Paddling to Weller Pond

I had a nice 8 1/4 mile round trip paddle with the group today.  We put in at South Creek and paddled into a very calm Middle Saranac Lake.

Then on into Little Weller and then Weller Pond.  We stopped at the campsite on Tick Island for lunch, where I found this neat mushroom.

This chipmunk is obviously used to being fed and explored around us as we ate.

We discovered the "sunny" sky wasn't very sunny, even though there were no clouds.  Apparently smoke from the wild fires out west has made it to the upper atmosphere on the East coast.  I guess this is the end of crisp blue fall skies for this year.

A Stroll up the Driveway

It is a crisp fall day, perfect for a walk up the driveway to see what is there.  This plant's common name is Doll's Eyes for obvious reasons; also White Baneberry.  The Latin name is Actaea pachypoda in the Ranunculaceae.

The sun lit up some Beech Drops (Epifagus virginiana, in the Orobanchaecae) which are all around now.  They are parasitic on the roots of beech trees.

I love our moss and lichen covered rocks.

Paddling the Raquette River

We had a nice 7 1/4 mile round trip paddle on the river today.  We put in at the Crusher and headed upstream toward the outflow from Follensby Pond.  We figured paddling up to the dam at Follensby and then turning around would be a good length for a paddle.  We waited to go until this afternoon because it was still only 50 degrees and cloudy in late morning.  The sun finally came out and while the breeze was still cool, it was a beautiful paddling day.

We were in for a surprise when we got to the junction toward Follensby Pond.  The beavers had been busy and while we might have been able to scramble over the dam, getting back into the boats in the deep water on the other side would have been difficult.  So we decided to turn around.

Paddling Lake Flower to Kiwassa Lake

I paddled about 10 miles round trip with the group today.  It was 80 degrees so I was hot and tired by the end, but it was great to be out on the water and to be with friends.  We put in at the boat launch on Lake Flower in Saranac Lake and paddled into Kiwassa.  We stopped at the campsite on a point sticking out into the lake.  We tried the site on the island first, but it was too hard to land.  The site we did stop at had a very good spot to get out onto shallow rocks.

Paddling Piercefield Flow

I finally got back on the water after a two-week hiatus.  We paddled the Flow two weeks ago and while carrying a boat up from the lake I fell and sprained my foot.  So I have been taking it easy.

Today's paddle was just a slow meander enjoying the beautiful weather and calm water.  I explored one of the narrow inlets much farther than I expected to get.  I turned around when the alders got too close together.

Then back out onto the lake for more exploring.

I enjoyed the stumps reflected in the water.

I finally took a good look at the sign defining the easement around part of the lake.  It turns out that much of the land is still owned by a timber company.

Hiking in Stone Valley

I had to drive to Potsdam again today to pick up a grocery order from Walmart.  This time I decided to break up the trip by stopping at Stone Valley for a nice hike along the way.  This neat fungus was along the path.

There wasn't much water in the river.

This is the view from a side path fairly close to the beginning of the trail.

I walked in about a mile, where I got this view.  Then I turned around.

Paddling Forked Lake

We had another marvelous paddle today of about 6 miles.  A friend reminded us that one can drive to the portage from Raquette Lake to Forked Lake, and put boats in there.  So that is what we did.

We paddled to the western end of the lake where there were acres of white water lilies.

Then we paddled about 1/2 mile up the winding Brandreth Lake Outlet

until we hit a bit of a snag.  These downed trees block the creek

but there is a way around, just barely.  This is the view from upstream, on the way back down.  You basically sit down in the bottom of the boat and push yourself under the log.  There is a bit of a carry upstream of this point and a steep bank to go down to get back to the water.

We were glad we made the effort since we paddled about 1/4 mile farther before we hit shallow water and quite a few rocks and decided to turn around.  If we had been more ambitious we might have made it farther.

After we came back out of the stream we stopped at a very nice campsite on the north shore of the lake, as marked by all the squiggles on the map - I forgot to put down my phone which contains the GPS and walked all around on shore stretching my legs and exploring.  After lunch we headed back to our starting point.  We had planned to do much more paddling on the lake, but W was tired, so we will do it another time.

We had planned one more stop on the way home, at Buttermilk Falls.  There was no one around when we drove past the parking lot earlier this morning, but we wanted to get on the water first.  Boy was that a mistake.  When we drove past again this afternoon there were about two dozen cars overflowing the lot.  Next time, we will have to stop there first instead.

Caterpillar of Milkweed Tussock Moth

We saw lots of these on the milkweed plants along the road today.  They haven't shown up on our plants yet.  We just have monarch butterfly caterpillars, which is fine by me.

Paddling Upper Saranac Lake

We had a great paddle today, and again in places we hadn't been before.  We were a group of six and paddled about 7 miles.  We put in at Saranac Inn at the northern end of Upper Saranac Lake.

As usual I forgot to start my GPS at the beginning of the trip, but we put in at the boat launch, and paddled around Dry Island, which is the unlabeled green blob on the map.  It is a neat big rock, but difficult to land on.  You can certainly tell the direction of the prevailing winds.  Though today was very calm, which was great.

Then we headed for the eastern shore.  We paddled a short distance into Hatchery Brook, but although there was lots of flow and deep water it was completely clogged with cattails.  So we headed for the brook out of Black Pond and it was really neat.  Though we had to turn around when we got to a very low bridge with no way around or over it.

Then we paddled to Green Island and stopped at campsite #3 for lunch.  Then back towards the boat launch with a side trip to a Nature Conservancy site in a little bay to the west of the launch site.  One of our number had been there before or we would never have known about it.   It is a fairly small and shallow area with lots of white water lilies.  I finally got a photo with a reflection.

Hiking the Bloomingdale Bog Trail

After going to the farmers market today we drove north from Saranac Lake to walk a while through Bloomingdale Bog.  We walked in about 1 1/2 miles then turned around.  The trail was more grown in than we remembered and we wondered if in the past we walked there earlier in the season.

We found another green frog; this one much bigger than the ones we saw a couple of days ago.