Kayaking from Raquette Lake to Blue Mountain Lake

On today's wayfarers paddle we finally completed the portion of the Raquette River from Blue Mountain Lake to Raquette Lake. Though we reversed the route due to prevailing winds, starting at Raquette Lake village, going through the Marion River into Utowana and Eagle Lakes and then into Blue Mountain Lake with a carry into Utowana over the old railroad bed. Here is a view of Blue Mountain showing what a beautiful day it was for a paddle.
After the paddle we all (14 of us) went to Hemlock Hall for dinner. It was a wonderful day.

ADK Fall Outing

We spent the weekend at the Adirondack Mountain Club fall outing, headquartered at the Wilmington KOA campground, where we stayed in a nice cabin. A group of about 100 ADK members from all over the state took part in organized hikes, paddles, bike rides throughout the weekend. On Friday we took a short paddle on Lake Everest, a wide section of the West Branch of the Ausable River near Wilmington. The paddle included maneuvering over 2 beaver dams which added to the excitement. We saw this osprey and the remains of his/her nest. Most of the nest plus some of its supporting branches were destroyed by the remnants of hurricane Ike that came through recently.

On Saturday we paddled the Ausable River from the bridge on Route 9 out to Lake Champlain via the northern route shown on the map. The lake was very windy, so we paddled into a quiet side channel and walked out to the lake. Someday when the wind isn't so strong we want to go back and paddle out one branch of the river and in the other, paddling the section of the lake in between.

On Sunday the weather wasn't nearly as nice, with low misty clouds. But we decided to go on a hike anyway. We climbed Cobble Hill, behind Northwoods School in Lake Placid. We are told there are usually nice views of Mirror Lake and Lake Placid from the top, but we saw very little. There is a nice rock scramble to get to the top that J would like. We'll have to take him there sometime, if we can find the path again. The entrance and exit (via a walk along Echo Lake) are off a private drive.

Kayaking the Rollins-Floodwood Loop

We woke this morning to a temperature of 40 degrees, meaning neat fog on the lake.It turned into a gorgeous day so we did one of our favorite kayak trips, the loop from the Rollins Pond boat launch. We stopped at Pine Island (see the next post), lunched on Slide Rock, then went through Floodwood Pond, down Fish Creek, and across Square Pond. We left the boat in a vacant campsite (we can only do this trip after the summer season is over) and walked the 1.25 miles back to pick up the car. We like this method because it avoids portages and gives us a chance to stretch our legs after the paddle.

We saw and heard loons and came across a "flotilla" of mergansers.

Kayaking Summary

We're only going to be here 2 more weeks and we want to get in as many paddles as possible. Here is a summary of the paddles we've done this year and the list from last year to help in our planning.

2008
Stony Creek
Hoel, Turtle, Slang Ponds
Long Pond
Floodwood-Rollins Loop
Middle Saranac Lake to Weller Pond
Raquette River - Moody boat launch to home
Middle Branch of St Regis River
Round Lake
Upper Osgood River
Oswegatchie River
Floodwood to Follensby Clear
Raquette River crusher to Lake Simon

2007
Stony Creek
Upper Osgood River
Lower Osgood River
Bog River to Hitchens Pond
Little Tupper Lake
Deer River Flow
Raquette River - Carry Falls Res. to Jamestown Falls
Marion River from Raquette Lake
Lower Saranac Lake from Ampersand Bay
Middle to Lower Saranac Lake - one way
Raquette River upstream from crusher and back
Lower Tupper Lake
Round Lake
Lower Saranac Lake
Floodwood-Rollins loop

And here are some we haven't done yet:
Second Pond to Lake Flower - did this a while back and want to do it again
Henderson Lake
Lake Lila
Saranac River
Rock Island Bay on Tupper Lake to Bridge Brook Pond
Lower Long Lake
East Branch St Regis River

Kayaking Blue Mountain Lake

Today I joined a group from the Adirondack Museum and the Wild Center on a human and natural history exploration of beautiful Blue Mountain Lake. It was especially nice since I hadn't yet paddled on that lake. There was a group of 30 people, including our leaders, in a wide variety of boats.We made several stops, including the Church of the Transfiguration, built in 1885 and containing some beautiful windows, and the steamboat Tuscarora built in 1900 and awaiting restoration. The tour ended with a wonderful lunch at the Hedges .

Kayaking the Raquette River

I paddled with the Wayfarers again today. We did a 7 mile section of the Raquette River, putting in at the "crusher" and taking out at Bill's house near Raquette Pond. We decided not to go out onto Simond Pond since the wind had strengthened. The group was not as big as last week, but still consisted of 18 people. I've signed up for the next two weeks as well. I'm really enjoying getting to know these folks and exploring new places.

Kayaking from Floodwood to Follensby Clear

W had a rental car for an extra day again (I can't believe they are not open weekends) so we did a one-way kayak trip. We put in on Floodwood and paddled through Fish Creek to Follensby Clear. See the map from last year - though we didn't start at Rollins this time. It was quite windy so we reduced the trip. Plus, we didn't want to have to drive into the Rollins boat dock again. Today's trip was nice and it left us enough time to put a final coat of epoxy on the boat when we got home.

