County Line Flow

With Hornbeck Boats car-topped, we headed to County Line flow to paddle one of the most innocuous sounding locales in the Adirondack Park. The access was easy and despite having to pull-off one leech, it was an easy access.

The flow offered a great view of Kempshall Mountain and despite being surrounded by private land to the north and route 28N not far to the south, had a feeling of solitude. We followed the shoreline, electing not to try to take our boats over the dam. Turning to the west, we found the inlet to the flow and followed Fishing Brook north as far as we could. The windy brook was lovely and although we found ourselves getting around two beaver dams, the third forced us to turn around.

This was a perfect spot for a morning paddle - plenty of solitude due to a boring sounding name. We like it that way.

Moriah Hiking Challenge

After seeing that the town of Moriah was offering a hiking challenge awarded by a patch, we decided that it would be a perfect outing for our nephew. We reattached the backseat to our car and strapped a booster seat on before hitting the road. We made the orchard our base camp to complete the challenge in three days.

On the first afternoon, we headed first to Big Hollow/Coot Hill where we parked at the cemetery (the home of Leafy Winters) and headed up the short trail. We spent quite a while shouting into the hollow to listen to our echo and enjoyed the view of the lake. Ben particularly enjoyed looking at the orchard through his binoculars.

In the evening, we went to Belfry Mountain to climb the fire-tower. Despite the fact that it is possibly the shortest hike in the world, it does have a great view from the top. Ben and I looked for but did not find arrowheads on the descent.

We celebrated our two hikes with milkshakes from Gene's Michigan Stand. The first day.

On our second day we headed to our longest hike of the challenge: Crowfoot Pond. Since this was a 5.5 mile hike, it took a bit of prodding to keep the five-year-old moving. We regaled him with stories of the "Mad Monk of Crowfoot Pond" and he spent the rest of the walk looking and listening for signs of the old hermit. If you are ever back there and see bark missing from trees or hear a "rick-tick-tick-tick-tick" sound, those are sure-fire signs that the Mad Monk is near!

We whiled away the afternoon at Lincoln Pond, playing at the beach.

We celebrated our hike with milkshakes from Gene's Michigan Stand. The second day.

On the third day we finished the challenge by hiking Cheney Mountain. This was a bit steeper than any of the other hikes and Ben did great. We may have been listening for sounds of the ghost of John Cheney as we hiked... We enjoyed the views from the top - especially of Mount Junk as Ben named it (the tailings pile).

Ben beamed with pride when we got back to the Moriah Chamber of Commerce to get our patches. He even got a squirt gun for being cute...makes me wish that I was still cute. Oh well.

We celebrated our hike with milkshakes from Gene's Michigan Stand. The third day.

Schroon Lake

For our most recent trek into the Adirondacks we invited ourselves on the annual Killon canoe trip which was taking place at Schroon Lake. We tagged along and happily set up camp just before the sky opened up to a deluge of rain! Regardless of the weather, we managed to cook a campground feast over green wood and huddled under tarps to scarf it down!

The next morning with much improved weather, we paddled to the south and then across to the village of Adirondac for their famous spicy baked beans. On the return trip, the wind had kicked up and we required spray skirts in the whitecaps. We spent the rest of the night playing tunes around the campfire.

With children awaking early on the third day, we scooped them up and paddled to a nearby beach where they decided to swim with their clothes on. We played sharks and minnows before returning to pack up. It was a great trip despite some wet weather.

Long Lake

With a slight window of halfway decent weather for a day, we packed up the car and headed for Long Lake. We headed south, watching sea planes take-off and land among the busy area around the bridge. Ben couldn't resist the beach and convinced Tom to paddle there so that he could swim. Lisa and I continued south to the end of the lake, enjoying the relative calm to the busy launch.

After meeting back up on the return trip, we headed to Hoss's for some ice cream before returning to the cabin in Newcomb.

With questionable weather the next day, we snuck in a walk to the Sananoni farm complex between thunderstorms. We ate our lunch in the creamery before our walk out and a stop for ice cream and donuts at Scoops and Kelly's Farm Stand respectively.