We arrived at the Beaver Pond Road access point to the
Pharaoh Lake Wilderness on Monday. Armed with backpacks and Hornbeck boats, we
were drooling to get into the pristine, glistening backcountry of the
Adirondacks. We set off, doe-eyed into the wilderness and were soon smacked
upside the head with the reality of the conditions of the northern forest in
June. With boats not quite fitting over our packs and no time to stop and fix
them due to the insatiable swarms of mosquitoes, we had a four hour slog over
the 3.7 mile path to Pharoah Lake.
When we arrived I threw my boat into the water and
disembarked, growling that I had just put my foot in the lake in a last ditch
effort to get away from the bugs while I still had SOME blood left in my veins.
Once on the water, the swarming ceased completely and we were rewarded with a
pristine shoreline and clear lake with mountains rising on all sides. All of
the sudden, the heart-racing tempo of the hike stopped and we were able to
breathe and enjoy our surroundings.
I spotted a rocky promontory in the distance, which would be
our home for the next few days. We would technically be camping at Lean-to
five, but all of our time would be on the breezy point. It offered a beautiful
panoramic view with imposing Pharaoh Mountain to the northwest. We had climbed
the mountain two summers prior and had spied the lake for paddling then.
Exhausted, we ate our dinner and hid beneath netting while
we slept to a constant hum of bugs. When we awoke, the humming had stopped and
we could freely walk around our site without being molested by the bugs. We
paddled the shoreline of Pharaoh Lake, eying beaver dams, distant cliffs,
calling loons, and glacial erratics that seemed intentionally placed. After our
lackadaisical paddle, we decided to follow a trail to Whortleberry Pond, just
.3 miles from the shore.
The trail that we found quickly turned into a bushwhack.
Since we were carrying boats, I nicknamed our new sport “paddlewhacking.” After
fighting through balsam boughs, tree limbs and mosquitoes we arrived on the
shore of a pristine Adirondack pond. We slowly admired the scenery while
following the dog-legged shoreline. A suspicious loon eyed our boats from a
safe distance.
We spent the evening on our rocky promontory playing
pinochle and eating while watching some darker clouds roll in. After the
nightmarish hike on the way in, we were mentally preparing for the worst on the
way out.
In the morning, we awoke at sunrise and started packing our
gear amid the bugs; they were back and FIERCE. We shoved off and enjoyed our
first mile of paddle sans-pests, knowing that the deluge would be on its way
when we landed. When the boats hit the shore, we donned our bug nets and put
[dirty] socks over our hands so that no skin would be exposed to the
bloodsucking parasites! Determined and with lighter packs, we made the four
mile trek in just over an hour with swarms of insects on our tails. We tied
boats on the car as quickly as possible and talked about the schizophrenic
experience that we all had. We had each experienced Adirondack solitude and
beauty and we had each suffered through miserable conditions but never had we
experienced the two with almost no delineation.
