Trap Dike is legendary classic that forms on the weakness of rock on Mt Colden. It was first climbed in late 1800s. It is THE mountaineering route of the Adirondacks involving 6 miles of travel each way from The Loj.
Wojtek and I decided to climb it on Feb 25 by driving up Feb 24 and doing a leisurely 6 am start.
The weeks leading up to the climb involved lots of discussion about how we planned on travelling to the climb. I really wanted to ski because I felt that skiing would be significantly more enjoyable than walking, especially if the snow was deep. Wojtek was hesitant but after some beta seeking - we decided that we would ski in, go up to the summit, rappel back to our skis and then ski out.
We set off around 3ish on Saturday 24th, arriving late in Lake Placid. We also inspected the trail head to see how ski conditions were. Conditions looked really anemic and icy but doable. So we decided to start the day on skis. A quick dinner was had before heading to the motel for the night and sorting and preparing all the gear before bed.
The next day we woke up around 5 and got going around 5.30, reaching the meadows trailhead around 6am. We had a lot of gear to haul. Since we would be skiing, the boots had to be stashed onto the bag in addition to all the climbing gear. We started skiing on the icy and bony trail until we got to a point where the ice disappeared into straight dirt. Coincidentally this was also the time I realized that I left my climbing boots at the car! We backtracked back to the trail head. This was a 2.2 mile round trip for nothing, great!
Wojtek suggested that we actually go to The Loj instead so that we can have a shorter hike in. By around 7.50 or so we were back on the trail, this time without skis. It was a beautiful calm day with little wind. The temperature was fairly cold -15 C and the hiking was helping warm me up. The conditions are really the least snowy I have seen ever, but also the most starkly less snowy than previous years. Large sections of the trail had frozen dirt rather than snow. We decided to hike in without snow shoes and it was the right call given the hard packed trail.
We took a little while to get in, reaching the base of the climb around 10am after passing some beautiful bullet ice. The opening onto avalanche lake felt unreal especially given the stellar conditions that day.
After reaching the base and getting ready to climb, Wojtek and I decided to start climbing the low angle sections without ropes to save time. The idea was to slowly make our way up with and only rope up for the steeper sections. However, Wojtek, who was up ahead, just kept going and going and we soon found ourselves at the top of the climb having soloed the entire thing as a pair…
The good news is that it went quick, the bad news is… I dont know maybe it was a bit risky in hindsight. The truth is that none of us felt like we weren’t fully in control. We felt like we were moving cautiously and felt confident in all the moves. If this were a super remote and long alpine climb, its very unlikely that we would have done something different.
The rest of the climb was just a lot of steep snow and ice. Conditions really were stellar with a hard crust, allow us to use a combination and side stepping, french front pointing to quickly get up to the summit without much fuss.
An uneventful, albeit long descent led us back to the car around 3.30pm. An absolutely fantastic day out in the mountains, great company, quick travel, good pivoting. This is a strong contender for one of the best days I have had in the mountains.
– G