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Parked at giant ledge lot, and hiked up and over to panther summit.
Was a little confused as to where the actual "summit" is. i remember seeing somewhere a sign that said panther summit 3720 online. I didn't find this sign on the top of the mtn. We hiked basically to the other side, and back, and didn't see any trails to the middle of the mtn. I'm sure we were close enough to the summit.
Anyways. If anyone has any hints as to what counts as the "summit". I downloaded coordinates off of a website for some summits and springs and trailheads, but I find all of them to be a little off to the east. Like it shows the "summit" of panther over the edge... Anywho.
The weather was beautiful, and the view was astounding. I had been to the devil's path and up wittenberg, and you can see from one to the other. I had a lot of fun although it was a little icy. at 20 degrees there was little melting by the time we headed back down.
Some guy was hiking up with full crampons, another girl with microspikes. I managed to just avoid the icy sections, and didn't take out my crampons since it was very rocky and snow-less in a lot of the places. Maybe 1 inch at the summit.
Last edited by Jon on Thu Jan 05, 2012 12:01 am, edited 2 times in total.
I hiked up to Panther today (along the Giant Ledge route) for the first time. Same experience, pretty flat on top, and I hiked far enough past the viewpoint that I'm pretty sure that there wasn't anything higher, unless it was hidden in the balsam forest somewhere. We started from the trailhead at about 10:15, and made it back by about 3. There wasn't much snow on the ground, but there were flurries throughout the day. There were a bunch of icy spots on the trail, but nothing that wasn't hard to climb over or around. We saw about 20 people total on the trail in several groups. One guy was wearing yaktrax, but other than that everyone seemed to be doing fine with regular hiking boots. There were several places where the water from springs was still running, but given how cold it is supposed to get tonight and tomorrow, I expect most everything will be frozen over. There was less snow on the ground than in the picture, but after the flurries and maybe more overnight, that probably won't last for long.
dave
I suppose the sign might have fallen off the tree. When I went past North Point on Sunday, there was a brand new sign broken on the ground. But, if you hike up to Giant Ledge the terrain drops down after Giant Ledge, and then goes back up. Once you get to the top there are a couple view points. If you got to the view points, you made it there!
As for the GPS waypoints. The waypoints on the site are in GPS format. Some people set the GPS to track WGS84 instead of WGS. This will cause a shifting in position by a couple miles. They are talking about putting in all the common formats (WGS or GPS, WGS84, Dec-Min-Sec, and UTM). I don't think they have done it yet. Also Acme.com uses WGS84. GPS is more commonly used on trail GPS units, where car GPS units use WGS84. Very confusing for people who are not aware of this.
Here are the coordinates for the summit of Panther Mountain:
Decimal Degrees (WGS84)
Latitude Longitude
42.0563 -74.39384
When I was on Stoppel Point and North Mountain on Sunday there was some snow and lots of ice flows. The rocks around North Point were lightly covered with rime in some places. I didn't put my microspikes on. But, I was very careful in certain places. I was able to walk around the ice flows.
Sounds like everyone had a good time. The Giant Ledge/Panther Mtn hike is a nice one.
OK so I read a little about the WGS84 and such online, and what I can best figure is that the coordinates are just always gonna be off. I entered them all in using all the different ways you listed above. 3 out of 4 land right on top of eachother. They seem to be a little bit to the east of where my track shows up. They seem way east of the coordinate I get for the summit that's in the middle of the 3720 contour line. They're not even in above the 3700 contour line. I would say that the map could be "off" or such, but with the track there it seems to be right on where we walked along the side of the Panther summit. The Degree/Min/Sec "grid" of entering coordinates seems to put that a little bit further southeast.
I used a mathematical formula to convert them. The formula is not perfect. But, it gets you pretty close. GPS tracks are also not always accurate. They do tend to track within a 25' space. The other problem is that topo maps are not always accurate either. I have also found that usgs.gov has coordinates from summits that are sometimes off by quite a bit.
Overall, it gets you pretty close. But, not as accurate as some people might think. But, from the map, it looks like you guys made it to the top.
Has Route 47 been re-opened to the parking areas for Giant Ledge and Slide? I've read the trip reports with great interest and was wondering how hikers are accessing Giant Ledge and Slide. Last I heard, Route 47 was washed out from Irene.
I can tell you for sure that giant ledge parking area is accesable from the south. I didn't go past the parking area tho so I an't confirm from the north. However l'm pretty sure everything is open
here is a page that I have bookmarked http://www.dec.ny.gov/outdoor/77168.html
it has a link on the right side bar up top which has the .pdf for in-depth trail c onditions
they also had a chart there right after irene which had all the parking lots which were closed. The chart is gone so i'd assume they are now accesible
