ADK Paddling Part II: Lake George

Day 6 (9/15)

OK, where did I leave off in my last posting? Oh yes, we had just arrived back at Jen’s. Upon our arrival Jen set to work going through the arcane and lengthy process of feeding her cats while the rest of us showered (individually). Somewhere around step #257 of the process Jen took a break and got a shower in as well. We got some laundry started and otherwise just relaxed. After four nights of camping, a big meal, and a couple of drinks, it wasn’t long before each of us crawled off to bed. The rock/paper/scissors outcome from the first night held and I once again fell asleep in a real bed listening to the Darth Vader/ocean wave sounds of Rob’s CPAP and Tom was once again cruelly consigned to the uncomfy couch.

We knew that we didn’t have much paddling to do Thursday and so we took our time in the morning, exploding all of our gear across Jen’s house and lawn to sort it and dry it out. I am coming to the conclusion that life in the Adirondacks must be pretty lonely – why else would anyone put up with such ill-mannered house guests? And life in the Adirondacks is cold – the temperature was in the thirties when we woke up (highs in the mid-90’s back home!).

 

Sorting gear at Jen's

Eventually we got our act together and got all our gear packed and boats loaded. Jen switched to her plastic kayak for the second half of the trip, I assume because it would be gauche to be seen on two different lakes wearing the same boat. Actually, it was to a boat better suited for the swim event which was the genesis of this whole trip – more on that in a minute. We weren’t coming back this way (except for Jen, of course) and so we took all the cars.

We drove as a caravan to Bolton Landing, our launch point for the second part of our trip. Truth be told, we hadn’t scoped out the details of launching in Bolton Landing all that thoroughly. When we got there we discovered our two choices were Veterans Park, where we could launch for free but couldn’t leave our cars overnight (at least according to the signs), or the Norowal Marina, which had an expensive a la carte menu for their services: it was going to cost $11 per day to park each car plus a $12 launch fee per kayak. Fortunately the marina and the park were close by each other and so we wound up dropping our boats at the park where we launched for free, and had to pay only for parking at Norowal.

 

Veterans Park is home to a lot of ducks

Veterans Park is paddler-friendly: the park even has a little buggy to make it easier to wheel boats to the water. Plus they have a soda machine, from which I got a Diet Pepsi, which I greatly enjoyed. There was a Stewart’s Shop on the walk in between Norowal and the park where I could have gotten Coke products, but I didn’t dare hold up the group by stopping there.

 

The park's kayak cart

Once again, all of our pre-launch machinations took time and it was pushing 3 PM by the time we launched. Another thing we hadn’t realized in advance was that we had to paddle to the park’s headquarters on Glen Island to check in before heading to our camp site. While the Saranacs were quiet wilderness with gently improved and very spread out camping areas, Lake George was more like a car camping campground made up of a series of islands. Glen Island in has the park office and a store. The campsites have wooden tent platforms, fire rings, and picnic tables, and they’re packed in like you’d find at a campground. The islands do have impressive bathrooms with composting toilets and separate men’s and ladies’ rooms (though no running water). Another thing we discovered is that the sites were developed with power boaters in mind. At many of the camp sites the only place to land was via docks that are designed for power boats - too high for kayakers and canoeists to use comfortably. Fortunately, our site had a big, flat rock area which was perfect for landing the kayaks.

 

Paddling Lake George

Checking in at Glen Island

Selfie on the water

On Lake George

We were bending the rules by having all of us on one site, not because of the number of people but because the rules mandate a maximum of two tents per site. As we explored our camp site we decided that we really wanted more room to spread out (and more buffer from noisy powerboat campers we feared might show up) and so we called the office (we had cell phone service!) and were able to expand to a second site. With five tents on two sites we were still a little over the line, but Jen’s tent is so small we decided it didn’t really count. The two sites faced different directions and having two sites gave us the added benefit of being able to choose where to hang out based on the weather. On Thursday night the wind was blowing from the north which meant that the boys’ site (where Rob and Tom were camped) was cold and windy while the girls’ site (where Suzanne, Jen and I were camped) was comfortable. The northerly wind was also a good sign for the upcoming swim.

