Bike Ride

I did my first longish bike ride today.  Just from the train station to the park and back for only about four miles.  But the knee did well.  It hurt a bit at the beginning, but then quieted down.

Paddling the Raquette River

Today we took advantage of having two cars here and did the two-ended paddle on the Raquette River from Axton Landing to the Crusher.  It was a total of 7 miles.

Milkweed

Our milkweed is flowering nicely.  We rarely see monarch butterflies but do see quite a few swallowtails.  This is a particularly ratty-looking specimen.

An Even Longer Walk

I just finished an approximately 1.4 mile walk on the road, which has much steeper hills than yesterday's walk.  My knee did very well, in fact I was tempted to go all the way to the dam.  It still objects a bit to going down a steep hill, but is doing much better.

Beary Exciting

Momma and her two cubs came to visit this afternoon.  It will be a while before we dare put the bird feeder out again.

Walking at the Paul Smith's VIC

I'm excited to report that I hiked about 1-1/4 miles at the VIC this morning and my knee did very well, just complaining a bit on the downhill slopes.

This was our annual trek to see the orchids and we weren't disappointed.  I was trying out the new camera we got for our Arctic voyage and found I still have a lot to learn.  Some of the plant photos came out ok.

Rose Pogonia Orchid

Calopogon Orchid

White Fringed Orchid

Pitcher Plant and Flower



Marsh Cinquefoil


And this great photo of a cedar waxwing from quite a distance.  I couldn't tell what bird it was until I loaded the photo onto my computer.  Pretty impressive.

Paddling the Upper Osgood

We had a beautiful paddle today; total distance about 9.4 miles.  Our leaders had determined that it is still possible to get through the canal from Church Pond into Osgood Pond, so we put in at Church Pond.  I hadn't been there for several years so I was anxious to see the rose pagonia orchids, which are still there in abundance.


I didn't get a very good photo - hard to spend enough time on photography when you are in a group.


We did manage to get through the canal but just barely.  It won't be many more days before the water is too low.

There is not enough room at the end of the navigable portion of the creek for many people to get out, so we stopped for lunch at a spot about 1/4 mile from the end.

Paddling South Creek to Second Pond

Eleven of us had a great paddle today.  The weather was perfect and there were no bugs.  Which was quite a surprise because the mosquitoes were really bad in the driveway when I was putting my boat on the car.

This is a great view of Devil's Pulpit in the Saranac River after going through the locks.

We stopped for lunch at campsite 46 on the north side of the river before it opens into Lower Saranac Lake.  It is a beautiful site with the excellent landing spot complete with small beach quite a ways up the river from the actual camping site.