When you tell your friends that you’re taking a trip to New York, they think of the city and its monumental skyscrapers, eclectic urban energy, and congested sidewalks packed with the most flavorful ingredients found in America’s melting pot. It’s unlikely that they would guess you’re about to spend your precious vacation time stooped over a tiny brush fire cooking powdered mashed potatoes, or sleeping in a one-man tent alongside an icy stream, all while being swallowed up by the falling leaves of sugar maples and yellow birch trees.

However, that’s where I wound up: in upstate New York, testing myself against the unforgiving conditions of the Adirondack’s backcountry. The lush green forests and massive mountains sit blended together in harmony some four hours north of Manhattan.

The Adirondacks are known for their 46 mountain peaks and the brave souls who dare to summit each and every one of them. Dubbed the ‘Forty-Sixers’, these elite adventurers have completed some of the most technically challenging hikes that the United States has to offer. While twenty-six of the peaks have official trails complete with guide maps and marked campgrounds, the other twenty are purely primitive, offering no set paths or designated areas for shelter or water. One of the more notable trails is the Five-Mountain Loop. This seventeen mile (not factoring in elevation) loop is half established and half unmarked and allows you to check the South Dix, East Dix, Dix, Macomb, and Hugh peaks off of your list.

Around 6 AM on a Friday last October, my best friend Jesse and I arrived in the small town of Keene. “We should probably eat some real-people food before we head out, don’t you think?” Jesse asked me. We decided it was best to head into town and get a nice hot meal before hitting the trail. After all, it would be another three days before we would eat anything other than granola and dehydrated pasta. “Careful out there,” our waitress told us, “it can be pretty unbearable come nightfall.”

Preparing our backpacks for the weekend!

After getting our fill in at the Noon Mark Diner, we drove seven miles south of town to the trailhead. We unloaded our gear from my car and double checked that our supplies were all accounted for. With a final goodbye to what little civilization that Keene had to offer, Jesse and I put on our jackets and headed out for our adventure.

Rooty footpaths mark our journey; shoulder-width walkways that appear to still be searching for their final shape and size, as if the mountains they were born from were still being eaten at by the glaciers. Boulders and cold gray outcroppings line the trail, marked with crisp green moss and freshly woven spider webs. Every now and then one of the massive rocks is marked with a cairn that tells us which stamped out patch of ground to take in order to successfully navigate this circulatory system of wilderness. At this time of year, a wrong turn could mean running out of sunlight before reaching camp, running out of food due to spending an extra day backtracking, or even worse.

There are over seven hundred lakes, ponds, and rivers throughout the Adirondacks. It’s impossible to not get wet. Our hike quickly takes us to a swimming hole at the Bouquet River, then winds down into a valley where we must cross a stream in order to continue on the trail. We take our socks off and plunge our feet into the water, making quick work of the traverse so as not to risk hypothermia. On the other side of the stream, we sit on the little bank and dry our feet with the towels in our backpacks, put our socks back on, and continue towards the 4012-foot summit of East Dix. By the time we started our ascent, two hours had already passed. Now it was time for the real test. Gaining that much ground before dusk while fitting in a lunch break or two seemed challenging. But a fast meal of mixed nuts and fruit snacks seemed better than the alternative: scrambling up a mountain in freezing temperatures with no light to guide the way.

Jesse had thought we would be fine on time, so to spare our hamstrings excruciating exhaustion, we took it easy up East Dix. The ferns and little streams trickling down jagged cuts of massive stone that rose above our head begged to be photographed. The scents and the stillness between bird songs demanded to write about. My musings would have to wait for the night, though, as we lost light faster than anticipated, so we had to hustle up to the peak of East Dix, racing against the dark to find a spot for our tents.

Creekside campsite at East Dix

East Dix is like no other. With the sun setting behind what we thought to be Nippletop Mountain, the last rays of the day danced through the underbrush and gave off just enough light to show us where the dry wood lay. I unpacked my solo tent and propped it up on a bed of fallen leaves right next to a stream that was rushing back down the way we had just come. Jesse started a fire and boiled water for the two of us and strung his hammock up between two sturdy maples. For dinner, we ate our individual pasta meals, and for desert, Jesse surprised me with a bottle of bourbon he had snuck in his bag. Normally I wouldn’t drink on such an arduous trip (hungover hiking is hilariously hard) but the scene was too perfect and the air too chilly to pass up a heartwarming slurp of dark liquor. We talked about our plans for the next morning, complained about the cold, and finally, climbed into our sleeping bags around 8:00 PM. That was the earliest either of us had fallen asleep in a long time.

The next day would bring about two great challenges: a 1700 foot gain in elevation, and a ten-mile trek to the top of Dix. We hit South Dix and easily reached the top. There was only a 500-foot difference between the East and South peaks, and other than the giant patch of forest that had been destroyed by a lightning storm, it wasn’t too intimidating. Macomb was next on the path and we cleared the third peak with just as much ease as South Dix. The trail between the two mountains was well marked with cairns and the trees opened up enough to let us see down into the valley we had just climbed out of. It was a quiet, smooth, and relaxing hike through giant birches and little streams that felt like something out of a fantasy novel.

Lightning damage on South Dix

Dix, however, was a different story. The sixth highest peak in all of the Adirondacks, Dix is known for its slides, or, giant slabs of steep, slippery rock that one is forced to climb if they wish to summit. This ascent was one of the most challenging things I’ve ever done, not just in relation to backpacking, but throughout my entire life. The slope of the mountain put us in constant danger of falling, so we grasped at loose limbs of trees and what hand holds we could find in the rock. With numb fingers, a new-found existential fear of how insignificant we are in the eyes of nature, and a renewed respect for those who blazed these trails, we reached the top. It was both a nightmare and a dream.

The celebration was brief. A granola bar and a few minutes to rest our legs was all we could afford if we wanted to reach our final camping destination; the Bouquet lean-to. These man-made cabins sit along the Bouqet river and offer hikers who can’t make it back under the canopy a shelter in case of snowstorms or downpours. With our energy still high from the happiness that topping out on Dix brought, we continued on with speed and spirit. Walking down 1700 feet is infinitely easier than sprinting up it, so we took that time to really observe the wildlife. There were warblers and woodpeckers roosted on branches, pipets and thrushes flying overhead, and an uncountable amount of fish swimming peacefully downstream. The atmosphere was incredible, and I was sad our trip was nearing its end. I stopped to take a few photos and with that, we put our packs on and descended the last leg of the Dix Trail with its ankle-breaking roots and rocks ready to trip up anyone who wasn’t surefooted. On our way down we passed over the top of Hugh Mountain, marking our fifth summit and final peak of the trip.

Jesse sitting alongside a stream on Hugh Mountain

We reached the road without injury and walked our final mile back to the car. We took turns loading our gear back into my trunk and changing into a fresh set of clothes while the other looked back up at the range of mountains we had just traveled through over the last two and a half days. It was a surreal feeling. In that brief moment, I realized I had never felt more accomplished. Then we got into the car, turned the music on, and headed back home.