u/bikepack_Adirondacks

Last weekend most of the (remaining) gates opened in the Adirondacks. It's definitely a special time I appreciate each year. My own private forest preserve for about a month between when the snow and ice and peanut butter mud are gone, and the gates open to public vehicles.

It doesn't really change a whole lot of objectives, as by that point the trails are also dry anywhere they already weren't previously (and those that still aren't likely never will be). But it does mean we focus a bit more on single track and bit less on gated dirt/gravel roads.

You can win some great prizes and it might be motivation to sneak in a trip you didn't think you could do especially early or late season. Or maybe it's a road trip to warmer/drier climate for a few late/early season months.

A lot of my trips are S24O where I go last minute, bike in the dark Friday and am home for dinner Saturday night.

Longer trips are great too....there's no rule on lenght on this, just that you bike in, camp out and bike out.

No matter how you get out, this is a cool challenge and (rare for us cyclist) you get a patch if you do all 12 months but prizes are awarded every month.

Enjoy the adventure!

Link: https://ultramtb.net/bikepack-every-month/

TLDR: Last minute trip with 7mi of rugged single track in the dark Friday night. Beautiful night and morning, rainy, misty, cool (almost perfect for me) Saturday afternoon. No bugs, few people, well maintained but rugged single use (hiking) trails.

Stats: Overall 16mi (7 in the dark), ~2000ft gain, contact with 1 person (a suprised hello) and perfect (for me) weather, 3 total cars passed on pavement. Activity Temp around 43F average, Activity Feel 39F average.

I was on the fence about a trip this weekend, but I knew it was my last chance before bugs and people arrived (I won't be back until June). With the weather forecast improving enough that bugs (cold) and rain (vastly improved moving south) wouldn't be an issue, I opened CalTopo and began looking at my options. Gated roads are now open so now we no longer prioritizing those type trips.

The last minute decision meant I was riding in the dark for some, if not all, of the 1st day (night). In hindsight, I should have grabbed my night riding lights and dealt with the bulk and weight. I'm really comfortable riding at night because I do it a lot, but my bikepacking lights are not the same as my trail riding lights. Bikepacking lights are more "just in case". They are smaller, lighter, lower output and less battery capacity. They are meant to get you to where your going but not necessarily with the speed you would ride with dedicated lighting.

The trails were in good shape, mostly dry except where they weren't (your typical 4 season wet sections due to seeps, beaver activity and just routing choice). But they were rugged single use (hiking) trails that are the Adirondack standard, minus the blowdown typically found in other "fringe" areas. Ways I can tell the trails don't see much use despite the maintenance, the mud pits that hikers widen were well contained. I didn't really pass any 10ft wide pits. Most were less than 4ft and much of the trails were 2-3ft tread width.

Elevation was a little more than I expected by quickly looking at the topo map contours. I ended up doing almost 2000ft gain in 16 miles over 2 days which fits in with the general rule of 100-200ft/mi minimum in the Northeast. Most of the riding was single track similar to what you find in Wilcox Lake but with sharper, more jagged rocks spaced just oddly enough to make things spicy.

Overall it was a great weekend and a good basis to begin building more routes in the Eastern Adirondacks, which to this point I've largely ignored.

Rode 7 miles of technical single track in the dark to be afforded this mornings view. No bugs, one very quiet human (who surprised me) while she contemplated life sitting on the shoreline, cool temps (my ideal temps, 30-50F/0-10C). Didn't ride that much, but covered 12 miles of totally new to me single track with just a few miles of pavement to close the loop. Plans changed a bit from 21 miles of single track because I couldn't stomach the 9 miles of road riding to make it happen.

I need to bike back in and explore this area on foot. There are supposedly cliffs/view points above the creek and also more than a dozen waterfalls, several of which I saw from the ride in. It would be a great way to spend a day exploring.

I've leveraged my varied activities into a lot of knowledge about the Adirondacks that's helped me pre-plan bikepacking routes and now I'm going to leverage bikepacking through the Adirondacks for the same benefit of exploring off the bike.

This section of road is impassable by cars in both directions. There are two bridges out and a major washout, neither of which were an issue for the bicycle. It's unlikely I'd ever havr hiked this on a whim, but it was a perfect stretch of riding with the stream flowing at the periphery of my view.

The bicycle is able to go places a car can't and at a pace that is slow enough to take in your surroundings but fast enough to cover a lot of ground while bridging fragmented forest preserve units.

I need to bike back in and explore this area on foot. There are supposedly cliffs/view points above the creek and also more than a dozen waterfalls, several of which I saw from the ride in. It would be a great way to spend a day exploring.

I've leveraged my varied activities into a lot of knowledge about the Adirondacks that's helped me pre-plan bikepacking routes and now I'm going to leverage bikepacking through the Adirondacks for the same benefit of exploring off the bike.

This section of road is impassable by cars in both directions. There are two bridges out and a major washout, neither of which were an issue for the bicycle. It's unlikely I'd ever havr hiked this on a whim, but it was a perfect stretch of riding with the stream flowing at the periphery of my view.

The bicycle is able to go places a car can't and at a pace that is slow enough to take in your surroundings but fast enough to cover a lot of ground while bridging fragmented forest preserve units.

I'm curious how many people bring a camera (besides their cell phone) these days on a bikepacking trip or bike touring trip?

For outdoor sports in general I've gone back and forth over the years from full ILC (interchangeable lens camera) system to advanced digital compact to tough compact depending on sport, weather and goals of trip.

So what's your setup?