Kayaking the Oswegatchie River

Today we joined the Wayfarers for a 10-mile round trip paddle on the Oswegatchie River. We put in at Inlet - at the top of the map. We stopped at High Rock for lunch. Then some of us went upstream farther to Griffin Rapids, which was nothing but a few rocks in the river, before paddling back downstream.

The weather was great so there were 27 of us!

But we soon spread out and many times we could see no one else on the river. This was helped of course by the many twists and turns.

Kayaking the Raquette River

We wanted a relatively close, short paddle this morning before heading back to camp to epoxy the boat after the garage warmed up. So we put into the Raquette River at the "crusher" on route 3 and paddled upstream for a few miles then paddled back to our starting point. Despite the high and fast water, paddling upstream was not difficult. It was another beautiful day and was great to get out on the river.

Kayaking the Osgood River

We kayaked the upper portion of the Osgood River today. See last year's post for a map and description. The water was quite high so we put into Church Pond again and enjoyed the paddle through the canal into Osgood Pond. It was too late to see the orchids in bloom on Church Pond, but there were still nice waterlilies on the river.And we saw a large group of mergansers.

The Flow

The sun was out today and there was NO WIND!! The reflections on the flow were beautiful.

Kayaking Round Lake

The sun was finally shining today. Yeah!!!

But it was also windy and we wanted some time to work on boat building, so we just did a morning paddle on Round Lake (see last year's post for a map). We did a leisurely explore of the shoreline for a total of about 7 miles.

The water was quite high from all the rain. The water lilies were having trouble keeping their heads above the water and some were completely submerged. We saw this flower that was new to me. It is some sort of bladderwort (Utricularia) in the Lentibularaceae.

Kayaking the Middle Branch of the St Regis River

We finally took a nice long paddle today. We drove to Santa Clara and launched the kayak onto the middle branch of the Saint Regis River, where we had never been before. We did a 12 mile round trip paddle from Route 458 upstream (south) to the rapids and then back downstream. This map only shows a portion of the route.

The weather was perfect and we had the gorgeous river all to ourselves.

The only disappointing thing was the lack of landing spots. The river channel was quite deep and steep sided so there was little opportunity to land. We did manage to pull up on a couple of mud flats but couldn't get inland. One map we have showed a carry around the rapids and we had hoped to get out there and stretch our legs a bit. But we saw no sign of the trail.

We saw lots of great blue herons and belted kingfishers and a beautiful yellow warbler. The most exciting wildlife sighting was a beaver that swam across the river in front of us then slapped its tail and dove out of sight.

There were many flowers in bloom, most of which we saw last year on our paddle on the lower Osgood River.

Kayaking Raquette Pond

We did a joint paddle with Nancy and Larry today. We put our boats in at the boat ramp in Moody and paddled through Raquette Pond into Piercefield Flow.

Kayaking to Weller Pond

The weather finally cleared up enough today for us to take a nice long paddle - about 8 miles round trip. We put in on South Creek at the southern end of Middle Saranac Lake and paddled up into Weller Pond, with a side trip into Little Weller.This eagle was on one of the small islands in Middle Saranac.We found several painted turtles and lots of neat plants.We stopped for lunch on Tick Island in Weller Pond.

Paddling the Flow

The sun was actually shining this morning so we went for a paddle around the flow.

Last year's low water doesn't seem to have hurt the plants, including these nice water lilies.

I'd been anxious to explore a spot where a creek comes in. We paddled in as far as we could get

then explored on foot through the alders and the stream to a spot where we could see a beaver dam holding back much of the water.

Kayaking the Floodwood-Rollins Loop

We joined ADK today on the Floodwood-Rollins Loop. We paddled from the put in off Floodwood Road, through Copperas and Whey, and then to Rollins and back to Floodwood. It was a gorgeous sunny day with bright blue sky and temperature about 70 degrees.

Kayak Trip on Long Pond

Today we joined a new group of paddlers called the Wayfarers. The people overlap quite a bit with ADK and are a fun group. We did a leisurely paddle of Long Pond. The water was high enough we were able to go into Pink Pond and Little Pink Pond as well.

Kayak Trip from Hoel Pond

We drove to camp for the summer on Monday. Then yesterday we joined ADK for a paddle starting at the private launch site of our hosts on Hoel Pond, dragged the boats through the culvert under the railroad, then paddled through Turtle and Slang Ponds. We lunched at a campsite on Slang, then retraced our steps and ended at our hosts' camp for dessert. The bugs were in abundance and we got sprinkled on a few times, but not enough to spoil the trip. And I met a quilter who invited me to join a group doing a shop hop next Tuesday. Very cool.

Kayaking Stony Creek

Today we kayaked up flooded Stony Creek with ADK; the same trip we did with them exactly a year ago. See my post from last year for a map and description. As someone on the trip said, at high water it is like bushwacking by boat. Though the water was a bit lower than at this time last year, so we were able to paddle under the low bridge between the ponds.

We were excited to see our first pair of loons of the season.

This time we explored up Ampersand Brook until a blow down blocked our way. We're not sure how much farther we might have gotten otherwise. We floated over several submerged beaver dams.