Best Sunrise Magic in the Adirondack High Peaks

Sunrise filters through the clouds in dancing, golden motes, touching upon the mountainsides of the Adirondack High Peaks. It slips around the shoulders of mountains, flowing down into the vacant valleys in warm streams. Waking up to catch the sun as it stretches over the horizon, honest and slow, sets your soul on fire, helping you slip out of your tired skin and into one a little less cumbersome.

Sunrise in the Adirondacks is truly wonderful, and this is one of the best places to watch it. 

Last Minute Decisions to the ADKs 

Sunlight magic filtering through the pines, across cedar boughs, and crawling sleepily into beds of moss awoke the adventurer in me. I was out for a walk in a nature preserve, postponing my much needed studying when the fire inside my chest burned me to do more.

I wanted to see something I hadn't in a while, I wanted to watch the sun kiss the mountains for the first time. 

Excited, I planned a hasty trip to the mountains, mixing my homework with research. I found an interesting app called Exsate Golden Hour that helped me measure the trajectory of the sunrise to find the best mountain to watch it from. 

And so I decided to watch the sun slowly rise above the High Peaks from Algonquin, the second highest mountain in NY.

After scrambling to get together the proper gear, I listened to The Name of The Wind by Patrick Rothfuss on audiobook and drove north deep into the night.

Early Morning Wakeup

I had parked in the snowy lot at midnight, crawling into the abundance of covers in my bed in the back of my car. As I drifted off to sleep in the dark of the woods, I dreamed of light playing haughtily through layers of cloud and mountain mist.

Despite the freezing cold outside of the car, I forced myself out from beneath the covers a little before 4 AM and boiled hot cocoa. Breath misting the steady beam of my headlamp, I forced my legs to fly myself up the mountainside.

I hadn't had many chances to escape into the wilderness since I had started school for the semester, so being alone, in the dark, in the forested mountainside sent shivers of excitement rolling through my body. I was thrilled, stoked to be out, even in the shivering cold. There was something about last minute adventures that sent me to new heights, burned in my chest with a desire to run and shout to the wild.

At the pace I was going, I started having to strip layers beneath my Primaloft jacket, as my race to catch first light layered me in sweat. Breathing hard, out of shape from my exhausting spiral of work and school and nothing else most days, I didn't let myself stop except to slip micro-spikes over my boots. Ice layered the trail as I rose in elevation, a thrilling challenge most days, but that morning I had a job to do.

As I entered the alpine zone, the sky began to brighten, making my heart flutter. I couldn't miss the flame of light on the eastern horizon, I had to make it.

Blue hour had already begun, and the air around me continued to lighten till I didn't need a light anymore.

My lungs heaved out weary breath, and my legs burned from the climb, but I forced more passion, more energy into them and moved faster.

Summit Sunrise

The moment I crested that summit, and the full force of frigid wind struck me, my head began to ache from the cold. Head damp from sweat, I momentarily forgot about my race, and stumbled behind a boulder to dry my hair in a spare flannel and layer back up.

As I stood back up, camera in hand, a flash of pink and yellow broke through the clouds beside a summit to the east. 

A grin split my face, pure and bright. I couldn't help it, I forgot the cold in my hands and just laughed. 

Before I had even snapped a photo from my tripod, the brittle cold and relentless wind snapped one of the legs off. I found shelter beneath a ledge, found a good angle, and tried to force the pieces back together to grab a few shoots. I managed a few crooked bangers before the second leg broke, and I had to give up my attempts.

The sun began to rise behind the clouds, filtering a gold and orange from behind the shrouding mist. It breathed out a good morning from the eastern horizon beyond the mountains, filling my veins with a euphoria I hadn't felt in a long time, not since my last sunrise session.

Nursing a thermos of hot cocoa in my hands, I just sat and watched for a while, the peace of it stilling my. The rising steam from the cocoa warmed my beard, tickling against the cracked cold of my lips, making my nose run.

Setting down my drink, I rose to snap another few photos, and as I did, I took my eyes off of the sunrise for just a moment.

A warm beam of early sunlight broke through the filtered clouds, washing the flowed lands to the south in warm light. The simple beauty of it coursed adrenaline into my feet and I sprinted across the summit for a better view, cursing out profanities in an excited shout. The wind tried to shove the words back down my throat, but my excitement fought back the icy howl.

It lasted for only a few minutes, but that light was enough to bring out the inspiration in me, twisting pretty words in my head.

It was simple, a brief moment of natural light, filtered by clouds, spreading out across the rolling hills and mountains, but to me it was the world, it was everything I was.

In the End

Sunrise is magical almost every time I watch it, changing in dynamic shapes and colors depending on the sullen clouds in the sky.

In times of stress, when I lose track of where I am, what I am doing, I find solace in moments like this. I make memories, let the creative, the explorer in me take over.

It's moments like these I'm truly alive.

Algonquin is one of the better places to watch the sunrise. The lightshow happens over the other high peaks to the east, so the mountains stand out in stark contrast to the rising sun. Using an app to help you track the best places to watch the sun, sets you up for the perfect shot and the perfect morning. 

Know the area around the location you are looking at, so you have an interesting landscape over which the sun will rise. The more contrast of textures, like mountains and valleys, the more interesting the show, but you do not want the landscape between you and the sun to be towering over you, otherwise you might not catch that golden hour.

Trips that bring out the inspiration in you can only take a few hours to plan. Convincing myself I could take a night off, that I could escape for a little while, was the hardest part about this, everything else, the bitter cold, the broken gear, mapping out the best locations to watch the sunrise, the late night drives and car sleeping, the tough hike at 4 AM, that's all part of the fun.