On February 1, 2004, Derek (10) and I started to hike these two mountains. Unlike the first attempt, where we were overdressed and overheated, we were better prepared to hike our first of the 46 high peaks this time. It was a beautiful day with clear skies and temperatures expected to be in the low 30s. It certainly made for a beautiful day; the air was crisp. We arrived at the trailhead around 7:30 am and soon started on the trail at 7:45 am on a very hard-packed trail.
We had taken a few breaks along the way up. We eventually arrived at the intersection with the trail junction to Porter mountain; we decided to go over to Porter mountain first. We had hoped to be the first on the summit, as there is always something nice about being first on the summit for the day; I'm not sure why. That didn't matter because a gentleman eventually passed us about 10 minutes before we arrived at the summit. His name was Tony, and he was originally from England. He had traveled that day up from Ithaca. He stated he was already a 46er and was working on his winter round of the 46.
We had a good break on Porter, enjoyed the views, and eventually climbed Cascade. From the intersection with porter mountain, it is a short jaunt to the open rocks leading to the summit of Cascade. Once out of the tree line, we quickly made it to the summit of Cascades wide open summit, which provides a 360-degree view of the majestic Adirondacks. It was perfect conditions on the bluebird day, with little to no wind. We reached Cascades summit at 12:50 pm, stayed for about an hour, then started our way back down.
We were back at the car at 3 pm feeling energized, as if we had just accomplished an incredible feat, and it was awesome because, in some small way, we did.