Porch

We are back at camp and hope to relax today after many days of hard work in NJ. S's porch is nearly done. There are just a few "fiddley bits" left for her to do. We didn't finish with the railing until after dark, but this photo shows it off nicely.Here is the before view. Quite a contrast.

Change of Scenery

We left camp for NJ early enough this morning that we were able to walk on the beach this afternoon.

The Culprit

We woke this morning to yet another damaged bird feeder. I don't know why I bother. These little hand-like prints in the dew on the steps identified the culprit.

Kayaking Tupper Lake

I am addicted - to sunshine and quiet waters. We were supposed to stay home today and do some chores and get ready to drive to NJ tomorrow. I was outside hanging clothes early this morning and couldn't get enough of the sunshine and stillness. The weather is wonderful and is supposed to stay this way for days - beautiful blue skies and low 70's. So I dragged W on yet another paddle - not that he objected. We needed something short and close to home, so we put into Tupper Lake at the Route 30 parking area on Rock Island Bay and paddled to the outlet of Bridge Brook Pond. We stopped along the way at Black Point for lunch. We looked for the campsite that shows on the paddlers' map, but couldn't find it so we just lunched on the rocks. We walked along the trail to the pond, which is just to the right of the outlet, and discovered that if we had lightweight boats we could have portaged them easily. The trail is narrow, but fairly flat with few obstacles under foot. There are a couple of wet sections so we were glad we waited until things dried out a bit. After viewing the pond, we headed back home. The total paddling distance was just about 5 1/2 miles.

Kayaking Cedar River Flow

We did another "adventure paddle" with Cindy today. We put into Cedar River Flow at the Wakely Dam end, paddled to the other end, and out into the Cedar River, and back again for a total of about 9 miles.The adventure part is finding the correct channel through the reeds and grasses at the southern end of the flow. We did it right coming back but going from the flow to the river we didn't do so well. Here are W and Cindy saying "there has to be a channel here somewhere". I had the brilliant idea that a recent satellite view would be better than our old maps so I was trying to follow it. But since I didn't know where I was most of the time, that didn't help much. W's instincts were better, but we led him astray. After fighting through narrow channels lined with alders and pulling over a large downed tree, we managed to find the river. We paddled down to the lean-to on the Northville-Lake Placid trail for a relaxing lunch. Then we turned around and headed back. Sometime when we don't spend so much time looking for the channel, I'd like to explore more of the river. Maybe next year.

Kayaking the St Regis Lakes

Today we went on a tour and paddle sponsored by the Adirondack Museum and the Wildcenter. We drove to Paul Smith's and took a tour of St. John's-in-the-Wilderness Episcopal Church. It has been a part of the life of the St. Regis community since the 1870's. Since sailboat races have long been a big part of that community, that is reflected in the center of this stained glass window in the church.Dr. Edward Livingston Trudeau and some of his descendants are buried in the church graveyard. Trudeau was a pioneer in the wilderness cure of tuberculosis.After leaving the church, we went to Paul Smith's College and saw the location of the old Smith's Hotel and of some of the cottages built for guests. Then we had lunch in the Paul Smith's cafeteria prior to launching our boats on Lower St. Regis Lake. We paddled into Spitfire Lake

and pulled up next to Rabbit Island where we saw this plaque.

It reads: "On this island in 1886 Dr. Edward Livingston Trudeau conducted his historic experiment to determine the effect of environment on the incidence and progress of tuberculosis in a colony of rabbits. This plaque was placed by Trudeau Institute, Inc. in commemoration of this pioneering study in experimental epidemiology."
Then we continued into Upper St. Regis and turned west and headed for the esker that encloses Spectacle Ponds. We climbed the esker where the naturalist described its formation by a glacier.
Then we went back along the Upper St. Regis shoreline toward the take-out at the Upper St. Regis boat ramp, for a total paddle of 6 miles, carefully avoiding the course of the sailboat race in progress. The boats were very picturesque, but it was pouring rain by that time so I did not get a photo.

Kayaking Cheney Pond and the Boreas River

We had a great paddle today. Cindy went with us to another of the Paddle Pursuits. We put into Cheney pond, down a rutted gravel road off the Blue Ridge Road, and paddled the 1/2 mile or so to the end. The pond is so small I wasn't going to bother paddling it, until friends told us that you could get to the Boreas River from there. The river is known here as the Lester Flow, since there used to be a dam downstream that flooded a larger area.The entrance to the outlet from Cheney Pond is so shallow we had to get out and pull our boats, carefully avoiding soft spots where others have gone in to their thighs. We paddled the outlet for a bit, then had to get out again to carry around rocks. There is a path through the bushes on the left that made this possible. Definitely a good thing we had our single kayaks. The river itself was very nice.But we did encounter several beaver dams. Going downstream we only had to get out and carry around one dam, with some nice rides through holes in others. But coming back upstream there was another we had to carry around since the current was so strong. At the spot where the dam used to be we got out on the east side and climbed up the rocks to get this view of the high peaks. It was a great place for lunch.The total round trip paddle was about 6 miles, which was plenty given the effort it took. It is also possible to go upstream a 1/2 mile or so from the outlet from Cheney Pond, but we didn't do that.

Kayaking Hoel Pond

I guess today's paddle doesn't really count, especially since we paddled much more of Hoel Pond earlier in the season as part of the paddle from Long Pond. But we spent most of the day at a picnic at Bill and Ginger's and had a great time.

Kayaking West and Canada Lakes

Today six of us drove south (a total of about 2 1/2 hours drive for us) to put into West Lake, at the fishing access shown with a red "x" on the map. Note that the Trails Illustrated map is incorrect about the location of the boat ramp. The one on the map is a residents' only put in. But the fishing access closer to Route 10 was quite adequate.We paddled just a bit into Canada Lake then went down the outlet through Lily Lake and all the way down to the dam at Stewart's Landing and then back for a total of 9 miles.We took our single boats. It was the most I have paddled in mine but I managed to keep up pretty well.

Boat

Remember that kayak we were building? Well, given that the summer is just about over, we decided maybe we had better do some work on it. Actually, the summer has been so wet and cool there really hasn't been much opportunity for epoxy to set. W has done most of the work, putting the cowling around the cockpits and cutting and gluing supports around the hatches - requiring the use of many clamps.And he has sanded the bottom and one side, which did not take as much time as we had feared.There is a bit more epoxying to do and we still hope to do that soon. And W will try to finish the sanding too. After reading the instructions on the marine varnish (of which we need 5 coats with wet sanding in between) and learning that it should not be applied when it is humid - yeah, right - we decided we will take the boat to NJ to do that part, probably next spring. Maybe we will have a spectacular fall with crystal blue skies and low humidity which would cause us to rethink that decision, but given the weather up until now, that seems highly unlikely. Besides, if the weather were like that, I would want to be paddling every day.