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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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 19th centur, and
Carrying, which is what you do there) just in time for lunch, which we ate at
the landing.
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| Lunch break at Bartlett Carry |
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| 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.
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| We made many trips back and forth |
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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.
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| 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.
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| A foggy morning |
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| A cool morning in camp |
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| 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.
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| Rob |
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| Survey marker at the summit |
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| Taking a break on the hike up |
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| At the summit |
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Tom, Rob and me at the summit
|
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| Pond scenes |
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| 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.
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| 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 49th and Mississippi 50th
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.
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| 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.
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| Through the Upper Lock |
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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| Jen, Rob and the bear |
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| 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).
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| The repacking gear explosion |
