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The Hike:
Date 10/23/2015- We got a very early start for this hike. We were on the road by 5:30am and at the trailhead by about 8:15. The route we decided to take up Whiteface begins on Marble Mt. Road in Wilmington, NY. The turn off to Marble Mt Road is pretty easy to find; its just on the left of route 431 after you pass Santa’s Workshop in North Pole, NY.
The beginning of the trail is pretty well marked, and descends from the parking area and heads south towards the mountains. The trail quickly intersects with a snowmobile trail, but doesn’t have any clear markers as to where to turn… you want to turn left and keep heading down. Eventually you’ll reach another intersection where you go straight ahead, which will bring you straight up an old ski slope on Marble Mountain. It’s a pretty steady and fairly steep 1 mile climb to the intersection with the Wilmington
At the top of the climb you reach a giant stone block and a nice view out over the Northern part of the High Peaks. Turn right on the red blaze trail and start hiking up again.
After another steady climb, the trail begins to level out, and eventually hits a cairn about 1.3 miles up. Turning right here and walking 1.2 miles up the unmarked trail would bring you over to Esther Mountain. We chose to continue on straight ahead to Whiteface first. After the cairn, the trail descends for a bit before beginning the climb up Whiteface. The trail passes by a few ski trails, and eventually meets up with a giant stone wall. This is the access road to the Whiteface summit.
Turn left at the wall and follow it uphill. When the trail meets up with the same level as the road, take a look to the left and you’ll see the trail head up some rocks and back into the woods. The day we were out it started getting a bit icy here. We had to get out our crampons
After a relatively short, but steep hike up some rocks, there’s the summit! At the peak is a big building occupied by the Atmospheric Science Research Center. Unfortunately it was all closed up when we were up there, but it’s certainly interesting to walk around. The summit was covered in clouds when we were up there, so we got no good views, but we’ve heard that on a clear day you can see Montreal from the summit.
To do Esther, we backtracked down the same way we came up. When we reached the cairn, we headed out to Esther. It was a bit of an up, then down over a walkway, then up again, then a bit down, then up a final time. Luckily the peak of Esther is pretty obvious since there’s a huge plaque in the middle of the trail commemorating the first person to climb Esther… a 15 year old girl named Esther who accidentally climbed this mountain instead of Whiteface!
Again, we returned to our car going back the way we came, down past the cairn, and back down the old ski slope to the parking area on Marble Mt Road. The whole hike was about 10.2 miles, and we completed it in about 5.5 hours.
The Beer
There was really only one option for this hike… Lake Placid Pub and Brewery in Lake Placid, NY, located an easy drive down the road from Whiteface mountain.
If you’re only going to get one beer here, you have to get Ubu. It’s a tasty dark ale that just goes down dangerously smoothly. We also tried the seasonal Maple Pumpkin and a Galaxy IPA, both of which were very good. The food here is fantastic as well. I started with an onion soup that’s made with their Ubu beer. I rounded out my lunch with a huge BBQ and Blue cheese burger that was not stingy on the cheese. This place is one of our favorite stops when we go hiking in the Adirondacks.
