First things first - when you see Black Mountain trailhead is in Lake George - make sure you give yourself an extra half hour. This trailhead starts on the other side of the lake so it took us about an hour and 40 minutes to reach this trailhead.
We hiked the black mountain loop on July 19th. It was a hot day so we started out early trying to get ahead of it! Starts out on a relatively moderate sloping incline.
Nothing difficult here, just not meandering or anything. Was wet and muddy from all the rain we’ve been having though! Lots of puddles and sections of mud throughout. We followed the red trail - about a mile in there is a sign that shows you the route to take you to the pond loop, we continued straight on the red trail to the summit.
After a bit of meandering the hike starts to get vertical. It’s pretty steep but not really difficult (no boulders or tricky sections) you pretty much just need to continue your endurance as it’s a pretty steep incline with rocks and roots along a stream - so some wet rocks which can be slippery!
The summit is stunning. Some of my favorite views of lake George to date. The summit isn’t very big compared to some other lake George hikes - there’s a look out and a boulder which is beautiful, a fire tower and a wind mill.
We opted to take the loop by the ponds back for the extra mileage on the route back down the mountain. This continues on the red trail for a bit - steep descent on this trail and clearly it’s the “road less traveled” because you hike through some pretty overgrown grass.
You descend steeply and then hike about 5 miles back to the trailhead alongside some ponds - not the most beautiful of ponds but definitely worth the extra mileage. Fun trail back. It changes to blue markers so keep an eye out while hiking!
This was our fourth hike of the Lake George 12ster challenge. Up next - Buck Mountain!