ADK Paddling Part I: Saranac Lakes

I recently went on a kayak camping trip through the Adirondacks with four friends. The trip had two parts:

a)      Traverse the three lakes in the Saranac chain of lakes (Upper, Middle and Lower), and

b)      Paddle Lake George

This entry is about Saranac Lakes portion of the trip. A map showing our route can be found here.

9/8 through 9/10 (Trip Days -1, 0 and 1)

The saga of the trip begins the day before the trip when, due to a pharmacy mix-up at the Seven Corners Target and my arriving 3 minutes after the pharmacy closed at the Merrifield Target (who knew they closed two hours earlier than Seven Corners?!), I was unable to pick up a new prescription. I was left with two choices: swing by Target at 9 AM the day of my departure, or skip the prescription. Well, it was for an inhaler which is only for exercise and on a nine day kayaking/hiking/camping trip, what are the chances that I'd be exercising? Plus, knowing to group with whom I'd be traveling, I figured they'd all be on the road before sunrise and I didn't want to be dragging in to our meeting place hours after everyone else, so I decided to forego picking up the inhaler.

I got on the road at about 8 AM. When we go to the Adirondacks we usually take a route through Harrisburg, PA and Binghamton, NY. Google says a route up I95 and the NY State Thruway is 45 minutes shorter but Google’s algorithms have never actually had to drive on the Jersey Turnpike (not yet, anyway) and so they don’t take into account much higher stress the Jersey Turnpike route is. Still, the chance to save 45 minutes sounded pretty good and so I decided to try it, and it actually worked out well. 

As I approached Philadelphia texts from the rest of the crew began to come in. It turned out that I was actually the first to have gotten on the road and was about two hours ahead of the others. In retrospect, I should have just continued on and spent whatever extra time I had at the Adirondack Museum or at the rustic fair (I missed my chance to buy any number of taxidermy moose heads!); however, I am a man of action. Immediately upon realizing that I was hours ahead of everyone else I exited the highway and detoured into Philadelphia for a stop at Liberty Bellows accordion shop, primarily to check out a Roland V-Accordion. Oh, how good it felt to hold it close to my chest, running my fingers over its hard, glistening buttons, hearing it whisper in response to my most gentle squeeze.

But I’m digressing.

Sadly, I left the accordion shop empty-handed. It was lunch time and so I went around the corner to Lorenzo's Pizza. Lorenzo's makes a pretty decent NY-style slice, with the distinguishing characteristic that their pies are enormous, like upwards of 30 inches in diameter. Each slice fills two paper plates. Accordions and giant pizza - the trip was off to a good start.

Fast-forward through many hours of driving - including evening rush hour in Albany (go figure!). With my detour I was actually the last to arrive at Jen's, but only by a little bit. The group with whom I was traveling, inxluding Tall Tom, Rob, Jen and Suzanne, is usually pretty Type-A about organizing, but this time around everyone was in the mood to just relax and unwind. Instead of meticulously planning the next day's logistics we spent the evening catching up with each other and drinking Rob's Buffala Negras, a cocktail made with bourbon, balsamic vinegar, and a significant amount of dark magic. 

Excessive Buffala Negra consumption in the evening does not make for an early start the following morning. In fact, by the time we consolidated five kayaks onto two cars, organized our stuff, packed the gear, stopped by Raquette Lake Outfitters (a tiny store packed to the gills with cool gear), set the shuttle (one car at each end of our route), checked in with the camping potentates, loaded the boats and launched, it was mid-afternoon. Rob and I were pretty relaxed at the time we launched since we had had the job of minding the boats (a.k.a. napping by the lake) while Jen, Tom and Suzanne did the more stressful jobs of arranging cars and check-in.

The weather had been benign all day but as we were getting ready to launch a strong wind kicked up. We had to paddle pretty much due south down Upper Saranac Lake, straight into the wind. On a windy day, that's actually good, in my opinion: beaming and quartering waves can be disconcerting as they try to push your boat around and flip it over. Paddling into the wind just makes paddling hard but it doesn't mess with your boat. Still, it was a tough paddle: it was our first day out and we were finding our footing in our heavily loaded kayaks. Suzanne hadn't paddled in a month and did an almost Jesse-worthy job of pre-excusing her poor paddling performance, but there was no reason for her to have done so. In reality, she snapped right into the rhythm and stayed with the group’s pace just fine. The group of us slogged our way southward through Upper Saranac, more focused on boat control and making progress than on the scenery, which was OK because Upper Saranac is a developed recreational lake. The shoreline is dotted with houses, and while it's nice to look at the beautiful lake houses, my preference for scenery on this kind of trip is for undeveloped wilderness.