We camped on Little Harbor Island

I haven’t said too much up until this point about the swim. This whole trip got its start because Rob was going to support a swimmer, Michelle, whom he’d supported for years at the Potomac Swim, as she attempted the insane Lake George Marathon Swim. Few people have completed this 32 mile swim. The record time is just under nineteen hours; some folks have taken over thirty hours to complete it. The event starts in the afternoon and involves swimming through the night into the next day, which at best is challenging not just for the swimmers, but also the support boats and kayakers. It’s a good idea to be able to switch off kayakers and so Rob, also taking into consideration his crazy and unpredictable travel schedule (this is a guy who tosses off lines like, “I might have a chance to post my pictures in between Senegal and Austria”), recruited Jen and Suzanne assist/back him up. Once the three of them had a core group and a reason to be in the Adirondacks in September, they decided to expand the scope of the trip to include camping. They also decided to increase the average height and coolness factor of the group, which is how Tom and I (respectively) became involved. The swim was a continuous undercurrent (ha!) throughout our trip, with calls to Michelle, consideration of when Rob, Jen and Suzanne would have to break off for the swim, discussion of whether the wind would lead the organizers to reverse the direction of the swim and if so, what that meant for our timing and logistics, and so on.

Rob in camp

 

Camp site on Little Harbor Island

The good news is that, other than the wind, the weather was perfect. As the sun set and a nearly full moon rose we were treated to Jen’s dinner of parmesan polenta with goat cheese, spinach, cranberries (or raisins?) and almonds, a dish clearly inspired by the classic Yiddish lullaby, Rozhinkes mit Mandelen (Raisins and Almonds).

 

In camp at night

Day 7 (9/16)

On Saturday Rob, Jen and Suzanne had to go check in for the swim, so after breakfast they paddled back to Norowal Marina where, surprisingly, they were allowed to land without paying a $12 landing fee and were allowed to leave their kayaks for a few hours without paying a short-term parking fee. They drove from there to wherever they had to go to do their swim business. In addition, Tom and I learned later, they went out for a lavish (i.e., not eaten sitting on the ground) lunch.

The setting moon at sunrise

 

The scene from our dock

Tom and I started our day’s paddle by going back to the park HQ at Glen Island to pay for the extra camp site, then we paddled further up-lake, checking out camp sites and scenery as we went. We took a lunch break at a camp site on Floating Battery Island. We didn’t find a single battery floating there, not even a AAA, but – lo and behold – we did find a stack of pre-split firewood left by a previous occupant. We hadn’t had a fire the whole trip, in part for lack of wood. It was our last night and The Lord will provide! Halleluiah!

 

Rob, Jen and Suzanne returning to camp

Tom and I got back to the camp site while Rob, Jen and Suzanne were still off doing their pre-swim thing. He retreated to his side of the island, while I got out some essential camping gear (my iPad) and began drafting my blog entry for the first part of the trip. I learn a lot from my fellow paddlers on each trip – on this trip it was the value of tapered dry bags and that Happy Tot baby food vegetables make excellent camping food. From me my fellow travelers could have learned that an iPad fits perfectly against the front bulkhead inside the hatch (at least in my Tempest 170 kayak). Eventually the three swim supporters hove into view, meaning it was time for the ritual of the impromptu pot luck. Let me say here that readers who are squeamish about food spoilage may want to skip the next little bit …

A scenery shot from Rob

This is the prettiest picture I have ever seen of stinky kayak gear hung up to dry (courtesy of Rob)

