Bill and Tom took a couple of backpacking trips in the High Peaks in the 1980s. On one of the trips they hiked into Flowed Lands and stayed at lean-to for a couple of nights. They climbed Skylight (4,926′) on the trip, which was in the fall.

One another trip they stayed at a lean-to near Johns Brook Lodge and, to the best of their recollection, climbed Haystack (4,960′) on one day and then did a loop hike that took them over a number of High Peaks, including Gothics (4,736′).
It may have been that at the end of this second trip that they did a day hike climb of Rocky Peak Ridge (4,420′) and Giant Mountain (4,627′). It is known that they accomplished this climb of Rocky Peak Ridge and Giant in 1985, because at the time Tom was considering whether to work for New York Governor Mario Cuomo, and Bill recommended that he do so. They put a car at either end of this hike, leaving a car on Route 73 at about where they thought the trail to Giant began (they couldn’t find the trailhead). They then drove to the trailhead for Rocky Peak Ridge, which was off Route 9. After climbing Rocky Peak Ridge and Giant, they made it down to Route 73 in the dark. They didn’t know which way to walk the road for their car. They began to walk along the road in one direction, but, after not coming upon the car after a decent interval, they realized they had picked the wrong way to try. They retraced their steps to where they had left the woods, and headed on down the road in the right direction, eventually finding their car.

View Flowed Lands in a larger map

View Rocky Peak Ridge and Giant in a larger map

Gallery: Flowed Lands