Heading Down Upper Saranac Lake

After a while we reached Fish Creek. We turned into the creek and got a little shelter from the wind as we navigated our way through a maze of twisty passages into Follensby Clear Pond. The entrance to the pond is via a small tunnel under Rt. 30, and once you pass through it it's like you've entered another world. There's no development in the ponds - suddenly it's the wilderness. Groups of loons called out to us. The water shimmered. The trees, some of which were beginning to show the first signs of fall color, rustled. With protection from the wind we were for the first time of the day able to relax. The camp sites on the pond are first-come, first-served but we had no problem finding one. In fact, we got a lovely camp site on an island looking out over the pond. Big, flat area with a big view of the lake.

Through the ponds to Follensby Clear Fresh

Our camp site was a lovely place to spend an evening. Tom, Rob, Suzanne and Jen washed off the day’s grime with a dip in the lake. I personally hate being cold so the first time I heard one of them “whoop!” when hitting the cool water I decided I would forego the swim. I’ll take grimy over chilly any day. I’m delicate like that.

 

There were unusually large groups of loons at Follensby

After making camp and cleaning up (or not, in my case) we turned to dinner. We had arranged to take turns preparing dinners. Suzanne provided dinner the first night, a delicious pasta dish with goat cheese (note to self: buy Penzey’s roasted garlic). After dinner we spent quite a while sitting in our chairs watching the stars in the clear sky overhead while lightning dancing in the storms in the distance provided quite a show, with a soundtrack provided by the loons in the pond. Lovely.

 

Camp site at Follensby Clear Fresh

9/11 (Day 2)

Eventually, the storms we had seen in the distance came our way. The rain rolled in with a dramatic rush of wind at about 2 AM. Fortunately we all stayed dry in our tents overnight and were able to take shelter under Suzanne’s big tarp in the morning. Unfortunately, Suzanne’s stove got wet overnight and Tom had forgotten to bring his. I somewhat saved the day in that I had brought both my (Ted’s) JetBoil, which I was supposed to bring, and also my little backpacker stove, plus I had plenty of fuel. We would have been fine without the second stove and this is actually a very minor point, but it allowed me to feel useful. Usually I feel I’m chasing to keep up with the more proficient campers and travelers in the group and so it’s nice every once in a while to feel like I’m the one with a solution to a problem.

 

I need an "Anger" buoy

After breakfast we broke camp, packed the boats and headed out, once again into an unexpectedly strong wind. How strong? Well, this was the weekend of the Adirondack Canoe Classic, also known as the “90-miler”, a three day, 90 mile canoe race through the same lakes on which we were paddling. To quote from the MAC’s Canoe web site:

“For the first time in twenty years the Adirondack Canoe Classic was shortened by a day due to inclement weather conditions.  Race officials in safety boats on the route and at the start line considered the weather report and on-station reports of high winds and rough water in deciding to cancel the entire third day of the event. ”   

We didn’t learn of the cancellation until mid-day, when we bumped into some 90-miler folks (on land) at the Bartlett Carry. We felt pretty good about ourselves for having easily managed conditions which caused the cancellation of a major paddling event (admittedly, our sea kayaks are better suited to rough water than are racing canoes) and we even went so far as needling one of our friends who we knew was participating in the 90 miler with a via her Facebook page.

Out of Follensby Clear Fresh via the tunnel

Our path took us back out of Follensby Clear Pond, and then we hung a right at Pork Bay (yes, this is the real name), continuing down-lake, winding up at the Bartlett Carry (named after Bartlett’s Hotel, which sate nearby in the 19^th centur, and Carrying, which is what you do there) just in time for lunch, which we ate at the landing.