No one ever really runs out of food on a camping trip and on the last night it’s common to throw together whatever’s left into a group pot luck. The centerpiece of ours was a paddlers’ stone soup. Tom had a dehydrated soup mix (corn chowder? I forget) which required milk, which I was able to provide since I had a conetainer shelf stable milk with me. And we kept adding. Remember Rob’s spicy mango curry from Day 4? The one which had, except for the night at Jen’s, been aging gracefully in his boat all week? Well, we mixed the rice and lentils and some dabs of the curry into the soup. And vegetables! I had some carrots which had stayed almost completely untouched by lake water, and some of the other folks added veggies too. There was probably other stuff that went in as well; my memory is a bit foggy from the ptomaine. And we had plenty appetizers and sides! I contributed pita bread (from our stop at IGA on Wednesday) and the last of my aged-in-the-hatch cheddar cheese. And there was pepperoni, and cold cuts, and soy nuts, and all sorts of other delicious, mismatched and only somewhat spoiled food. And, of course, Rob’s daily distribution of Werther’s candies as a dessert. A veritable feast! And we didn’t even have to go through our whole dish washing ritual, since we knew we were on our way out. We did notice that the wind had turned around and was coming from the south. This was going to be bad for the swim, which at that point was locked into running north to south. As the old sailor’s saying goes, “Winds from the North, Swimmers go Forth. Winds from the South, Oh Crap.”

 

The main course

Putting out all the food

Around the table

After dinner we had a nice campfire, burning pizza boxes and construction materials left behind by previous occupants of the site as well as our found wood. Then everyone turned in. The swim supporters needed to get an early start and, while Tom and I had no hard deadline, we decided we’d endeavor to launch at the same time.

 

By the fire

Day 8 (9/17)

It was up and at ‘em early, with a goal of launching by 0800. I skipped my usual grits/PB breakfast, just downing a granola bar with my coffee (you didn’t think we were going to skip the coffee, did you???). Bags were packed, tents were folded, boats were loaded and all five of us hit the water at 8 AM.

 

Launching for the paddle home

Suzanne

Have you noticed yet that wind is a recurring theme in this blog? As we came out of the shelter of our landing area we again faced strong winds, driving the roughest conditions we’d faced yet. We were once again paddling into the wind (as the old sailor’s saying goes, “Paddlers should intuit: whatever the direction of the wind, you’ll be paddling into it.”). What should have been a sixty minute paddle instead took ninety. This put the swim supporters a little behind schedule and they hurried through loading up then headed out. Tom and I were able to take a little more time loading. As we loaded all of us chatted with some other paddlers who were there to launch their recreational kayaks. We advised them not to venture out beyond the island that was providing some shelter from the wind around the launch area. The wife of the couple started looking nervous … Tom and I said goodbye to each other and headed out.

After loading up Tom and I both headed back to Norowal where we had previously noted that there were showers. It’s a nice luxury to be able to drive home without gagging from your own stench and so we availed ourselves of the showers (separately). As noted earlier, Norowal nickels and dimes you on everything and we discovered that even the showers cost money – they were coin operated. Seventy five cents well spent! Having cleaned up, Tom and I said goodbye to each other and headed out.

We bumped into each other again at the Lake George Kayak company (one can never pass up a kayak shop), where I replaced my emergency whistle, which had somehow gotten lost on the trip and Tom found a good end of season deal on some paddling shoes. When we were done shopping Tom and I said goodbye to each other once again and headed out.

I stopped in at Stewarts and got coffee and a buttered roll, which made me smile. Not the coffee. Well, yes, the coffee – coffee always makes me smile. In this case I mean the buttered roll, a New York staple, apparently even upstate, that’s unheard of in Virginia. I mean, it’s not that we don’t have butter or rolls in Virginia, but my local 7-11 in Arlington does not have a stack of pre-made buttered rolls ready to go as breakfast food the way Stewart’s did.

Anyway, amply supplied with caffeine and food I turned the car south to head for home. I had an hour’s worth of songs to learn for a gig with a new band the next weekend and so, as I had done on the way up, I  started the playlist of songs on Spotify on repeat and listened to them again and again, all the way home.

Postscript:

I later learned that weather conditions only intensified as the day went on, causing the swim to end early. The swim started in the afternoon as planned but was called off at around midnight after some choppy hours in the dark which had been harrowing for swimmers, boaters and kayakers alike.