I opted for this route and mountains because I was just getting back into hiking after having been operated on in April. I had two vertebrae in my neck fused due to a disc impingement on my spinal cord. The Doctor cleared me for daypack hiking and this seemed like the best group of mountains to return on.
We took a 15-minute break before heading up to Lookout Mt. We arrived at the junction with the trail to Esther Mt. at 9 a.m. where we took another break before heading onto Whiteface, we opted to do whiteface first because we thought we would need the most energy for that, as it turns out we were right. A little more than halfway from the trail junction we came across some construction that apparently Whiteface is doing. They have a couple of excavators moving some big rocks for some reason.
We arrived at the road wall at 9:50 a.m. and followed it around to the left arriving up by the road shortly thereafter. We took a quick breather before climbing up the ridge trail to the summit of Whiteface Mt at 10:20 a.m. We lounged around on the rocks, had lunch, and then walked the road back to the trail.
We arrived on Esther Mt at 1:10 pm and stayed until 2 pm. We then left and arrived back at the junction at 2:40 pm, took a break, and then headed down the mountain to the science center. While on the way we were met by 2 men, one of them was wearing stilts, I don't know why, though it was very odd. We arrived back at the parking lot at 4:30 pm.
It took us 10.5 hrs to do this hike, not bad for being away from hiking for several months, it was difficult for me, as I found that I was out of shape!