Lunch break at Bartlett Carry

This little guy really wanted to share our lunch

I mentioned up front that we were kayaking a chain of lakes. The lakes are connected in various ways, including cool little canal locks (more on this later), but for this first connection we had to portage (carry) our boats and stuff from one lake to the next. The carry was not trivial: about ½ a mile walk up, then down a hill along a road then down a dirt path through the woods. Knowing we had to do this we had brought along two sets of wheels. While four of us ate lunch Tom, who for whatever reason was eager to get the boats moved, loaded his on wheels and started hauling it up the road. Unfortunately, his wheels crapped out half way. That left us in a little bit of a pickle: we had to get all the boats and all our gear moved from one lake to the next. We had one set of wheels, plus Suzanne was recovering from a sprained ankle and so we couldn’t expect her to do very much schlepping. Fortunately, the other wheels held up and – three hours and I don’t know how many trips back and forth later – we got all the boats and gear over to the next lake, repacked and once again got under way. From there we had about three more miles of paddling to do, and while Middle Saranac immediately showed itself to be a beautiful and more remote lake than Upper, we were all quite happy when our camp site came into view.

We made many trips back and forth

Hauling gear across the carry

This camp site was also a nice one, with the one challenge that it had only a small beach (barely enough room room for our five kayaks) and from the beach there were about eight uneven log steps up to the site. This made carrying all of our gear a little more challenging. Still, we got it all done and had camp set up in no time. Since the forecast didn’t have any rain, we didn’t bother to set up the big tarp, which saved a bunch of time. It was Tom’s turn to make dinner, which was pre-fab TastyBite Indian food with rice, yellow squash and toasted naan bread.

 

Lake view near the carry

9/12 (Day 3)

Monday our plan was to kayak over to the base of Mt. Ampersand and hike to the summit. We awoke to a cool, foggy morning. The cool weather was pleasantly refreshing for those of us up from the mid-Atlantic (where it’s still summer) but the fog was dense enough that we couldn’t get on the water right away. We had a leisurely breakfast and watched the fog swirl over the lake – including these cool little mini-vortices, like tiny tornadoes. It was almost 11 AM by the time the fog cleared and we got on the water. For once the paddling was what you’d expect in a lake – dead calm, with glassy smooth water.

A foggy morning

A cool morning in camp

We paddle to hike

We had heard that the hike up Mt. Ampersand was pretty vertical – not many switchbacks to ease the ascent, and so Suzanne skipped the hike; her ankle wasn’t going to handle a significant climb with a rock scramble at the end. That left four of us to paddle the three or so miles over to the beach at the base of Ampersand, where we tied up our kayaks, changed into hiking clothes, and headed up the trail. Most of the people we saw over the course of the day were fully rigged out for hiking – nice packs, hiking boots, and so on. In contrast, we looked pretty rag-tag, with our half paddling half hiking clothes and our stuff carried in dry bags and little packable backpacks.

The climb up was through pretty forest and was, as expected, straight up. Tom, who has approximately the same inseam as one of those Star Wars AT-AT walkers, initially took the lead. I’m generally not at the front of the pack with this group when paddling, so I am happy to report that my general attention to cardio paid off and before long I was out in front, and easily stayed there for the rest of the day (sorry to brag, but – as with the aforementioned stove situation – I need to enjoy the rare situations where I’m out front with this gang). That’s not to say it wasn’t strenuous for me. The climb from the parking lot to the summit was almost 1,000 vertical feet and 5.4 miles round trip. With the additional climb from the lake to the parking lot (most people drive rather than paddle to the mountain) our hike was even longer and had even more elevation. More than once each of us thought about whether it was worth it – but it was. When we got to the top a gorgeous 360 degree view opened up and we could look around and see our whole Saranac paddling route, the six peaks of the Saranacs and some of the total 46 peaks of the Adirondacks. Tom, Rob and I took a picture to send to Larry, who was holding down the fort at our weekly paddling group, the Pirates of Georgetown. I also texted Suzanne (great cell service on the mountain top!) to let her know that we’d be back late as the hike was taking longer than anticipated. Oh, I also found a cell phone along the way. Someone had dropped a nice, new Samsung Galaxy. Unfortunately, it was out of juice and so it would power up and then immediately power down again. Since it was going to be days before we were back in civilization, we gave it to some other hikers who said they’d take it down to the local police or ranger station.

