An Urban Boychick Takes on the Outdoors

This is Part III of a trip diary which starts here . Day 6: Thursday 9/11   Wednesday night was the only night of the trip I had any trouble sleeping, so Thursday morning I was happy to stay in bed for a while reading and continuing to watch the Billy Joel documentary (which is interesting, but really long!).  Jen,  Béla, and I paddled the perimeter of Middle Saranac Lake, including poking down into the creek in the southwest corner of the lake to find Bartlett Carry, a portage trail which is the only way to connect between Middle and Upper Saranac lakes. We had done this portage in 2016 when we did a trip traversing the Saranac Lakes . In the process we managed to destroy one of our kayak carts and generally wear ourselves out. This time around we were smart enough to not even get out of our boats. I will say as an aside that this is my second trip in a row to the Saranacs where I never made it into Upper Saranac Lake, which is too bad - there's some beautiful paddling t...

This is Part II of a trip diary which starts here . Day 3: Monday 9/7   I'm an early riser, so on our first day in camp I got out of my tent at about 6:30AM to face a cold, cold early Monday morning. We didn't have any plans to get anywhere in a rush that morning and everyone else had the sense to stay in bed until the temps warmed up. They may have avoided the numb fingers and toes I experienced, but they missed out on a beautiful scene of early morning mist over the water, as the cold air condensed over the relatively warm water of the lake.  Morning mist Mid-morning Tom and I took the motorboat back to South Creek to retrieve the things which had been left behind in the previous day's chaos, including my cooler, my Jackery power system and giant solar panel (which we really didn't need, but which I had recently gotten for a steal at a community sale and wanted a chance to play with), and our Yonkers bagels. When we got back to camp the four of us had a fancy brunch o...

Day 0: Friday 9/5 Some of our kayak trips are ADVENTURES, while others are more like fun hangs in the woods with friends. Last year’s trip to the Apostle Islands was definitely in the adventure category, with rough conditions and long daily paddles between islands. This year’s trip to the Saranac Lakes was more in the hangout category. Which is not to say it was unpleasant or disappointing - a hangout with old friends is a perfectly fine way to spend some time. And we had reasons! We intentionally planned a mellow trip because both Rob and Tall Tom have been having health issues which they knew would limit their paddling. Let me give you an idea of the laidbackedness level of this trip. On previous trips I’d wake up before dawn and immediately begin packing things in my tent because we needed to have the kayaks packed and ready to hit the water at zero dark thirty, if not earlier. On this trip we all generally lounged in our sleeping backs for hours, waiting out the chilly mornings (m...