And it was a total blast. We got to Lake Placid late Friday afternoon after stopping to pick up food & supplies in Malone. We stayed in these awesome cabins a few minutes outside of town, which were very cool. Nice little cozy rooms. Friday night we hit up the Lake Placid Pub & Brewery to indulge in some of the local microbrews. (If anyone finds either Ubu Ale or Brown Bag ale anywhere, try it, and then kindly tell me where you found it. Better still, pick some up for me.) And we wrapped up the night at another pub with an outdoor fireplace, hanging out with some hockey parents from Boston. And the next morning, it was off for some hiking.
We decided to hike up Giant Mountain, due in part to a suggestion from some good people we know who happen to be 46'ers and because it looked like just the right amount of challenge to meet our modest hiking ambitions. We got started around 10:30 or so. It turns out there are actually two trails that lead up to the mountain summit, and we inadvertently took the slightly longer one - the Roaring Brook trail. (3.6 miles each way, ascending 3375 feet to an elevation of 4626 feet.) Superb! 
The first little while was great hiking. The trail was really well marked, the sun came out and warmed us up, the brook babbled away like... well, okay, maybe now I'm getting a little bit dramatic. But anyway, the trail then crosses over the brook and continues on. Other than a few downed trees to confuse us, it was pretty good going. Then as we got higher, it started getting a little colder and eventually we started hitting some patches of ice on the trail. 
From here on up it would become a little more challenging since the trail wasn't quite as well defined and we had to deal with sliding around somewhat on the icy bits. At last, we made it to the top around 2pm. Unfortunately, when we got there, it was pretty cloudy, so the view wasn't quite as good as it could have been, but something about the clouds being dense like that makes the mountain range seem a little more ominous, so that was fine with me. And then it started raining. It rained pretty much the whole way down, so by the time we made it to the bottom (around 5pm or so) we were pretty soaked, and I have to admit that it was sort of nice to be finished when we were.
And our day finished off with some pizza in Lake Placid, and since the fireplace at the pub we were at the night before wasn't lit (either on account of the rain, or because we had used up all the firewood the night before), and because we had just finished hiking a mountain, we decided on a night of low energy expenditure. The next day we indulged in some Ben & Jerry's, perused the local hippie store, meandered around the Imagination Station, hit up the duty free on the way across the border, and B gave me the grand tour of Cornwall before coming back to Ottawa.
This weekend totally reaffirmed my love for small towns. And for those keeping track: 1 peak down. 45 to go. Since there were so many awesome photos from the trip, I put some of the best ones into my photo archive. Enjoy!
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