Rob

Survey marker at the summit

Taking a break on the hike up

At the summit

 

Tom, Rob and me at the summit

A pretty steep hike

The hike down was somewhat easier. Downhill hikes are still tough – lots of strain on the quads and the toes – but not as cardio intensive as climbing. We got back to camp at about 7 PM, tired but happy from the day’s exertions. It was my turn to make dinner, and I was pretty confident that no matter how it turned out this hungry group would eat it. I made spinach tortellini with salmon (from a pouch) and a quasi-cream sauce (little coffee creamers, shelf-stable milk, and cheese). It actually tasted pretty good, even to our non-ravenous control group (Suzanne). Oh, and I had brought McVittie’s HobNob biscuits (British cookies) for dessert. Our plan had been to break camp the next morning and move to another spot in the next lake, but after a strenuous day we decided we’d stay put for another night.

 

Sunset at Weller Pond

9/13 (Day 4)

This was a lazy, downtime day. Another cool, foggy start to the day (our coldest camping morning, with temps in the low 40’s). We lingered over coffee and breakfast. Suzanne, Jen and I eventually got moving and did a short paddle around Weller Pond, exploring the coves and finding our way into Little Weller Pond, which is really isolated – we expected a bear or a moose to bound out of the woods at any moment (alas, no mega-fauna). We also visited the Martha Reben lean-to. Being ignorant of Adirondack literature, I had no idea what this was about, but it turns out the Martha Reben was an author who spent six summers camping in a particular spot on Weller Pond in an (ultimately successful) attempt to cure herself of tuberculosis. She wrote several memoirs about her experiences, which apparently developed something of a following. While the three of us paddled and explored obscure Adirondack literary history, Rob and Tom went full-out lazy and and just chilled out in camp. When we got back from paddling they were pretty relaxed.

 

Pond scenes

I got up close and personal with a loon

I was also felling grimy enough that I finally gave in and took a very quick dip in the lake. Just enough of a dip to wash off the worst of the accumulated dirt. Like, there are baptisms which last considerable longer.

It was Rob’s turn to make dinner. Based on a recipe Suzanne had given him Rob prepared a wicked hot curry and rice mixed with lentils. He had pre-mixed the rice and lentils but then somehow came to decide that they needed to cook different lengths of time and so tried to separate the rice from the lentils using s mesh bag. Needless to say, it wasn’t successful and everything was ultimately very tasty. Rob had brought a supply of Werther’s candies (coffee flavored and butterscotch) which he passed out as a palate cleanser, then we had more cookies for dessert. He had also brought a Platypus bag full of pre-mixed Manhattans, which we consumed with gusto.

Watching the water filter work - this is what passes for entertainment in camp

Now you’d think that among kayaking, a strenuous hike, and a Manhattan or two I would have conked out pretty well that night, but for some reason I woke up in the middle of the night all anxious about things back in the real world, with the result that I lost about two hours of sleep in the middle of the night.

9/14 (Day 5)

The forecast had called for rain starting in the morning and, sure enough, it started raining right around 7 AM. Fortunately that gave us time for a non-rainy breakfast (coffee and my usual grits with a new innovation: peanut powder). Unfortunately, we had to break camp in the rain. Our decision to spend an extra night at Weller Pond meant we had a relatively long day of paddling ahead of us and so we had a goal of getting on the water early. The combination of having to break camp in the rain, feeling time pressure and being a little sleep-deprived made for an ugly start to the day. Being tired, I was moving a little slowly and when I realized I was falling behind I tried to rush and wound up whacking myself in the face with a tent pole as I released it from being under tension. 

In Alabama they say “Thank Heaven for Mississippi”, since Alabama usually (at least in the stereotype) ranks 49^th and Mississippi 50^th in ratings by state in measures such as education level, income, and so on. In my case, I say, “Thank Heaven for Rob”, since no matter how long it took me to get packed he was always five minutes behind me. On this rainy morning Tom, Suzanne and Jen had already launched and were paddling around out in the cove (passive aggressive behavior, perhaps?) while Rob and I finished the last bits of loading our boats. Still, even the laggards beat the group's target departure time of 9 AM by a few minutes.