Since my childhood I have done a lot of night riding which turned into all sorts of night activities (hiking, skiing, rock and ice climbing, full moon paddling).

Anyways, I'm actually faster and more comfortable in the dark. Here's are some photos from our two trips this year in New York's Adirondack Forest Preserve.

The short stats:

28mi, 4000ft gain. 38F average activity temp. One black fly at the parking area. 4 humans seen, 3 contacts. 2 ATV, 0 cars. Mininum 2 loons. Hours riding in dark about 1.5.

The with ~2 million acres of public land open to bicycles within and adjoining the Adirondack Forest Preserve, the Adirondacks are a blank canvas for exploration by bicycle. Just don't expect to ride your bike the whole time finding which trails are rideable and which are not.

Some people weren't thrilled with "mud season" riding in my last post, and IF I was riding in mud season, I would have agreed with them. I absolutely hate seeing trashed trails.

Here's a drier look at the same weekend in the same area, one without the beaver impoundments and the creeks and swamps they created. I hope this is more environmentally friendly.

On a positive note, it's not mud season in the southern Adirondacks. It's about as dry as it's going to get all year. Dry air, consistent wind and little rain; spring is a magical time. We live in a region with 40-50 inches of annual rain and and maybe 80-100in of snow within most of the blue line. mud will always exist.

I've wallowed in mud pits as a thru hiker on the Northville Placid Trail mid summer and swore to never go back before September and if I did, I'd wear sandals and just rip through it all. Best practice (on bike or foot), go down the center of the trail and keep it confined (whether walking or riding). Turning 20 inch wide trail bed into a 20ft wide mess isn't going to help the situation. When I'm riding or walking my bike, I go right down the center unless it looks so deep I could get injured or stuck. And it's far safer for the bike in the trail than on the edges where a derailleur could get snagged or a rotor bent. You get used to wet feet and they usually won't hurt you.

Get out and enjoy the dry trails and remember, there is more to the Adirondacks than the High Peaks.

Although I do not typically publish routes I have not ridden, driven or walked in their entirety, I am excepting this one because it's mostly rail trail, public roads or known bike routes through easement logging roads. Obviously do your research but this should be good to go.

I originally made this route to do with a family member that wasn't ready to do one of my more MTB oriented routes (although I think Moose Tracks would have been perfect for them, it required renting a bike and the hassle that comes with timelines). I wanted minimal drive time, maximum ride time, mostly off-pavement, and minimal fuss.

We ended up choosing a different route on the NY Vermont border I had been eyeing for a few years (a mix of rail trail, steep climbs up USFS roads, and then finishing on the VTXL) thats a super quick 40 minutes backroads drive from home. No rentals or schedules, just adventure.

This Adirondack gravel route is 61% off pavement and can utilize Amtrak to avoid looping back to the starting point.

Link in comments because you can't edit photo post and links sometimes are changed.

Two things I've learned from bikepacking in the Adirondacks 1) the Adirondacks don't have a lot of gravel (that does somewhere, lots of dead ends that require traversing single track or bushwhacking through the forest) 2) It's always going to get worse before it gets better...if it gets better.

This trip had a rare long steep Adirondack gravel descent (which dead ended) on the inbound day. The 3.5 mile descent allowed me to put my dog in the K9Sportsack and rip down the varied gravel surfaces on the logging easement road that was ahead of us. Everything from class 1 gravel, to chunk, sand, and a little mud here or there. My dog have been able to keep up on foot but I don't let him do long down hills.

As much fun as the descent was, I was dreading the climb back out with only about 200mi on my legs since Nov 2025 (all in April 2026) and a little extra winter belly fat. Pushing and carrying my bike for 5 of 6 single track miles on this trip, over, through and around blowdown, beaver impoundments, and general lack of any sensibly maintained trails; reminded me how nice even a relentlessly steep uphill can be when your bike is more than a luggage hand cart... When it's actually a bike and you're actually riding!

Always remember, it can be worse and that should remind you that it's not actually that bad.

Full trip report can be found on r/bikepack_Adirondacks for anyone in the region

TLDR: My goal was to 1) just do a chill bikepack and camp out at a nice location 2) explore some additional trails and see if more loops could be created in an area that has great recreational infrastructure, plenty of trails, rideable topography but generally rugged terrain.

Trip stats: 20mi, 2800ft gained, 4000cal burned, 2.6mph average speed. 44F Average Activity Temp, 26F overnight low. Hours bushwacking in dark 1.5.

It went about as poorly as Wilcox Lake typically goes. The potential there is amazing, the actual riding when not hindered by blowdown is very technical, which would be mostly fun but once you add in the fact the state doesn't maintain any of those trails, trails that were mostly just blazes through the forest vs actual trails built to design specs littered with years of blowdown that makes riding nearly impossible.

I've discovered through bikepacking that a good amount of forest preserve trails are technically unmaintained and for all reasonable definitions abandoned. They may have blazes but no one from NYS has done a backcountry foot patrol in years. Many are flooded by beaver impoundments and no longer exist. They have not been rerouted and there is so little foot traffic that herd paths haven't formed. In some cases the beavers are taunting us, leaving a tree with a blaze in the middle of a beaver pond.

Camping was nice, the riding not so much. And I never did figure out if more loops were possible because the hike (not a typo) was absolutely heinous. I pushed and carried my bike for 2.5 of the 3 miles of single track at a pace of 0.5mph. I'd imagine the remaining trails I intended to check out were similar, so until someone hikes in with a chain saw and clears all the trails, Wilcox will need to have a pin put in it for future exploration.