Raquette Lake

After arriving home from our western road trip, we were itching to get in our boats. We strapped our kayaks to the top of the car and headed to Tom's cabin in Newcomb for some kayaking day trips. Fortunately each trip would put us through Long Lake's ice cream corner.

On day one, we headed north to Tupper Lake but were sadly met with strong winds and rain. It was not the experience that we were looking for on such a big lake. We turned the car around and headed to Horseshoe Lake, just south of Tupper for an afternoon paddle. With clouds overhead and some rain, we paddled the mostly wild shoreline, admiring the campsites along the way. This lake seems to be an overlooked portion of the Whitney wilderness.

We got ice cream cones at Hoss's to finish our first day.

Our second day of paddling was at Raquette Lake. Launching at Golden Beach, we followed the northern shore, skirting Big Island and following the shoreline of Osprey Island. We then met the caretaker at Tioga Point where we stopped for lunch as we pursued historic photographs of the building coplex that was once housed there. We continued north to Needle Island and turned around when the wind really started to blow. On our return trip, we skirted the longer side of Big Island and found the lean-to's available for camping.

We got ice cream cones at Hoss's to finish our second day.

Our third day turned into a bit of a bust. Arriving at Long Lake, we saw thunderheads in the sky and decided to have some ice cream at Hoss's to wait it out. It kept looking ominous so we headed back to Newcomb to paddle a tiny portion of Harris Lake. Unfortunately the conditions were not in our favor so we packed out to the orchard for the evening.

Mossy Point

Lisa, Tom and I put in kayaks at the Mossy Point boat launch amid camp owners taking their boats out for the season on the last day of September. Clouds were hanging in the air, but we paddled north to stay warm and had a picnic at the extreme northern section of the lake. We were careful not to hurl ourselves over the LaChute falls - which is redundant in French...

We followed the eastern shore south through calm waters and extremely low boat traffic to find spectacular views of Roger's Rock and Anthony's Nose. I explored Turtle Islands only to find a disgusting pile of guano and not a single turtle.

On the return trip, we admired Cook Mountain which we have climbed on multiple occasions. It was a great day on the clear waters of Lake George.

Opalescent

It was the last weekend before Labor Day and we planned to take a trip that had been on the list all summer, which was a trip up the Opalescent River from its confluence with the Hudson in Tahawus. We brought our Hornbeck boats and spent the afternoon transitioning between paddling and dragging our boats behind us as we walked through the river. We had great views and wonderful solitude as we paddled and picnicked our way up and down the river for a seven-mile trip.

In the evening, we had a picnic dinner at Overlook Park in Newcomb.

The next day, we took the guide boat for a row on Rich Lake in Newcomb and managed to dodge most of the raindrops for the day. We spent the rest of the day at the cabin reading and relaxing!

Long Lake

For one of our last ventures of the summer, we first packed our guide boat and headed to Long Lake for an overnight. We headed north from the launch and found a great campsite on an unnamed island to the south of Round Island. We unpacked gear and rowed north on the Lake, enjoying the mountain views in the distance until we took a break at a beach near Camp Islands. We rowed back to our campsite and spent the evening enjoying the sunset while listening to drumbeats from across the lake.

In the morning, we packed up gear and rowed back to the launch, but then continued rowing south of the bridge and back to the beach for a picnic. We celebrated the trip and the end of summer with malts at Scoops in Newcomb.

Baxter and Deer Leap

Even with the persistent heat and humidity we have found the will to do some short hikes in the Adirondacks. Our first was on Baxter Mountain, a short hike on a well kept trail with new switchbacks. The lookouts gave us a fantastic view of the high peaks looking straight down Keene Valley. We took in the view for quite a while before heading down to Wadhams for an unplanned and fun night with Kevin, Sam and Tobin!

Out next venture was to Deer Leap where we enjoyed the meandering trail even though Lisa was looking intently for rattlesnakes! We enjoyed the overlook of Huletts Landing before heading back to the orchard for a big skillet dinner. Yum!

Lake Arnold

We hijacked the Killon family camping trip this year at Adirondack Loj and set up shelter under their screen tent after arriving at sunset on Friday night.

On Saturday morning, the children had discovered the walkie talkies and were quite taken by the "ghost pirate" that may have found his way onto the same station. Around the crack of eleven or so, we decided to take a group hike to Mount Jo. We started up the trail but after Mike sprained his ankle after tripping over a boulder, we helped him to the bottom of the trail instead of making the summit. We were still getting broadcasts to the "ghost pirate" from the kids on top of the mountain though...

In the evening, we had a huge dinner at Adirondack Loj and enjoyed the weather on the porch before making some campfires that evening and dozing off in a food-induced coma.

The next morning, Lisa and I packed our meager belongings and headed to the Van Hovenburg trail to hike to Lake Arnold. We stopped for a quick snack break at Marcy Dam before making the steady grade to the lake. It was a new trail for us and we enjoyed the views along the way as well as the quiet backwater. We decided not to try to summit any mountains due to the humid weather and possible thunderstorms but had a great trip back to North Elba where we visited John Brown's Farm before heading home.

Indian Pass

We have been traveling around the Adirondacks for roughly two weeks and this post is intended to catch up on our travels.

Our first venture into the blue line was during the Northeast's longest heatwave in recorded history. With the mercury rising above ninety for a full week and the humidity heading into the 80s and 90s as well it was time to head to camp. We spent four days in Atwell, mostly bobbing around in the lake and canoeing and sailing when we got a chance. It was a great way to cool off in the heat and we had some great times with family.

Once the heatwave snapped, we headed to the Orchard for a day of farm chores followed by an evening paddle on Lake Champlain to the bridge.

Then we headed to Newcomb where we quickly unpacked and headed to Henderson Lake for an evening paddle. We met an interesting couple from Moriah and chatted with them while admiring the view of Wallface and Indian Pass.

Our first hike was into OK Slip Falls, one of the tallest in the Adirondacks. The trail was an easy meander to the impressive view and much to our surprise (despite the dry weather) there was water running over the edge. We ate our lunch while admiring the view before making the trek out.

In the afternoon, we headed to Cedar River Flow. We were quite sure that the road was not correct as it seemed to be taking us up a mountain but we ended up in the right destination. We found a secluded area for camping and paddling that we will come back to explore. The northern section of the pond was navigable but we couldn't venture into the southern part of the pond due to the heavy winds. We will be back to finish our exploration of Cedar River Flow.

Without taking the boats off the car for the evening, we headed to South Pond the next morning. It had always been an option for a day trip but we had never been. We were pleasantly surprised to find an area with few motorboats (only camp owners) and many interesting islands to explore. We watched the skies for potential thunderstorms but explored the entire shoreline before heading back when it started to sprinkle.

Our final day in Newcomb was spent on a hike that we had been intending to do for years...Indian Pass from Upper Works. We had read horror stories about the muddy scrambles in this pass and in a wetter season we could easily see them being true. However this season has been so dry that we were able to hop over most of the mud and enjoy the house sized boulders when we entered the pass. There were many caves that demanded exploration and we enjoyed this hike unlike any other in the Adirondacks. We ate our lunch under Wallface Mountain while admiring the view of the Santinoni Range and Henderson Lake to our south. Despite the stories, we would be glad to do this one again!