 

Paddling in the rain

The rain continued on and off all day as we paddled, but that didn’t stop us from having some fun. Rob brings a big umbrella that he uses as a sail when heading downwind; we took a picture of him at a place labelled on the map as “Umbrella Point”. Likewise, Jen and Suzanne are fans of Norway so we photographed them in front of Norway Island. At the base of Middle Saranac Lake (not far from where we landed for our hike) we headed into the Saranac River, a body of water which is only a few hundred feet wide but which is marked at an obsessive level with channel markers. About two-thirds of the way through the river we hit the Upper Locks (actually, there’s only one lock), which marks the connection point between Middle and Lower Saranac Lake. If you’re thinking Panama Canal, you have the right idea but the wrong scale. If you’re thinking C&O Canal, you’re a lot closer. There’s only one lock at this point, and it’s just big enough for a small power boat (say, a fishing boat or pontoon boat) – or five kayaks. Sometimes you’re left to operate the locks yourself, but when we got there this lock was attended by a lock keeper. The lock keeper commented on our Greenland Paddles, saying she had carved one herself but that it didn’t work well with her wide, open boat. We are used to getting questions about the “sknny stick” paddles and so it was nice to keep running into people who knew what they were.

Through the Upper Lock

Are you the keymaster?

Past the Upper Locks we continued into Lower Saranac Lake – yet another pretty lake - and, near where we would have camped if we had followed our original plan, made a right turn into a series of ponds. At the end of the second pond was the Lower Lock. This one circumvents a bigger drop and so is a little fancier, with hydraulically operated gates. Actually, given the size of the drop the spot is incredibly poorly marked - on a foggy day it would be very easy to paddle over the dam, which would be a very, very bad thing. Fortunately, that fate did not befall us.

Through the Lower Lock

This lock was unmanned and we chose to take our lunch break on the rocks beside the lock (between the “no picnicking” and “keep off the rocks” signs). The lock has operating instructions posted for times when it’s not staffed, and I volunteered to be the lock operator. It was a lot of fun spinning the various wheels to close the upper doors, drain the lock and open the lower doors. My friends took my kayak through the lock and I hopped back in at a dock just below the locks. From there it was only maybe four miles through Lake Oseetah and Lake Flower to our takeout point in the town of Saranac Lake. These shores of these last little lakes were developed and we got to ogle some pretty fancy houses and classic wooden motorboats as we paddled by. Given that the larger boathouses were comparable in size to your typical Arlington house (an that’s saying nothing of the homes themselves!) there was plenty of "house porn" to look at.

Once we landed Suzanne, Jen and Tom went to retrieve the cars (one was parked in town; the other was back at our starting point). Rob and I were once again left to mind the boats and gear. The place we landed was a town park right in Saranac Lake. There was a little deli across the street, where I got us some nice, hot coffee which tasted mighty good after a cool, rainy day on the water.

Loading up in Saranac Lake

We packed the cars and then ran to do a series of errands – stopping at the supermarket (such as it is), the liquor store (important resupply point), and the trading post to get our Ampersand Mountain patches (there’s a patch for each of the 46 peaks – kind of like earning merit badges). We had dinner at our traditional gathering point, the Adirondack Hotel. Great view, passable food, terrible service, and most importantly, a tolerance for dirty, stinky travelers. Plus a photo op with a taxidermied bear. Just like after our recent Manhattan circumnavigation, we all got burgers.  

Jen, Rob and the bear

The bear has met his match

After dinner we headed over to Stewart’s for ice cream. Fifty six minutes had elapsed since I finished my burger, so I waited four minutes before digging into my delicious black raspberry ice cream (with free sprinkles!). You see, the laws of keeping kosher say you can’t eat meat and dairy together, but as with many aspects of the religion, what “together” means is subject to interpretation. I wait one hour. Many Orthodox Jews wait a at least six hours. Some people argue that as soon as you say prayers after a meal, you’re on to the next meal and so no further waiting is required. I’ve also heard of three hours, and there’s an argument that that the six hours can really be five and a half. It is a very complex and inscrutable religion.

Anyway, enough halacha (Jewish law). After our ice cream we headed back to Jen’s. We were all pretty tired and decided to leave the bulk of the unpacking/repacking for the second half of the trip until the morning. We all slept well, even Tom who, as at the beginning of the trip had been relegated to a very uncomfortable looking and way too short couch (actually, I beat him in rock/paper/scissors to win the real bed over the couch).

The repacking gear explosion