MacIntyre Range: 5,115-foot (1,559 m)
Algonquin Peak (the second highest mountain in the state), 4,829-foot (1,472 m)
Boundary Peak, 4,843-foot (1,476 m)
Iroquois Peak and 4,380-foot (1,340 m)
Mount Marshall.
Mount Marcy is 2.5 miles (4.0 km) to the east. Avalanche Lake feeds
Lake Colden to the south, in the
Hudson River watershed. To the north, the trail to the lake from the
Adirondak Loj surmounts Avalanche Pass, which is only slightly above lake level but separates it from the
Lake Champlain (
St. Lawrence River) watershed. Following the lake toward
Lake Colden, the trail is choked with large boulders, and a number of wooden ladders have been built to make passage possible. There are also three places where the trail takes to wooden catwalks, first built in the 1920s, that are bolted directly into the cliff face.
[1] This section is known as the "Hitch-Up Matilda;" in 1868 when a mountain guide waded to carry one of his clients past a point with no footing on shore, her husband urged her to sit higher on his shoulders.
[2]
The European discovery of the lake dates to an 1833 surveying party led by Judge John Richards and Major Reuben Sanford; it was named by
landslides on Mount Colden, the rubble from which substantially raised the level of the lake.
[1] Another avalanche in 1942 caused further slides that raised the lake level by 10 feet (3.0 m).
[1]