Little Tupper Lake

In the pantheon of perfect paddling lakes in the Adirondacks, Little Tupper Lake sits near the top of the list. We were lucky to have spent three perfect mid-summer days kayaking and camping on this beautiful waterway.

After an obligatory stop at Hoss's (which we realized is sixty percent "S") for ice cream, we drove to the Whitney Headquarters and packed our holds before setting out in search on a campsite. As it was a Thursday evening on the edge of a perfect summer weekend we were expecting sites to be occupied. On our initial paddle, we found the opposite to be true. With the exception of a few select spots, we had our pick of campsites and chose a site with a rocky promontory - possibly the greatest defensive position on the lake.

However, we were preparing for exploration not warfare so we went to bed early finding low hanging fog when we woke up. After omelets for breakfast, we embarked in our kayaks following the shoreline heading north towards Round Lake. When we arrived we found even more solitude on a seemingly pristine Adirondack lake. Where Little Tupper Lake did have two camps, Round Lake had a completely natural shoreline. We meandered around the coves with a stop for rice-free stir-fry on a small beach. Yeah - I was the one that left the rice in the car...

Astonished that we could have such a pristine and accessible lake to ourselves, we finally found a group paddling in while we were on our way back to our campsite. It was a perfect summer day and we enjoyed the sunset on our rocky point with a game of cribbage. Still no sign of imminent attack so we went to bed just after dark.

The next day we headed south, following the shoreline. We found the ranger on the lake and grilled her on all the questions that had been running through our minds about the area. She suggested a series of carries through ponds and into Lake Lila, perhaps as far north as Cranberry Lake. That adventure would have to wait for another day.

We found the outlet to Rock Pond and donned our bug nets to thwart the incoming deer flies - finally that attack we had been waiting for... It was a smooth paddle with one short carry. When we arrived, we found yet another area devoid of humans. Where were all the other paddlers?

After a snack on the island, we explored the shoreline and tested the quality of our hat strings in the stiff wind. We donned our bug nets a second time as we entered the river section back to our campsite at Little Tupper Lake. We cleaned up as best we could before heading back into civilization and took one last look from our promontory and shoved off towards the village of Long Lake for dinner at the diner and more ice cream at Hoss's.

Piseco

Our week of adventure in the Adirondacks began with two days of spotty thunderstorms at North Lake. We found time between jam sessions and games of pinochle to paddle the length of the lake and walk the logging roads that surround it. It was a great chance to catch up with family and when the weatherman predicted a nice day, we decided to head to Old Forge for some water adventures.

We drove by Enchanted Forest on our way to the Carter Street Bridge - a "put-in" on the North Branch of the Moose River. After spotting a car in Thendara, most of the family embarked in their kayaks. Lisa and I, despite having our kayaks with us, opted to share an inter-tube with two canoe paddles! We dragged another tube behind us with our spare air. We hitched to the back of a kayak and flailed our way down the serpentine river. Once we got sick of the whiplash, we cut the cord and embarked on our slow but steady paddle down the river.

After lunch, we started to get a feel for steering the tube without always ending up in trees. We made it to Thendara a little later than the rest of the crew though! After a slight debacle with car keys, we ended up packing the cars at sunset and grabbing dinner at the steakhouse while we listened to the booms of fourth of July fireworks through the window panes.

The next day, Lisa and I car-topped the kayaks and headed to Piseco Lake - a place that we had driven by for years, but never stopped. It was the Saturday of a holiday weekend and the campgrounds were bursting at the seams; our hopes of camping there were quickly dashed. Instead we paid the day-use fee and got on the lake from Poplar Point heading south to Irondequoit Bay. The wind was powerful and in our faces as we paddled.

After following the shoreline, we found the gem of Piseco Lake by following the outlet. We slid through some light rapids and came out in "Big Bay." This spot, only accessible to adventuresome paddles (you have to be willing to go over the rapids) was a picturesque expanse of water surrounded by mountains. Since it was sandwiched between Route 8 and Route 10, it showed yet again that you don't have to go far to find solitude in the Adirondacks.

We paddled back uphill, Lisa much more gracefully than I and headed out, intending to find a place to camp for the night. Following route 8, we stopped in Speculator to the final strain of "Stars and Stripes Forever." Apparently, they have their parade on the fifth of July with no warning signs whatsoever... We watched for a while before sneaking through a parking lot and changing course. Suddenly we were heading north on route 30.

Lucky for us, we found a campsite at Lewey Lake. Some campers had left early, so we had a place to stay!

In the morning, we scarfed our breakfast and got on Lewey Lake, heading southwest until a huge gust of wind forced us to turn around. We followed the outlet until we hit a cement dam and decided to head back to the launch, saving Indian Lake for another day.

We were itching for a hike in the afternoon and remembered our friend Bill, who always spoke about Chimney Mountain on the eastern side of Indian Lake. We followed the back roads and made the short but steep hike to the rock formations on the mountain's peak. Some over-confident climbers with improper equipment made us nervous at the summit, but we enjoyed the view to the west - especially Snowy and Blue Mountains.

