Gothics

On our next venture into the Adirondacks, we crashed the Bouchard-Hall family "man-trip" hike into the high peaks. The first night was spent in New Russia at a classic camp that dated to 1905. We ate drank and were merry before retiring early to prepare for an early hike the next day.

I blew reveille to wake up the crowd in the morning and after a hearty breakfast we headed to the Ausable Club parking area for a hike up Gothics. Our group stopped to admire waterfalls along the way but made steady progress towards the top.

When we arrived, we ate our lunch and took in the fantastic scenery. In fact, from that vantage point, we could see every high peak that we had climbed so far this summer!

The group decided to descend over Pyramid Peak, which gave us a fantastic look back at the sheer stone walls for which Gothics is named (for its resemblance to Gothic architecture).

The descent took us to a look through the valley into Lower Ausable Lake. We admired the view, and continued to a swimming hole to plunge our tired feet. A few miles later, we arrived at the car and went for dinner at the Deer's Head Inn in Elizabethtown.

We spent the next day playing music at the mountain house in New Russia before heading back to Vermont. Other than a quick trip to Split Rock Falls (a fantastic swimming hole), we lounged for the entire day!

Santanoni

Our next venture into the Adirondack wilderness began with a trip back to the St. Regis Canoe Area. When we last left it, thunderstorms had kept us from hiking St. Regis Mountain and we wanted to make up for that deficit. On the way we stopped at Howard Johnson's for "food bar" lunch and Donnelly's ice cream stand for dessert. The full bellies made for slow hiking but we waddled to the summit eventually for one of the finest views in the Adirondack Park. With many ponds and lakes dotting the landscape and Whiteface Mountain in the distance, we enjoyed the view for a solid hour. We even watched a regatta on Upper St. Regis Lake.

For the night, we went to Rollins Pond State Campground where we set up the tent and turned in before nine. We awoke the next day and paddled the shoreline of Rollins Pond which had a surprisingly undeveloped and interesting shoreline. We enjoyed the fact that the pond was only paddlers and lacked the "chop" that many larger lakes have.

After leaving Rollins Pond we went north to explore Follensby Clear Pond which was dotted with many islands. We paddled through the narrows and circled the only lean-to on the lake before heading back to the car. As we left campers were scrambling to get their boats on the lake to grab the remaining campsites.

We made our obligatory stop at Donnelly's for more ice cream, we went to Elizabethtown for a guitar lesson from Joan and then to Wadhams for the night (which meant pizza at the Dogwood Bakery).

The next day we awoke early and went to Newcomb where we met Tom and Kevin for a hike into Santanoni for the evening. We loaded our backpacks and put the kayaks on dollies and started a four mile drag into Newcomb Lake. When we arrived at the lake we took the first campsite available since our arms were about to fall off.

We had lunch on the porch of Santanoni, a great camp from the gilded age which is now state owned and open for visitors. Since we filled our boats with instruments on the way in we had a jam in the great room and then moved out to the porch.

In the evening we paddled the wild, remote and seemingly pristine Newcomb Lake which sees little boat traffic due to the required hiking distance. Except for a near-miss when Kevin was getting back into the kayak, it was a success and we celebrated with pesto for dinner and a roaring campfire!

Kevin hiked out early the next morning but we stayed and kayaked Lower Duck Hole which was on the other side of the bridge from Newcomb Lake. It was a wide river which eventually led to unnavigable rapids. We likened our paddle to a bushwhack since we were going through thick lilypads.

Newcomb Lake in the morning

Lower Duck Hole

After lunch and another jam in the great room of Santanoni, we headed back to the car with kayaks in tow. We went to Crown Point for the evening to prepare for our next adventure.

The next morning, we packed the Guideboat and headed to Putnam Pond with Jean. We rowed to the northern end of the pond and beached the boats for a hike into Little Rock Pond and Rock Pond. We had our lunch in the Rock Pond lean-to and enjoyed the short hike into the edge of Pharoah Lakes Wilderness Area.

We returned to the boats and rowed to the southern end of the lake where we found a trail head leading to Grizzle Ocean. We were intrigued by the name and beached the boats again for a short hike. By the time we arrived at the Grizzle Ocean pond and lean-to rain had started so we hid in the lean-to playing cards and music until it let up.

We hiked back and rowed to the boat launch for showers and we then returned to Crown Point with vanilla malts in hand. We sat by the campfire and discussed our great summer adventures!

Our next day was quiet with breakfast at the Bridge Restaurant and a trip to the Crown Point Forts. We went to Wadhams for our last Tuesday night pizza night of the summer and got to play some great music with friends! All in all it was a successful trip and we are eager to get back into the mountains as soon as possible!

