks in the foreground.
Although the clouds were hanging tough, the fall colors were still quite vibrant! The unnamed peak just south of South Peaked Hill looked pretty inviting itself.
I continued my ascent up the peak, closely hugging the steep, open rock ledges with ever broadening views to the south. As I climbed up and over 2000 feet, a sliver of Schroon Lake was now visible, just beyond Severance Hill.
I circled around to several open west facing views, where Hoffman Mountain's long ridge looked close enough to touch.
The open slopes below the summit of South Peaked Hill.
As I made my way around the west facing slopes near the summit, the views only seemed to get better and better. I was truly surprised at just how good these views were. I loved this perspective of Hoffman Mountain, where the hardwood tree line is quite obvious. Peak foliage appears to run up to near 3000 feet.
Wonderful south facing views from the wide open rock slab near the summit.
Hoffman Mountain's 3700 foot summit sits over 1500 feet higher than where I was, and was shrouded in clouds.
After hitting the wooded 2133 foot South summit, I headed down into the saddle between the peaks, where open rock provided even more views. From the col, I enjoyed a unique look at nearby "West" Peaked Hill, which is actually the highest of the Peaked Hills. I noticed some open rock near the summit, but that would have to wait for another day.
Also visible from the open rock in the saddle was my next goal, the summit of North Peaked Hill, less than 1/3 of a mile away. There was also open patches of rock up there as well!
My ascent up North Peaked Hill was filled with a lot more spruce than South Peaked Hill and was a bit steeper too.
In no time at all, I arrived at the open 2283 foot summit, marked with a small rock cairn. The views here were simply awesome.
To the NW, Blue Ridge Mountain sits impressively above.
North facing views towards the High Peaks.
South views from the open rock towards Schroon Lake.
A look back south at South Peaked Hill, where I had just come from. A truly amazing spot.
From the summit, I left the scratchy spruce and headed back down through open woods to the NE. It was fairly steep, but pretty smooth sailing with many leaves already covering the ground in the woods.
Continued my bushwhack descent northeast until I hit 17th Brook, which is a very pretty mountain stream with several small waterfalls to enjoy along the way. Once along the water, I followed it downstream(SE) for a little ways before heading back to the herd path.
Eventually got back to the herd path, then onto the woods road, which I followed all the way back to car. A nice 6.5 mile RT, with 1800 feet of ascent, and didn't see another soul all day-on a holiday weekend nonetheless.
Map below. Red X=Parking Blue X's=Summits
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