After a picnic on the shores of Adirondack Lake, we headed to Wadhams for a relaxing night with Kevin, Elizabeth and baby Sam. There are storms in the forecast for the next few days so we will be heading back into the 'dacks on Wednesday.

Pharaoh Lake

Some treks into the woods leave you reveling in the majestic scenery and glory of nature surrounding you. Others leave you miserable, itchy and ready to swear off camping forever. Few bounce back and forth between the two ends of the camping spectrum as our most recent trip into Pharaoh Lake

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. 

Goodnow

It becomes difficult to explore the Adirondacks in late fall, when hunting season is underway. We wanted to find a hike that would break up our drive to North Lake for the weekend and were pleased to find Goodnow Mountain in Newcomb. Since the area is owned by Syracuse University, it turns out that it is technically a college campus and therefore guns are not allowed.

The trail was a gentle incline and very well taken care of. It seemed that there was a boardwalk each time that our feet had a chance of getting wet! It only took about an hour before we reached the tallest fire tower that we have seen.

We climbed to the top to enjoy the panoramic view, but didn't stay long due to a constant chilly wind. Clouds were moving around us, casting interesting shadows but we were happy to have a mostly unobscured view.

The return trip was just as pleasant and we celebrated our hike with malts at Stewart's in Long Lake. We continued down the road for a relaxing weekend at North Lake where we visited family, paddled and ate! It was a great weekend topped off with a bit of apple picking before we returned home.

Santanoni

Even though we tend to explore new parts of the Adirondacks on our travels, there are a select few places that we seem to gravitate back to. Great Camp Santanoni on the shores of beautiful Newcomb Lake is one of those rare gems that seems to be unlike any other place. We have visited by foot, snowshoes, skis, and we've even dragged kayaks in on the five-mile road. This time, we decided to "bikepack" in; we would pack our backpacks with gear and bike into the camp.

After a hearty lunch at Gene's in Port Henry where we met Bill Killon, we drove on the windy road towards Newcomb where we met Kevin and Elizabeth. We packed bags and strapped gear to our bicycles and were pleasantly surprised to find that we could easily pedal with the extra weight!

 

Our first trip in was a steady incline with the added challenge of dodging horse manure in the road. When we arrived past the bridge, we snagged campsite five and set up our pup tents for the evening. Kevin and I made a second trip back for musical instruments (a banjo, guitar and fiddle) while the rest of the crew got dinner started on the porch.

 

When we arrived back, we feasted on pasta, sweet potatoes and salmon before packing up our bear canisters as the sun set. Lucky for us, some generous campers left plenty of dry firewood for us to burn, which was important since it was dark by 7:30. We played old-time tunes around the campfire until our eyelids began to droop. It was off to bed for us after a debacle with the bear hang where Tom managed to tie a clove hitch fifteen feet in the air by pure happenstance...

It was a chilly night so we went to bed in long-johns and sweatshirts. We awoke to donuts, eggs and sausage. We spent the morning paddling on foggy Newcomb Lake and biking on the fall foliage covered road. It was a perfect fall day. Around noon with bellies grumbling, Jill Killon, her son Wolfjaw, and her mother, Jan, showed up with PB&J's for us. Perfect!

We played in the camp and snapped pictures before packing out in the afternoon. We met again at the Orchard in Crown Point for an evening feast and apple picking to finish our perfect fall camping weekend!

Sawteeth

After perusing the trail map, scanning for a day-hike in the high peaks region, we decided to scale Sawteeth. The morning was deceptively chilly as it often is in late August so we dressed in layers. The thermometer in the car read forty-five degrees when we left it at 7:45.

We walked down the road towards Lower Ausable Lake where we saw a few hikers along the way and the green school bus that continually patrols the road. By the time we arrived at the trail head, we had already stuffed our coats into the backpacks.

Our plan was to hike up and back on the same trail, but we came to a sign which indicated that the "scenic" trail to Sawteeth was to the left. It wasn't the trail that we planned on, but how could we pass up a scenic route on such a gorgeous day?

After skirting the western side of Lower Ausable Lake, we started to climb and it wasn't long before we lost another layer. By midmorning, the weather had morphed from autumn back into summer. We enjoyed the vistas of Giant, Colvin and eventually Dial when we gained enough elevation.

The topography of Sawteeth is true to it's name and there were many false summits along the way. Once we arrived on the true summit, we found ourselves eating lunch with a larger group of hikers that had been warned that the scenic route was dangerous. We found it to be one of the more gradual and less eroded trails in the high peaks!

We snapped pictures and began to descend on the more direct trail, which happened to be the same descent that we took off Gothics a year prior. At Rainbow Falls, we finished the last of our food (Stewart's donuts!!!) and started the long march along the road with the green bus passing us each half hour...

