Trip to Oregon

I just got back to camp after helping my father celebrate his 100th birthday.  Since the best flights to the west coast leave from NJ, we drove there on the 18th.  On Sunday we participated in the road rally run by the car club.  On Tuesday I flew to Portland, meeting my siblings in the airport, and we drove down to see Dad.  Since one brother hadn't seen the carousel, we of course had to visit it.  I never tire of seeing the amazing workmanship.



The balloon festival takes place Friday-Sunday and we went to see the balloon rise twice.  What fun.


These huge balloons came all the way from Indiana.

Paddling Lower St Regis, Spitfire, and Upper St Regis Lakes

Today the group put in at Paul Smith's College, but at the swimming beach which was a much better spot than we had used before.  We paddled across Lower St Regis Lake, through Spitfire into Upper St Regis Lake.  We turned right and went into North Bay where I'd never been before.  We had lunch at the carry at the north end of the bay, then retraced our "steps" for a total of 9 1/2 miles.


There are many amazing great camps on these lakes.  One of the most spectacular is Camp Topridge on the western shore of North Bay, built in 1923 by Marjorie Merriweather Post.  This is just one of the Topridge boat houses with our group posed in front.


Since the lodgings tend to be hidden back in the woods, I concentrated on photos of boat houses.


This one has one of the wooden boats the lakes are famous for.

Paddling the Upper Osgood River

We had a wonderful paddle this morning.  Our Adirondack weather is finally back, with bright blue skies, low humidity, and high temperatures only in the mid-70's.  First thing this morning we drove to the put in on Osgood Pond, off the White Pine Camp road.  With the water so low we figured we would never make it through the canal from Church Pond.  We were on the pond by 8:30 and it was cool enough for me to start out with a jacket on.  We paddled across the lake and down the river to the dam and back again for a total round trip of 8 1/4 miles.  We stopped at an unmarked campsite on the right as we headed downriver, just about 1/4 mile from the dam.  The river was beautiful and we had it to ourselves, not encountering any other boats until we were on our way back.



There were white water lilies at the beginning of the river

and LOTS of pickerelweed infringing on it further on.

Paddling Middle Saranac Lake and Weller Pond

We had a great paddle this morning.  Thunderstorms were forecast for this afternoon, so we headed out early while it was still foggy.  Even though the overnight temperatures just got down into the mid-60's, it is so humid it does not take much drop in temperature to produce fog.  And the winds were light, so Middle Saranac Lake was really neat when we got there.


We had put in at South Creek, where the water is still very low.  W usually likes to put in at the dock, but not today.


In Middle Saranac we found the usual eagle on Ship Island.


Then we paddled into Weller Pond.  We didn't even attempt to get into Little Weller with the water so low.  We circumnavigated Weller, stopping for a snack at one of the campsites.


Then back through Middle Saranac where the winds were still light and back up South Creek, for a total of about 8 1/2 miles.


In addition to the eagle, we saw a great blue heron and MANY loons.  We have never seen so many taking off and flying and landing.  W decided Weller Pond must be the local take off and landing practice sites for young loons.  I tend to agree, given how incompetent some of them were.  We watched one attempt to take off three times before giving up.

Loon Lake Live

We've discovered another wonderful source of classical music here.  The Loon Lake Live series of four concerts takes place in Saranac Lake on Monday evenings.  We heard about it in time to attend their final concert last evening - flute, harp and viola.  It was marvelous.  I've signed up on their mailing list and am looking forward to next year's concerts.

Paddling the Saranac River

We had a rather damp paddle today.  We put in to the Saranac River at Pine Street in Saranac Lake.  We shuttled the cars to the bend in the river at the road into Moose Pond.  We planned to paddle to the footbridge to Moose Pond for lunch then on to the cars, for a total of about 9 miles.  The river is quite low and we had to avoid many sand bars.  The weather was iffy and it started to pour well before the footbridge.  We pulled under some trees to wait it out and most of us ate lunch there.  When it was evident it was going to rain for a while, we continued on our way.  It was warm so the rain really wasn't so bad though we did get soaked.  The sun was shining by the time we got out at a very muddy landing.  It apparently is a much better place to land when the water is higher.  Given the amount of road noise for most of the paddle, I sort of assumed this would be a one-time thing, but we were amazed at the amount of wildlife we saw: several great blue herons and osprey, two bald eagles, three turtles.