Muddy conditions are seen on the South Meadow trail near Marcy Dam on April 14. (News photo — Chris Gaige)

LAKE PLACID — While April may not be the most popular hiking time of the year in the region, it remains one of the most precarious.

That’s because trail conditions are highly variable and can change on a dime — from relatively dry stretches of dirt or gravel to ankle-deep mud to sheets of ice to pockets of snow that are still several feet deep and prone to post-holing, all subject to change based on location, elevation and recent weather conditions.

Local outdoors experts urge people thinking of recreating on the trails this time of the year to keep that variability in mind, especially if they are coming from a warmer region where spring may have sprung weeks ago. Looks can be deceiving.

“You might get into this area and think, ‘You know, it’s looking just like spring,’ but once you get up into those higher elevations, there’s a lot of snow,” said Sam Fairchild, who was staffing the Adirondack Mountain Club’s (ADK) High Peaks Information Center on Monday, April 14.

HPIC is located at ADK’s Heart Lake Program Center and provides the latest trail conditions, based on recent first-hand observations from people trekking through the High Peaks and surrounding wilderness. HPIC staff members frequently field questions from hikers wondering what to expect, and provide gear and route recommendations.

Mud is seen at Marcy Dam on Monday, April 14. April is notorious for muddy hiking conditions in the Adirondacks as water from snowmelt is often slow to drain away from the trails. (News photo — Chris Gaige)

Fairchild said the latest trail reports were, as expected, all over the place, and would change by the day as different weather patterns impacted the region. As of Monday, April 14, they consisted of mud, some areas of standing water and isolated patches of snow and ice at lower elevations.

The snow and ice is still well-entrenched and consistent at higher elevations, according to the reports. For those planning on heading up Mount Marcy via the Van Hoevenberg trail, Fairchild said Indian Falls — located alongside the trail at around an elevation of 3,600 feet — was where the reports said the steady deep snowpack began.

“Up in the higher summits, we’re getting reports of up to four, five, six feet of snow,” he said. “So snowshoes are still very much required up at the higher elevations of the High Peaks Wilderness.”

Snowshoes are not only indispensable to getting through deep snow, but in the High Peaks Wilderness, they’re required to be worn when there is at least 8 inches of snow on the side of the trail. Failure to do so can result in a forest ranger with the state Department of Environmental Conservation issuing a ticket and fine for the violation.

Fairchild said that depending on the destination, snowshoes can be needed well into spring.

Muddy conditions are seen on the South Meadow trail near Marcy Dam on Monday, April 14. (News photo — Chris Gaige)

“You can find pockets of kind-of deep snow well into May, sometimes even June at the highest elevations,” he said. “It could be fully green and warm down low, but you still might need some winter gear up in the High Peaks.”

At the same time, Fairchild emphasized that it’s impossible to ascribe any sort of timeline to how long winter conditions will hold on for.

Sudden fluctuations in the weather, which are difficult to forecast in advance, can drastically change trail conditions — either causing snow and ice to melt away and recede in the case of a thaw, or adding on to the snowpack in the event of a late-season snowstorm, bearing in mind that what may fall as rain at lower elevations could be coming down as snow in the High Peaks.

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Mud season manners

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If hikers encounter a mud or water puddle in the middle of a trail, it may be enticing to want to walk around. Local experts urge hikers not to do so, as it can have a deleterious effect on trails — especially those in the Adirondacks.

The state Department of Environmental Conservation offers this tip: “Walk through, not around, mud and puddles on trails to avoid further eroding and widening trails.” The DEC also advises hikers to “stay off steep, high elevation trails during the spring mud season.”

“The trails that we have here, in the High Peaks especially, are very susceptible to erosion,” Fairchild said. “The soils are very loose. They don’t drain well.”

Fairchild said the trails are, for the most part, very old. When the routes were first cut, trailblazers weren’t necessarily taking into account high volumes of foot traffic that modern trail builders account for, especially in popular recreational areas, such as the Adirondacks.

“They tend to follow the fall lines,” he said. “So when they do get wet and muddy, any extra footsteps that are kind of off to the side of the trail are going to end up widening the trail and making the situation even worse.”

The advice to avoid this sort of damage was simple.

“When you do encounter those nasty-looking mud puddles, you should just walk right through,” he said. “You’re going to get muddy (on a hike) regardless, so get it out of the way and now you’re good for the rest of the day.”

For more safety tips when planning outdoor recreational activities during the spring from the DEC, visit online at tinyurl.com/yckxvtbz.