It was a fantastic hike and despite the length, one of the more "healthy" trails that we had encountered in the region! We toasted our success with vanilla malts and met the family at Crown Point where we were happy to find homemade, hot pizza. Thanks Mike!

Our hike is in yellow on the map below:

Hornbeck

As one of our "last-hurrahs" of summer, we car-topped our hornbeck boats and drove into the wilderness. On the way, we couldn't help but stop at the Port Henry Diner for lunch before driving to Tahawus, where we had just gotten off the trail two days prior.

Henderson Lake

We packed gear into backpacks and threw boats over our shoulders for the short carry into the Henderson Lake dam. As we were paddling out we noticed a horde of kayakers heading for the launch, it looks like we would have the lake to ourselves. We also noted a fawn standing in the water at the edge of a cliff...odd.

While searching for the lean-to at the northern end of the lake, we admired Wallface Mountain with its imposing cliffs in the distance. Once we found the site, we slopped through the muck to get out of the boats and set up camp. We didn't stay long since we didn't have any food, we needed to paddle back to the car to get some grub.

On the way back, we noticed the fawn's head just sticking out of the water now. He was stuck and it appeared that he had given up, not seeing a way out of his situation. Tom approached slowly and eased him away from the cliff with his paddle, the fawn went back to his precarious spot but it appeared that he could swim. On the second attempt to get him away from the cliff, we chased him with the boats and when he was at the launch, Lisa hopped out of the boat and chased him into the woods!

At the car we cooked up some chili and packed the rest of our gear for the night. We paddled back to the lean-to, had a camp fire and fell asleep as soon as it was dark.

The next morning, we awoke to fog on the lake and chilly temperatures. It was tough to pull ourselves out of warm sleeping bags but nature called (in more ways than one). The lake was mirroring the surrounding mountains and we could see young loons getting a flying lesson in the distance. We packed and explored the southern arms of the lake before packing out.

Mirror on Henderson Lake

Wallface Mountain

Mountain Man, On his Way!

On our way out, we stopped to admire the impressive blast furnace that sits next to the road near Upper Works. The mining operation was massive and only ran for two years before being destroyed by flood. The furnace has not been fired since 1857 but still stands as an impressive reminder of the Adirondack's industrial past.

Our next stop was in the village of Long Lake, where we finally completed the ice-cream trifecta. This is a self-invented event which consisted of a stop at Hoss's for cones, Custard's Last Stand for a banana split (which we split), and malts at Stewart's. It was delicious and sickening at the same time!

Nelson Lake

After fighting our way through construction, we eventually arrived in Old Forge where we reserved a campsite at Nick's Lake State Campground. We would save a paddle on Nick's Lake for our next visit though, we were toting fifteen pound boats and wanted to explore the backwater!

We packed a picnic and headed for the South Branch of the Moose River where we would launch. We followed the current and took a sharp left into a weedy mire. After "paddle-whacking" as we named it, we arrived at Nelson Lake. It was a beautifully secluded lake with no development but it was close enough to civilization that you could hear the occasional truck rumbling along on the highway.

Eying a shelving rock on the northern end of the lake, we cooked up some pasta with salmon and vegetables while enjoying the orange pale of the sun dipping near the horizon. Of course, that reminded us that we needed to navigate back through the weeds before dark and we packed our boats to get back to our campground at dusk.

The next morning, we took showers and headed for the Thendara train station where we met Steve, Linda, Elaine and the other Steve. As we boarded, we each grabbed window seats and soon enjoyed the gentle sway of the locomotive. We found ourselves wandering back towards the cattle car for some open air and great views.

After a delicious brunch in Big Moose, we boarded again and headed back to Thendara. Tom and I spent much of the trip playing some dixieland classics in the cattle car with melodica and pocket trumpet. Before we deboarded, I noticed a poster in the back of the train with a familiar looking picture. As I looked closer, I saw that the credits were given to my blog! I guess that someone is reading it...or at least taking pictures from it...

Cheney Pond

We bid adieu to the rest of the family and Lisa, Tom and I headed north. Naturally, we grabbed more ice cream at Hoss's and with the map on the picnic table, we planned our next venture with the Hornbeck Boats. We headed to Cheney Pond, which despite a trail marking on the map turned out that we could drive to the launch.

We paddled around the shoreline with a suspicious loon eying us as we chatted. We lounged at the far end of the pond, where we found a lean-to and a long sand beach! It was a great place to while away the afternoon while Lisa cleaned the mud off of our boats.

When we finally forced ourselves off of the beach, we followed the outlet as far as we could before turning back to the launch. It was a gorgeous pond which seems little visited. We may be back soon with camping gear.

For this particular afternoon, we were heading to Gene's Michigan Stand in Port Henry for dinner where we reminisced on the amazing three days that we had exploring new parts of the Adirondack Park. The light pack boats seem to have opened a new world of waterways just off the beaten path to us and we have just scratched the surface.