Finishing the Tupper Lake Triad

As you can probably deduce, the Tupper Lake Triad patch requires three hikes. J and I had done Coney Mountain about a year ago and hoped to finish it on this trip. Well, our initial plan had been to do McKenzie and finish the Saranac Six, and then do one or both Tupper Lake peaks the next day, but the weather was unseasonably snowy. McKenzie is just shy of being a 4,000-footer, so we decided to save it for another day.

Mount Goodman has a wheelchair-accessible beginning, followed by a turn up to the top of the mountain. As we set out, it was sunny.



But as we reached the top, the clouds and the snow blew in.



By the time we got back to the car, it was snowing hard. But we headed on to our next peak. Mount Arab is also a fire tower peak, which normally means great views - but not in heavy snowfall.



(Of course, despite the weather, for patch purposes "winter" is defined by dates, not actual weather. This is both good (since dates count towards either winter OR regular patches, not both) and bad (you feel like you should get credit for hiking in the snow!).)