Baker Mountain to Nacho Mountain

 17 June 2022

Our first full day in Lake Placid/Saranac Lake. We both slept so/so since the room was overly warm. Apparently Vermont and upstate New York don’t have central A/C. The room A/C we have in this place is overly loud, so we turned it off for the night. I was up at 4:30 and didn’t get back to sleep until at least 6:30. But we managed and left the A/C running all day today. 

Ross and I finished the first dozen sweet orange rolls this morning - which filled me up. Ross still wanted a little more substantial snack before our hike, so we walked down the street to Lakeview Deli. He found a veggie/hummus sandwich and a bottle of tea. We decided to walk to the Baker Mountain trailhead, so we turned right back towards our BnB and kept on walking. The trailhead was less than 20 minutes from our place. 

Once we got there, someone had left a great walking stick right at the entrance, which I promptly scooped up. We found the visitor’s log and signed in before we started our upwards journey. The trail was about 0.9 miles to the summit. The weather was great for a hike, not too hot and a little cloudy. Once we got under the tree canopy I warmed up real quick and shed my long sleeve. I rocked my new Milwaukee Kayak Company crop top which was great for the hike. The majority of our hike was under shaded, green, rocky, and very pretty. We came across a few groups of people, but the trail was not crowded. We had the trail to ourselves for most of our hike up and down. 

Just before the summit was the best views of the city below. We got some photos there on the way down. We swapped photo snapping with another couple. But we of course had to get some summit photos! There was a group of folks crowding around the summit marker when we arrived, but once they stepped aside we made sure to get a few. One of that group also got a few snaps of us so we didn’t have to take a selfie. Thanks dude!

After a short rest, we started our descent. It took us just over 30 minutes to get down. Door to door, I think we were gone about 2 hours. Easy peasy (mostly)! I left the hiking stick where I found it so someone else could use its support. I was happy I had it. I enjoy day hikes and hope we do more in the future! 

Once we got back to our place, we showered up, snacked the other half of the sandwich from the morning and the leftover Italian food from Montpelier for lunch, and watched a little Bob Ross before heading back into Lake Placid for the rest of the day. 

We had a few stops we wanted to make for sure - but the afternoon was wide open! Ross found a sticker for his water bottle right away. We wandered in and out of a bunch of shops. We found another little game about mushrooms that looked fun, so we picked that one up. We needed a little pick me up, so we stopped into Starbucks and looked over our new games for a few minutes, but didn’t play them. Back to shopping we went. I found a comfy dress (with pockets!) in an REI type store. Then I found my sticker and the cutest companion to our mushroom store - a little stuffed mushroom! He’s so cute! We named him Dak - after the Adirondacks. 

After exhausting the shopping, we checked out the one olympic venue we could see, then searched a place for dinner. Ross was craving nachos and found a place back down the road that had something that fit the bill. Players Sports Bar had the Grande Nachos and oh man, they weren’t joking. We were both stuffed after that meal! Phew! And that brings us to the end of our night! The weather is looking iffy for tomorrow, so we’re hoping to do some indoor activities at Mt. Van Hoevenberg. It looks like a lot of Olympic events happened there and they have some experiences we might be able to do. They also have some indoor rock climbing we’ll check out. We brought our climbing gear hoping to do an outdoor climb, but we had no luck finding a guide. Until tomorrow!

Stats for the day:

Steps: 17,834

Elevation of Baker Mountain: 2,452 feet

Elevation of Nacho Mountain: 7 layers of cheese, beans, chips, and gluttony

Articles of clothing Leah has purchase so far on this trip: 5