Cascade Mountain, the Starter High Peak

Cascade Mountain is the High Peak where most 46ers begin. Its trail leaves NY 73 between Lake Placid and Keene and climbs about 1,940 feet in 2.4 miles to a bare rock summit at 4,098 feet, with Marcy, Algonquin and the Great Range across the valley. The trailhead is about 60 road miles from the cabins, roughly an hour and a half by car, so a summer weekend climb means an early start. In 2026 the climb still starts on NY 73; the state's new trail from Mt Van Hoevenberg is not finished and has no opening date.

The mountain

At 4,098 feet, Cascade is the 36th-highest of the 46 Adirondack High Peaks. From its open top the panorama runs from Keene Valley along the skyline of the Great Range to Marcy and on to Colden and Algonquin. Porter Mountain, a second High Peak, is a short walk from the same trail. The summit rock is broad and has no trees, so nothing up there blocks the wind.

The mountain has had several names. It was Shining Mountain and then Long Pond Mountain before settlers who ran a resort nearby in the 1870s named it for the waterfall that supplied their hotel. The first known ascent came around 1872, when a trapper named Lon Pierce climbed it to check a bear trap. A trail from the hotel was laid out about 1891, the Camp and Trail Club cut a second one in October 1925, and the trail used today dates from 1974.

The trail

The trail starts by heading down from the road, then climbs gradually. About half a mile in it crosses a brook, and around 0.7 mile it turns steeper and rockier. At 1.8 miles a ledge gives the first wide view. At about 2 miles the trail forks: right for Porter, left for Cascade. The last 0.3 mile is open rock, up bare slabs to the summit at 2.4 miles; on the rock, follow the yellow paint blazes and the cairns. The round trip is 4.8 miles with about 1,940 feet of climbing.

The footing sets the pace: rocks and roots most of the way, slick slabs after rain and ice in the shoulder seasons. Wear sturdy boots with good ankle support. Sign the trail register at the start and again when you come out, and plan for no restrooms at the trailhead.

Plan on about five hours for the round trip, with time on top. In one hiker's account the climb to the summit took about an hour and a half, and the whole day with Porter added took a little over five hours. Start early enough to be down with daylight to spare.

Porter Mountain

Porter is the 38th-highest High Peak, at 4,059 feet on the 46er list. From the junction it is about three-quarters of a mile to its summit, with steep rock slab on the way, and the view takes in the Great Range and looks back across to Cascade. The two summits are joined by a trail through the col between them. Climbing both makes a round trip of a little over six miles, and Porter adds about an hour: in one party's account, half an hour out from the junction and half an hour back.

The mountain is named for Noah Porter, a president of Yale and a summer pastor in Keene Valley, and the spur trail from Cascade was built about 1927. Porter can also be climbed from Marcy Field near Keene Valley, over Blueberry Mountain, a round trip of 8 miles with 3,675 feet of climbing and a very steep, eroded pitch on the way up Blueberry.

The trailhead and parking on NY 73

The trailhead is on NY 73 about 8.4 miles east of its junction with NY 86 in Lake Placid and 4.5 miles past the turn for Adirondack Loj Road, on the right just before Upper Cascade Lake. Parking is in a string of small, free state lots on both sides of the road, shared with the Porter climb and with Pitchoff Mountain's west trailhead. The lot at the trailhead fills first, and the overflow areas lie before and after it.

The main lot is often full on pleasant days, and summer weekends and the October holiday weekend are the busiest. The state's advice for popular trailheads is to arrive early, keep several backup hikes in mind and move on to one of them if the lot is full. Roadside parking is banned on the unsafe stretches of NY 73, the state has added speed-display signs and delineators along the corridor, and DEC, the State Police and local police enforce the rules. On past holiday weekends police warned that cars parked illegally would be ticketed or towed. Park only in a marked lot.

Plan to drive. The Town of Keene's weekend hiker shuttle runs between Marcy Field in Keene Valley and the Garden trailhead, for the peaks above Johns Brook, and does not stop at Cascade.

On weekends and holidays through Columbus Day, volunteer trailhead stewards from the Adirondack 46ers stand at the Cascade trailhead from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., as they have since June 2017. In 2025 the Route 73 trailhead stewards of the Adirondack Mountain Club covered Cascade on Thursdays and Mondays. Ask them about the rules, the conditions up high and other hikes nearby.

