Started off with the idea of doing Tabletop and Phelps, but got a later start then I wanted and do to conditions decided to only do Tabletop. Started out from the Loj and trail conditions were great, not much mud and smooth cruising. Trail was pretty much cake till after the Phelps trail split; after that it started to get steeper but nothing too bad, certainly by high peaks standards. After I crossed the stream for the second time snowspines started to show up, with a pretty much constant presence of them from where the trail breaks off the Marcy trail. Thankfully I had just picked up a pair of microspikes (which worked awesome!) but the real challenge of this hike was due to the fact that the warm weather had been melting the snowspines and as i was following the herdpath to the top of Tabletop i was constantly battling the collapsing spines and falling into the stream runoff. Some spines from top to stream bottom were over 3 feet and I had to really work the footing to limit the chance of injury. The view from the top isn' t really that good; basically just some views over treetops on the way up, but it was nice to get this first high peak out of the way. It was also the first trailess one I had ever done. 10.5 miles round trip with a small detour to the falls.
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