Tramping the East

Here are four of the 140 destinations in Eastern Trails, the Adirondack Mountain Club guidebook I author. Over five editions, the list’s grown from 87. I’ve only been on board part of the way, but I’ve also grown—in fondness for this range of places, from the hubbubbed Lake George shores to the hushed reaches of Hamilton County. It’s been a labor and journey of love.

Coot Hill

Hovering hawks, trysting teens, glacial gouging, killing kin? An unlikely quartet, except at Coot Hill, south of Port Henry, which is rife with history—human and wild. At first glance, this hike looks not so rousing: a middling approach on a rutty and sometimes trash-strewn road. But the closer you get, the more you take in, you find that forecast’s dead wrong.

From my High Peaks home, Coot Hill’s the nearest and dearest hike for me in , a 25-mile drive into the guidebook’s gentler, more varied terrain. The book’s footprint covers a couple of big rectangles down to and west of Lake George. For someone weaned on the Forty-Six,