By Justin Rushia
Photos provided by Michael Brockway and Brody Olden.
When people think of Adirondack hiking, the High Peaks often dominate the conversation — but tucked between the well-known summits are lesser-known gems waiting for those who are trying to get a new perspective on our beloved mountain range.
One of those hidden gems is Jay Mountain, located in the town of Jay. With its elevation just under 4,000 feet, the mountain doesn’t carry the prestige of being named a High Peak, but it still offers a mile-long ridgeline walk that opens up to sweeping 360-degree views of the Adirondacks.
Michael Brockway, a trail runner and hiker from the North Country, first set out on a solo adventure to Jay Mountain. He wasn’t trying to cross another name off the 46 High Peak list; he was just scanning a map one afternoon when an unfamiliar name caught his eye. Brockway decided the hike was worth checking out.
That choice turned into one of his most memorable trips, as it became the place where he did his very first trail run.
“I really love Jay Mountain. That is probably my all-time favorite lower high peak,” Brockway said. “The nice part is it’s got a ridge on top, as opposed to a summit peak, where you just hike back down, you get to stay above the tree line for a good mile and a half or so as you hike along the summit ridge. It’s a unique kind of view for a little while that you don’t always get.”
Brockway vividly recalls the first time he ran up the trail. The weather was cold and rainy with heavy winds. The climb was uncomfortable and tiring, but when he finally reached the ridge and looked out across the valley, he said the view left him “jaw-dropped.”
“By the time you get to the summit, and you break through the trees and you see a very gentle rise in the distance, you’re really taken aback by just how much of the world you can see,” Brockway said. “You feel like you’re running along this highway in the sky.”
Jay Mountain is just a 45 minute drive from Plattsburgh, making it accessible for a day trip while still delivering a big-mountain experience. The ridge can be tackled in a four- to six-hour round-trip at a steady hiking pace.
Another spot that Brockway pointed to lies farther south, near Keene Valley — Hopkins Mountain, paired with its neighbor, Spread Eagle.
“I remember popping out on top, after all that climbing, and you’re just getting this really amazing view down what is the Johns Brook Valley,” Brockway said. “You get this really unique vantage point to see all these other big mountains that people talk a lot about, from what otherwise is a smaller, less known mountain.”
Brockway first climbed Hopkins as part of the Great Adirondack Trail Run, a race that winds through rugged terrain before reaching the summit. Even while racing and with his legs burning from the climb, he said the scenery of the trail stuck with him.
“It was a cloudy day with some of the clouds drooping into the valley,” Brockway said. “You really felt this connection between all the layers of the world around you painted into one vista.”
SUNY Plattsburgh student and avid hiker Brody Olden pointed toward a different style of hidden gem. For him, the real Adirondack experience often comes on short climbs to lookouts or the long walk to a tucked-away waterfall.
“There’s a lot of good hiking gems around here, and not all of them are big mountains,” Olden said.
Olden’s favorite hidden gem is a waterfall tucked deep into the Hudson Gorge Wilderness, known as OK Slip.
At nearly 300 feet, the waterfall is considered the biggest in the Adirondacks.
“It’s pretty close. It’s a very big waterfall for the area, and it’s hidden. Not a lot of people know about it, maybe some locals, and it’s only 10 minutes from Gore Mountain, so it’s a pretty neat little area,” Olden said.
The name OK Slip comes from the practice of loggers who would send logs down the river. When they were ready to release the logs, they would call out, “OK, slip!” and then cut the rope that held them in place. This would cause the logs to fly down the river, Olden explained, recalling a story from a rafting guide.
The hike to OK Slip Falls is about 3.5 miles one way, with little elevation gain. The trail narrows into a valley before spilling out into the base of a massive cascade, revealing the waterfall.
The conditions on the trail change with the season. Most of the time, OK Slip is a very muddy trail, so trail workers lay down a lot of boards to allow you to walk across and stay off the mud, thereby avoiding damage to the wilderness and the trail, Olden explained.
When Olden visited the waterfall this summer, he found the falls barely trickling, a sharp contrast to his trip two years earlier, when water thundered down the cliff.
“In recent years and even months, it’s been super dry,” Olden said. “We’ve been in a dry, dry, hot summer.”
For Brockway, Olden, and plenty of others who know the area, these hikes show that not every Adirondack trip has to be about summiting the tallest peak. Sometimes the best part is finding those little hidden spots — a ridge that feels like a road in the sky, a summit that opens up to a valley, or a waterfall tucked away in the woods. Those are the gems that stick with you when you step off the beaten trail.
