Giant Peak and Rocky Peak Ridge

It wasn't long after our first trip that we planned our second. This time around we chose to hike Giant of the Valley and Rocky Peak Ridge for our seventh and eighth high peaks. Just days before our trip we found out some of our good friends were hiking it. They said that it was one of their favorite hikes so far, and they've done a lot more than us so we were pretty excited.

This time we wanted to get there even earlier than last time so we set our alarms for 0230 and left our house by 0300. We got to the trailhead around 0700. It was a Wednesday morning and we were the third car there. Parking is along the road for this trail so be careful as cars fly by and there's blind curves and hills in both directions. There's porta potties here too.

Right from the beginning, this trail is a switchback. Hike up an incline for a bit and then do basically a 180 and walk flat, then another 180 and so on... You pass a pond that you can swim in after the hike if you'd like. There is a "Nubble" just past the pond. I've heard it has a nice view but we didn't have the energy to deviate from the trail. There's also a lot of false peaks and you climb up a large rock face that seems to go on forever. This also means if it's sunny the day you do the hike, like it was for us, you'll get a lot of sun. You can decide to go over a small peak or around it, we chose to go around.

There's a split in the trail, left to Giant, right to Rocky Peak Ridge. We went to Giant first.

Finally, Giant of the Valley's peak! I wasn't feeling well this day and honestly was miserable until we were about 0.5 mile from Giant's peak. We got to the peak at 0940. We could have been there much earlier but I was moving slower than normal and we stopped frequently on the rock face to take in the constant beautiful views. It was windy and surprisingly chilly on the peak.

Because it was cold, we didn't stay on the peak very long. Just long enough for some pictures and some snacks before we backtracked to that split and headed to Rocky Peak Ridge. The trail was wet and slick with a lot of flat rock we had to slide down. Remember proper trail etiquette is to walk THROUGH the mud, not around it or off the trail, damaging plant life.

We reached Rocky Peak at 1100, the view was stunning.

This trail is a doozy, bring nutrition. We pack a variety of snacks. Don't worry we brought more nutritious snacks (not pictured) and sour patch kids for quick boosts of energy when were dragging. Pro tip: bring a zipper plastic bag like a freezer bag to put your wrappers in. Never leave your garbage, and there's always crumbs that unfortunately got crushed into our pack. We also like to bring 5 hour energies because we're both caffeine addicts.

This hike took us a total of about 6.5 hours of moving plus the time spent of the peaks. According to my fitbit I burned approximately 2,800 calories.

Our weather luck finally ran out and it rained as we were hiking back from RPR on our way down. Thankfully it didn't last long and by the time we got back to the split it had stopped. Unfortunately, that big rock face was very slick now. Whenever hiking make sure to plan for inclement weather as the weather changes rapidly in the mountains. Beware that even if you check the weather in a nearby town that it doesn't mean the weather is going to be the same on the mountain.

You can find more information from Alltrails for this hike here.

https://www.alltrails.com/trail/us/new-york/ridge-trail-to-giant-mountain-and-rocky-peak-ridge

#/46 Rank Mountain Elevation (feet) Date Completed

1 38 Porter 4059 07/07/2020

2 36 Cascade 4098 07/07/2020

3 16 Wright Peak 4580 07/08/2020

4 2 Algonquin 5114 07/08/2020

5 8 Iroquois Peak 4840 07/08/2020

6 32 Phelps 4161 07/09/2020

7 12 Giant 4627 08/05/2020

8 20 Rocky Peak 4420 08/05/2020