Algonquin

After two days at home in thunderstorms, we were itching to get back into the mountains! Despite a mediocre weather report, we boarded the ferry and headed back into the High Peaks Wilderness. We picked up Kevin and headed for Adirondack Loj but were dismayed to find that the parking lot was full. When we looked at the map we found another access to our destination from South Meadows that only added .3 miles. Our destination of the day would be Phelps Mountain.

 We headed south on the trail and arrived at Marcy Dam and began following the same trail that we had been on when we hiked Mount Marcy. This time, we would branch off to the northeast for a steep one mile trek to a great view of the high peaks. From the top we could see many of the familiar mountains and many of which we tried to find names based on the map. One of the most striking views from that vantage point is the angle that looks straight through Avalanche Pass.

 

A peek at some peaks from Phelps

It seemed appropriate that we hike Phelps Mountain since his picture was the inspiration for the beard this summer:

I have a LONG way to go

The next day, Lisa and I headed back to Adirondack Loj and were able to get a parking spot at the visitors center. We headed out in light rain on one of the steepest hikes that we had ever done! The day was overcast and as we climbed we could see that the peaks were covered in clouds. We were glad that by the time we got to Wright Peak the clouds had opened up and we could see most of the high peaks (all except Marcy).

We hiked down and found the plaque and wreckage of a 1962 plane crash that occurred just below the summit. It appears that much of the debris has disappeared over the years.

After hiking back down to the trail intersection, we had lunch and embarked on the last mile towards the summit of Algonquin. Most of the trail has eroded away to bare rock and it made for some tough scrambles. Lisa got to use her "crawl up the mountain" strategy. When we arrived we were in the clouds but within fifteen minutes they started to lift and we had a great view of the high peaks on one side, Wallface Mountain and Indian Pass on another, Lake Placid and the Saranac Lakes from another and Lake Colden and the Flowed Lands.

Mt. Colden with Marcy

Wallface Mountain

Lake Colden and the Flowed Lands

Wright Peak

We sat on the summit and snacked while the clouds burned off and finally decided to head down the trail. It was tougher climbing on the descent than it was going uphill! Lisa got to use her five-point system while scrambling down the rocks. While heading down, Whiteface finally came out of the clouds and we had a great view of the northern peaks.

When we arrived at the car, we gladly changed out of our hiking boots and went to Lake Placid to meet Kevin for dinner at the Dancing Bear. We had chili nachos, buffalo wings and french onion soup (y'know....health food...) before going to Stewart's in Keene and getting vanilla malts to wash them down! 

Pharaoh

Our next adventure into the wilderness was a backpacking trip into the Pharaoh Lakes Wilderness, located between Lake George and Schroon Lake. We parked on the western side of the wilderness boundary and packed up for a night in the woods. Our intention was to camp at Crane Pond but when we got there, we found cars that had driven the trail into the woods!

Since we didn't want to camp in a parking lot, we looked at the map and pressed on to the Oxshoe Pond lean-to. It was the wilderness experience that we were looking for with the lean-to to ourselves. The shore of Oxshoe Pond curved slightly and we were tempted to take a boat (that happened to be there) out on the lake. With no paddles and the sun setting, we had a small campfire and went to bed.

We slept well in the cool weather and awoke later than we thought due to the darkness of the lean-to. We slowly packed our tent in the backpacks and headed on the trail to Crab Pond. The trail eventually looped back to an intersection where we were the day before. We cached most of our belongings in the woods and took the trail to the peak of Pharaoh Mountain.

We enjoyed the view of the ponds that we had visited within the wilderness area and the view of Schroon Lake in the distance. Lunch was SPAMwiches before we followed the herd path to the other side of the peak to get a great view of Pharaoh Lake.

It was getting warm and humid and we concurred that it was time for a swim by the time we got back to the car. We drove to the Schroon Lake town beach and happily waded into the cool water. We got some garbage bread for dinner and started to head back to the orchard in Crown Point.

However, Lisa found a great evening hike on the map and we took a turn towards Cook Mountain in Ticonderoga which gave us a great view of the northern portion of Lake George. After taking in the view, we went to Ticonderoga and got vanilla malts at Stewarts. We took them over to Lisa's aunt and uncle's house for a quick visit.

After a night at the orchard, we headed south to Black Mountain on Lake George's eastern shore. We had admired the mountain on our June paddle but were dismayed to find that the fire tower on the summit has been closed to the public. We took in the view of the northern portion of the lake and headed to the Red Apple Diner II for lunch!

