Between general malaise due to the state of the country and my sore hip, we didn't do much paddling this year.
We had a great paddle on Rollins Pond today. It was quite overcast, so the colors in the trees were not as nice as we had hoped, but it was still pretty.
We saw a couple of loons
and 9 mergansers. Four of them sat on this point while 5 others fished.
We paddled up to the entrance to Floodwood, and it is good that we didn't have to go through. The water level is very low. We looked at the place at the northern end of the lake where one can walk up to the rail trail, but we decided to go up to the spot on the western side instead. It looks very different from when we were there last, complete with a long fence. But we managed to climb up to the right of it.
We walked to the right and decided to explore the small pond north of the trail. This large piece of metal was lying in the water. We assume it is some part of a train.
The most exciting part of the trip was visiting the owners of Woodlure. We hope to see them again next summer.
It was a beautiful day for a paddle. Here are some of the group looking for the elusive entrance to the river.
Since we had a late start, we stopped at a campsite for lunch instead of going all the way to the lean-to. It was a beautiful woodsy spot.
There were lots of these fruits among the plants along the sides of the river. It is presumably a species of Sparganium, a branched bur-reed.
My right hip was quite sore by the time we left the lunch spot and W was very tired, so we turned around there instead of going all the way to the lean-to. This is probably my last long paddle - 8 miles - of the season. I can go about an hour, or about 3 miles, before I have to stop to rest.
We had a nice 6-mile round trip paddle on Deer River Flow in sunshine and with low winds.
Six of us went on a guided nature walk at Santanoni today, then had a tour of the Gatehouse. The horse-drawn wagon headed out before we did.
We just walked a mile up the road to the farm with a very good naturalist. Then back to the Gatehouse for the tour. The Gatehouse wasn't much to look at but the talk by an AARCH employee gave us the history of the land and its occupants. There was a lot of great lichen growing on a falling-down structure near the entrance.
We did a section of a group paddle today. We are exhausted from our woodshed roofing activities, it is very hot, and we want to do a longer paddle on Thursday. The group planned to put in at Floodwood, go down Fish Creek, paddle through Copperas Pond, take the long carry into Whey Pond and the shorter carry into Rollins Pond, then paddle back to Floodwood, with possibly another carry if the water is too low. That was too much for us. So we put in at Floodwood with the group and paddled down Fish Creek.
When the group got to the entrance to Copperas, at 2.5 miles, we turned around and returned the way we came. We stopped at one of our usual places for lunch.
When we got back to Floodwood we saw an immature loon with an adult. We had never seen an immature this large.
We saw lots of groups of boats. We don't usually go to these lakes until after Labor Day since there are so many campers around. But when we got back to the take-out, we were the only ones there.
Yesterday's planned ADK paddle was delayed due to rain and we had other things planned for later in the day, so we didn't go. So this morning we went out onto the Flow instead. I knew we had an air quality alert due to the fires in Canada, but didn't really notice the effects until we were out on the water.
We have been walking a lot recently. We walk our road when we don't have time to go elsewhere. One time this week we walked on the Deer Pond Loop trail for 2 miles round trip. There were LOTS of mosquitos and deer flies but insect repellant and the deer fly patches on our hats controlled them enough. And since we are at an intersection with the rail trail when we get veggies Saturday mornings, we have been walking there sometimes. This morning we headed from Route 86 toward Lake Placid.
There were lots of wildflowers along the trail, including lots and lots of milkweed coming into bloom.
And we saw the largest aspens I've ever seen in the park. They were at least 12 inches in diameter.