Permits, the reroute and what may change

No permit or reservation is needed for Cascade in 2026. The parking reservation you may have read about belongs to the Adirondack Mountain Reserve, a private 7,000-acre tract at St. Huberts in Keene Valley, about 14 road miles southeast of the Cascade trailhead. From April 17 to October 31 in 2026, its lot, which serves the trails through the reserve's gate and the climbs of Noonmark and Round mountains, takes only free advance reservations. Same-day spots open at 4 a.m., the lot admits cars from 5 a.m. to 7 p.m., and walk-ins and drop-offs without a reservation are not permitted. None of that applies on Cascade.

Limits may come. In April 2026 the state released a consultant's study of High Peaks visitor use that recommends capping Cascade at 240 visitors a day, whether the trail starts on NY 73 or at Mt Van Hoevenberg, managed first with parking restrictions and with permits only if those fail. Counts in the summer of 2023 found about a dozen days over 240 at Cascade, with peaks around 450. The study proposed 2026 as a planning year and limits from 2027, but DEC said its release did not mean the recommendations were adopted, and no changes were expected for the 2026 season.

The other change is the trail itself. Since 2018 the state has been building a new, more durable trail to Cascade and Porter from the Mt Van Hoevenberg Olympic Sports Complex, about 2.6 road miles back toward Lake Placid, where there is a large lot, restrooms and the Mountain Pass Lodge with hiking information and basic gear. When it opens, the NY 73 trail will close and the climb will be longer. In April 2026 it was still unclear when that would happen, and the state has given no opening date, so check DEC's High Peaks pages before you go.

The 46 High Peaks and the 46ers

The 46 High Peaks are the Adirondack summits early surveys put at 4,000 feet or more. Brothers Bob and George Marshall and their guide, Herb Clark, climbed them all, starting on Whiteface on August 1, 1918, and finishing on Emmons on June 10, 1925; Bob Marshall went on to help found The Wilderness Society. Modern surveys put Couchsachraga, for one, about 180 feet lower than the old figure and below 4,000 feet, but the Marshalls climbed it, and by tradition it stays on the list.

Two hikers from Grace Methodist Church in Troy finished the 46 on Dix on September 13, 1936, and six months later they formed a hiking club called the Forty-Sixers of Troy. The Adirondack Forty-Sixers club held its first meeting at Adirondak Loj on May 30, 1948, with 20 people, and Grace Hudowalski, 46er number 9, became its first president. By 2024 more than 15,500 names were on the list, and a record 879 people registered as finishers in 2022.

Finishers register through the club's online form and pay a $20 fee, and each receives a 46er number. A winter round counts only climbs between December 21 and March 21. Cascade is where the large majority of rounds begin, and it is where Grace Hudowalski made her last climb, on August 26, 1986, at 80.

Summit stewards and the alpine plants

New York has only about 173 acres of alpine habitat, the low plants and thin soil above the trees, and Cascade is one of the smaller summits that holds some of it. Since 1990 the Summit Stewardship Program, run by the Adirondack Mountain Club with the Adirondack chapter of The Nature Conservancy and DEC, has put stewards on the busiest summits from late May through the Indigenous Peoples' Day weekend in October. Cascade is one of the four peaks they cover most, with Marcy, Algonquin and Wright, and their message is short: above the trees, walk only on bare rock. Their photo monitoring, begun in 1999, shows the alpine plants recovering where hikers keep to the rock.

Their counts show how busy Cascade gets. On Saturday, October 12, 2024, a holiday weekend, stewards spoke with 729 hikers on Cascade, the most on any summit in one day in the program's history. That weekend began with rime ice and snow on the higher summits, and many hikers without traction devices could not get above the trees on Marcy or Algonquin. Cascade averaged 152 hikers a day with a steward in 2024, up from 139 in 2023.

In 2025 the stewards also worked on Cascade's summit. Their log for the season shows 564 feet of scree wall, the low rock borders that keep boots on the path; 272 cairn rocks removed; seven cairns rebuilt; and human waste buried three times. If you see a rock stack, leave it alone and tell a steward, who will put the rocks back where they belong.

