Summary of 2019 Paddles

We managed to do 12 paddles in our abbreviated season this year.

• Bog River
• Follensby Clear Pond
• Oswegatchie River
• Piercefield Flow
• Raquette Lake to Blue Mountain Lake
• Raquette River from Axton to Crusher
• Rollins to Square Pond
• Second Pond to Lake Flower
• South Creek to Second Pond
• South Creek to Weller
• South Inlet to Raquette Lake
• Upper Osgood

Paddling the Oswegatchie River

We just completed our final paddle of the season.  We head back to NJ on Saturday.  We put in the Oswegatchie at Inlet

and paddled the 3 1/4 miles to campsite 42 on the river where we took a break.  The current was quite fast so it took us 1 1/2 hours to get there paddling upstream.


But then it was an easy paddle back downstream, taking us less than an hour.

Paddling from Second Pond to Lake Flower

We took advantage of having two cars and paddled a bit over 6 miles to where we parked a car in Saranac Lake, then went to Hotel Saranac for lunch before retrieving the other car from Second Pond.  Another beautiful day.

Hiking to Cobble Ledge

Paddling the Bog River

We had another beautiful day today.  We put in at Low's Lower Dam and paddled the 3 miles to the carry at Hitchin's Pond.  There was no wind when we started out so the reflections were perfect.






We had not climbed up to the ridge for many years because of my bum knees.  So we did the climb of a little over a mile to spectacular views.

Hiking Along Fish Creek

We had a nice 3-1/2 mile round-trip hike along a trail from Fish Creek campground.  The weather has been gorgeous with plenty of sun and mid-60's temperatures.  There has been plenty of rain so everything is green and lush.

Raquette Lake to Blue Mountain Lake

We are back in the Adirondacks, having driven up on Saturday.  We had a great but exhausting paddle today from Raquette Lake through the Marion River and Utowana and Eagle Lakes to the beach at Blue Mountain Lake, including a fairly long carry and a big beaver dam, for a total of over 13 miles.  It was a beautiful day with plenty of sunshine, cool temperatures, and not too much wind.  We have done the paddle several times before but this time it seemed exceptionally long.  I guess we are just getting older.




A well-deserved lunch break after the carry.

Audubon's Plainsboro Preserve

We had a nice walk this afternoon at Plainsboro Preserve.  We found huge trees that very ambitious  beavers have been chewing on and in some cases cutting down.




We saw evidence of their dragging branches and finally found a lodge above the water's edge and quite a bit away from the most recent activity.

Iceland then Home

Today was a very long day.  We woke early in the Grand Hotel in Reykjavik and boarded buses for sightseeing.


We find Iceland to be a pretty desolate place.  It is all, or at least the parts we have seen, covered with lava with moss as the predominant vegetation.

Though I did find some flowers still blooming.

We toured the Reykjanes Peninsula, including this lake.


Then we went to a hot springs area to walk around.




Our last stop before lunch at a seaside restaurant was an area known for many shipwrecks.  We were surprised how far inland some of the wrecks were.


The final stop before heading to the airport was at a place where the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates meet and are gradually splitting apart.


We walked across the rift at the spot marked with the star in the above map.


Then off to the airport and the flight home.  This was a great view of two tidewater glaciers from the air as we were flying over Greenland.

Back to Reykjavik

This morning we were back in Kangerlussuaq Fjord on the way to the airport.  We transferred to
shore via zodiacs then a short bus ride to the airport.  While in the bus someone lamented that we didn't see any arctic hare or foxes on the trip.  Just at that moment a bright white arctic hare ran by the side of the bus.  It was too quick a sighting to get a photo, but at least we saw one.


This was the view from the plane shortly after takeoff.

Map

This map shows where we went in the ship.  We covered over 3100 miles.  That was longer than expected but we had to go further northwest than anticipated to find the ever-decreasing sea ice.

Kangaamiut Kangerluarsuat Fjord

Today explored via zodiac another fjord with an active tidewater glacier.

Ilulissat, Greenland

Today was spectacular.  We arrived in Disko Bay this morning and after some initial excitement, pulled up to the dock at Ilulissat.  The excitement was in the form of a smallish iceberg sitting in the harbor.  Two zodiacs were dispatched to push it out of the way.  After we disembarked, we took a shuttle to see the Ilulissat Icefjord, which is a UNESCO site.  There is a nice boardwalk to a view of the stalled icebergs filling the fjord.  The face of the glacier, which is one of the fastest moving in the world, is miles back in the fjord.  The ice calving off gets stuck at a shallow place near the bay and backs up into the fjord.


The small fishing boat in the next photo is one some of us took in the afternoon to view the icebergs up close.  The one we were on was even smaller.






As I stated above, in the afternoon we boarded a small fishing boat to take a tour among the icebergs.






We had great sightings of humpback whales feeding along the face of the glaciers.  Since W had his good camera, I didn't see any point in trying to get shots with my phone.  That was a mistake.  When we returned to open water to head back to the dock, we discovered the wind and waves  had picked up.  It was a very rough ride back with waves crashing over the bow and soaking us.  W protected the camera as well as he could but either some moisture (but he buried it in rice for a couple of days and that didn't help) or just the ferocious banging as we crashed through the waves meant the camera was dead when we got back to the ship.  Presumably the pictures on the SD card are ok but we haven't been able to check them yet.  The harsh conditions meant that the last boatload of folks who were to go out was canceled, so when we left Ilulissat the captain took us along the outer edge of the glaciers where there were more humpbacks.  I managed to get some photos from a distance of a blow

and a fluke.