Coney Mountain

By Bill Ingersoll

Coney Mountain is a small knob – and a prominent landmark. As you travel south on NY Route 30 from Tupper Lake, you can’t help but notice its bald summit standing 500 feet above the highway. Its summit features a 360° view and it is therefore a popular, easy climb. A relatively short hiking trail leads to its summit, making this small mountain all the more accessible.

This is, of course, not the only New York State landmark bearing the name Coney – and like the island in Brooklyn, no one is fully satisfied with any of the explanations for this mountain’s name. “Coney” (or “cony”) is an archaic English word for rabbit, although in my observation Coney Mountain is no more overrun by lagomorphs than any other peak. And yet all other hypotheses are equally based on large doses of speculation.

According to the late historian Barbara McMartin, Coney Mountain has been a known landmark for centuries. In 1772, surveyor Archibald Campbell laid out the north line of the Totten and Crossfield Purchase. He was accompanied by a delegation from the Indian tribe from which the vast tract was being purchased. About 0.3-mile east of today’s Route 30, they intersected the north end of the “Line of Mile Trees,” which had recently been run 55 miles from the “Landing House Tree” on the Hudson River. Campbell did not continue his line beyond this junction, but he did take his Indian companions up to the shoulder of Coney Mountain where they could look east to the High Peaks and be satisfied that the line was correct. 

In 1796, Campbell’s line was used as the south line of the Macomb Purchase; for this, Medad Mitchell continued the original T&C line east of Coney Mountain. It was not until 1799 that Benjamin Wright, later chief engineer for the old Erie Canal, carried the T&C-Macomb line all the way to the Old Military Tract at today’s Preston Ponds. 

Today, Coney Mountain stands just north of the Franklin-Hamilton county line, which is coincident with the T&C-Macomb line. A former herd path that once followed the well-marked boundary was closed years ago and replaced with the new state trail that winds almost in a complete circle around the north side of the mountain. The hike is so short that just an hour or two suffices for the full round-trip journey.

Getting There

The foot trail begins near the Franklin-Hamilton county line on NY Route 30, about 10.4 miles south of downtown Tupper Lake or 11.8 miles north of downtown Long Lake. A short driveway leads east from the highway to a rather small parking area in the woods. If this fills up, or is not adequately plowed in the winter, then the wide highway shoulder makes a suitable parking area as well.

The Trail

The trail begins to the right of the parking area, and following blue markers it angles south of west for the first 0.1 mile, in the vicinity of an intermittent stream. But at the first sight of the mountain’s steeper slopes the route veers left, north, and begins a long traverse. In the interest of keeping the grade as gentle as possible, the trail embarks on a circuitous journey around the foot of the mountain, all the while climbing through open hardwoods.

After about 20 minutes of hiking, you will be on the opposite side of the mountain from where you started, but 400 feet higher in elevation and now heading southward. At this point, having circled wide around the northern slopes, the trail scoots up to the ridgeline to approach the summit from the southwest. This is the only part of the climb that is steep, and it is only barely so. The trail is only one-mile-long, climbs a total of 530 feet, and takes about 30 minutes to walk. As you emerge on the open rock summit, notice carefully the end of the path so you can find it for the return.

From vantages along the bare rock there is a full 360° view. Clockwise from Tupper Lake to the north, the principal landmarks are nearby Goodman Mountain and Mount Morris; the Sewards, MacIntyres, Marcy, and the Santanonis to the east; Blue Mountain to the south; and small portions of Little Tupper and Round lakes to the southwest, where the fire tower on nearby Buck Mountain has been recently opened to the public. At your feet you will find a USGS benchmark and some eyebolts. The view of the MacIntyres may be the one that Campbell detoured from the line to show the Indians. His field notes, however, contradict this interpretation.

The mountain has gone by several different names over the years. In the 19th century it was called Peaked Mountain. Then in 1882, because of its proximity to the original Franklin-Hamilton-St. Lawrence county corner, the surveyor Verplanck Colvin named it Monument Mountain. Seneca Ray Stoddard’s 1891 map labels it as Cone Mountain, and it may be this name that has been corrupted into its present form.

Bill Ingersoll is a co-founder and the vice-chair of Adirondack Wilderness Advocates. For more information on this area, visit: adirondackwilderness.org/hurricane-mountain-wilderness.