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.