In the muggy afternoon, we went to Fort Ticonderoga for a bit of history. The fort brought back memories of our elementary school field trips and we took every tour available including the one of the King's Garden. Sadly, the fort has a new building which was erected with no attempt at matching the architecture of the older structures. We enjoyed the interpreters in period costume and the fife and drum corps as well as the exhibits upstairs.

After a night in Wadhams, we checked the radar and saw some severe thunderstorms heading in, so we headed home for a few days. We hope to be back to the high peaks if the weather will cool down and stay dry for a few days!

Big Moose

Leaving North Lake first thing in the morning, we headed to Old Forge for breakfast at Keyes Pancake House. The flapjacks were a solid job of work and bursting with blueberries! Holding our sides, we then drove to Big Moose Lake, just north of Eagle Bay. For a lake with very little public land, we were surprised by the interesting shoreline, bays and outlets that we could explore with our kayaks. We also thought that it seemed quaint that each dock had a mailbox for boat delivery.

For the evening, we were back in Wadhams for our last rehearsal and a great nights sleep. In the morning we intended to head back to the high peaks but were forced to wait due to high humidity and a chance of thunderstorms. Instead, we headed east to Split Rock Mountain to try some of the hiking trails. We enjoyed the trail to the Snake Den Harbor overlook but headed back to the car when the mosquitoes started buzzing.

In the afternoon, we went to the Westport boat launch for lunch intending to get on Lake Champlain for the muggy afternoon. We launched the kayaks and realized that we could paddle to Snake Den Harbor, where we had just been hiking!

We followed some of the nicest shoreline that Lake Champlain has to offer including barn rock and the palisades. We turned around at Lewis Clearing Bay and saw a bald eagle land in a tree just over our heads! We paddled back to Westport and bought the biggest steak I've ever seen and grilled it up in Wadhams for dinner.

On Saturday, the Wadhams Waddlers had a gig at Essex Day in Essex, New York. We played and joked around for about an hour and then needed ice cream due to the heat! We had a blast playing old-time music for the crowd in Essex. We even headed to the orchard afterwards and played some music with Sue, our new neighbor there.

We'll be home for a day and then it'll be back in the 'dacks!

St. Regis

After a stint at home during bad weather we headed back to Lake Placid for breakfast at Chair 6 and a visit to John Brown’s farm in North Elba. We took a tour of the house, led by a snarky woman with a Long Island accent. For us, it was a great connection to our previous road trips to Harper’s Ferry and other Civil War era sites. John Brown appeared to still be molderin’ in the grave…

With Jana, Tavis and Trevor we then visited Port Henry and spent a few days at the orchard in Crown Point. We took a few short paddles and enjoyed visits from Jeff and Deb as well as the rest of the Henry family!

We then departed for the St. Regis Canoe area with no real destination in mind. We knew the reputation of the area was as a paddler’s dream. On the way we found Donnelly’s Ice Cream – an ice cream joint that has been raved about by Lisa’s Aunt Susie! We immediately pulled in for some of the most delicious pistachio flavored soft-serve (creemees for VT folks) ice cream that we have ever had.

We continued to the canoe access on Upper St. Regis Lake and planned a night at one of the campsites in the wilderness area. We explored the lake and found the channel into Spitfire Lake as well. Most of the trip was spent marveling at the size and scope of the boathouses and camps located on both lakes. Spitfire Lake even had a three-story stone tower at one end, probably very useful if Vikings ever attacked…

Eventually we meandered to the Bog Pond canoe carry and we began the pond-hopping that would take the rest of the afternoon. We went from Bog Pond to Bear Pond, Little Long Pond, Green Pond and finally St. Regis Pond. Our kayak carts performed well on the longer carries (portages for you non-ADK folks) of the day.

We began looking for a suitable campsite on St. Regis Pond and found the perfect site on a bluff at the extreme western end of the lake. After a couple hours around the campfire, we went to bed hearing the call-and response of the loons and bullfrogs. Overnight, we kept hearing “tik-tik-tik-tik-tik-tik-tik-SPLASH” as beavers were felling trees into the lake.

In the morning we packed the kayaks and followed our carries in reverse order back to Upper St. Regis Lake just as the thunderclouds started booming. We made a trip back to Donnelly’s for more ice cream (black raspberry this time) and went to Paul Smith’s for a view of the campus.

Due to incoming storms over the next two days we headed to North Lake (which included dinner at the Buffalo Head) to have a roof over our heads and spent the next day paddling and visiting with family.