Leave No Trace on a busy mountain

• Carry it all out. Pack out everything you bring, food scraps and peels included.
• Plan for the bathroom. Where there is no privy, dig a hole 6 to 8 inches deep at least 150 feet from water and campsites, cover it, and pack out the toilet paper.
• Stay on the rock. Above the trees, step on bare rock and keep inside the scree walls.
• Leave rocks where they are. Do not add to cairns or build stacks.
• Keep dogs leashed. Dogs must be leashed at all times in the eastern zone of the High Peaks Wilderness, and at trailheads, campsites and above 4,000 feet everywhere else, which includes Cascade's summit. Bag the waste and carry it out. See bringing your dog.
• Keep groups small. Day groups in the High Peaks Wilderness are limited to 15 people.
• No fires. Campfires are banned in the eastern zone, and anyone camping overnight there needs a bear-resistant food canister from April 1 to November 30.
• Mind mud season. Each spring DEC asks hikers to stay off trails above 2,500 feet while they thaw. If you meet mud on a trail, walk through it so the path does not widen.

Weather and wind

Plan for a summit that is colder, windier and snowier than the trailhead, and postpone if conditions are too harsh. In the standard atmosphere the air cools about 3.5°F for every 1,000 feet, so Cascade's 1,940 feet of climbing alone takes off about 7°F, and the open summit adds the wind on top of that.

Ice and snow come early and stay late up high. Stewards found rime ice and snow on the higher summits on the October holiday weekend in 2024, with very icy rock the next morning, and Memorial Day weekend in 2025 brought cold rain lower down and snow and rime ice on the summits. Carry traction devices in spring and fall as well as in winter.

Check the forecast for the summits, not for Lake Placid. The National Weather Service office in Burlington, Vermont, publishes recreational forecasts, including one for higher summits of 3,000 to 5,000 feet. Turn back if a storm is building, if the rock is icy and you have no traction, or if anyone in the group is cold and slowing down. The mountain will be there on the next clear day.

Choosing a season

Summer weekends and the October holiday are the most crowded times: the one-day record of 729 hikers on the summit came on that weekend in 2024. Black flies are out from mid-May into early July and worst in late May and early June; the bugs guide covers them. Midsummer gives the longest days, with the sun up a little after 5 a.m. and down about 8:45 p.m. in Lake Placid in late June.

Spring is the season to skip. Each year DEC's mud-season advisory asks hikers to stay off trails above 2,500 feet while they thaw, and snow and rime ice can still coat the summits at the end of May, as they did over Memorial Day weekend in 2025. In fall, the first rime ice can arrive by the October holiday, so carry traction from October on. For when the leaves turn, see the fall foliage guide.

Cascade in winter

Cascade stays busy in winter, but it is a serious winter climb, best left to hikers with winter experience. In the High Peaks Wilderness, snowshoes or skis are required whenever the snow is more than 8 inches deep. They keep you from post-holing, which leaves deep holes that make the trail harder and more dangerous for the next hiker. For the icy summit slabs, carry microspikes or crampons too.

Dress in layers: a base layer that wicks sweat, wool or fleece over it, and a waterproof or windproof shell, plus a spare warm layer, a hat, gloves, goggles and a face mask for the top. Break food into small pieces and pack it and your water in the middle of the pack so they do not freeze, and insulate any drinking tube.

Daylight is short. In Lake Placid the sun rises at 7:26 a.m. and sets at 4:21 p.m. on December 21, so start at first light and carry a headlamp with spare batteries. A winter round of the 46 counts only climbs between December 21 and March 21. For places to rent snowshoes and traction devices, see cross-country skiing and snowshoeing.

What to bring

The state's Hike Smart NY list of essentials makes a good packing list for Cascade in any season:

• Navigation. A map and compass or GPS, and extra batteries.
• Insulation and rain gear. A waterproof, windproof jacket, a hat and gloves, and spare wool socks.
• Light. A headlamp or flashlight, with spare batteries.
• First aid. A ready-made kit or one you build yourself.
• Fire. Matches in a waterproof case or a lighter, and fire starters.
• Food. High-calorie, high-protein food, and some extra.
• Water. At least 2 liters per person, more than you think you need, and a way to filter or purify more.
• Sun and insect protection. Sunglasses, sunscreen, a hat, repellent and a bug net. See bugs, ticks and black flies.
• Emergency shelter. A space blanket or a tarp.

Add boots with good ankle support and, from October into May, traction devices. Tell someone at the cabin where you are going and when you expect to be back. In an emergency, call 911 and ask for a DEC Forest Ranger, or call the ranger dispatch at 1-833-697-7264.

The night before, read DEC's Backcountry Information for the Adirondack Park page and the Adirondack Mountain Club's High Peaks Conditions Report for current trail and weather notes.

Children and first-timers

Cascade is a fair first High Peak for older children who already hike, but it is a real mountain: 1,940 feet of climbing on rock and roots, and an open summit where children need watching. One family's account gives the range: their teenagers reached the top in about an hour and finished in under two, while the adults took the typical five hours. Let the slowest walker set the pace, and treat the ledge at 1.8 miles as a good place to turn around if the group is spent.

For children new to hiking, Mount Jo's Long Trail or the gentle switchbacks of Mount Van Hoevenberg's East Trail make better first climbs, both described below. Close to the cabins, Owls Head is a 1.3-mile climb to open ledges, about ten minutes' drive away. For a base, see the cabins for families.

Timing the day from the cabins

The trailhead is about 60 road miles from the cabins, roughly an hour and a half. Take the county roads to NY 30 and follow it south to Paul Smiths, then NY 86 through Saranac Lake toward Lake Placid. Before you reach the village, Old Military Road, County Route 35, cuts across to NY 73. Turn east on 73, past the Olympic ski jumps and the turn for Adirondack Loj Road; the trailhead is 6 miles from the Old Military Road junction.

In June the sun rises a little after 5 a.m. in Lake Placid, so the early start costs no daylight. In December, leave the cabins around 6 a.m. to start up at first light and be off the mountain well before sunset; see winter driving for the roads in snow.

Gentler hikes nearby

If the Cascade lots are full, the summit forecast is poor or someone wants a shorter day, these give big views for less:

• Mount Jo. A 2,876-foot summit over Heart Lake, reached from the High Peaks Information Center at the end of Adirondack Loj Road: 2.5 miles round trip and about 700 feet of climbing, with ladders and wooden stairs near the top and a wide view of the High Peaks from its open ledges. The Long Trail suits most families better than the steeper Short Trail. The Adirondack Mountain Club charges for parking there; in 2026 a day cost $25 for non-members, or $15 after 1 p.m., and the lot fills early in summer. Check the current fee on adk.org.
• Mount Van Hoevenberg. The East Trail from the Olympic Sports Complex is 3.6 miles round trip with about 1,000 feet of climbing on switchbacks never steeper than 12 percent, and the lot there is large.
• Big Crow and Cobble Hill. The two shortest climbs of the Lake Placid 9er, 1.2 and 1.6 miles round trip. Cobble Hill starts from the Mirror Lake loop in the village.
• Hurricane Mountain. No easier, at 6.8 miles round trip and 2,000 feet of climbing from NY 9N, but DEC recommends it as an alternative to the High Peaks, it has a fire tower, and summit stewards spoke with 2,848 hikers there in 2025.

All of these belong to the Lake Placid 9er, a challenge created in 2018 for nine peaks below 4,000 feet: Cobble Hill, Mount Jo, Baxter, Mount Van Hoevenberg, Big Crow, Bear Den, Pitchoff, Catamount and Hurricane. Pitchoff's west trailhead shares the Cascade lots.

Closer to the cabins, the six peaks of the Saranac Lake 6er run from Baker Mountain, 2,452 feet, to McKenzie Mountain, 3,861 feet, and finishers ring a bell on Berkeley Green in Saranac Lake. The nearest fire-tower climbs are Loon Lake Mountain, with its trailhead about 20 road miles from the cabins, and St. Regis Mountain, about 33; see the fire tower challenge. The short hikes within a few miles of the cabins are in hiking near Malone.

After the hike

Lake Placid is 8.5 road miles back from the trailhead. Big Slide Brewery & Public House is on NY 73 at 5686 Cascade Road in Lake Placid, and in August 2026 it went back to a brewpub menu. It takes no reservations, so check the hours and the wait before you go. For Main Street, Mirror Lake, where a lakeside path has plaques naming all 46 High Peaks, and parking in the village, see Lake Placid and Whiteface. The ski jumps you passed on NY 73 belong with the Olympic sites, and the Saranac Lake and Paul Smiths guide covers the villages on the drive home.

From Lake Placid it is about an hour and a quarter back to the cabins. One guest wrote that "the hot tub was a great way to end the day after a hike," and every cabin has a private one; The Modern Pine and The Aviator also have Jøtul gas stoves for warming up. See the cabins.

Questions

Sources

Facts on this page were checked against these sources in October 2026. Hours, fees and schedules change; confirm before you go.

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