From My Little Book: October 2013

Bob and I paddled across the stream that runs by the dock. Our intent was to circumnavigate (clockwise!) the big swamp about a half mile away. There is a feature that looks man-made running across the width of the swamp, but no trail to get there. We'd both seen this unnatural anomaly on the satellite view in Google Maps, and wanted to know what it was.

But first, we took a short bushwhack over the hill to hit the snowmobile trail that runs along the north edge. What's a bushwhack, you ask? That's a hike with no trail. You, your compass or GPS or dead reckoning, and your legs. I advise wearing long pants, no matter what the weather.

The last time I was on the snowmobile trail, it was a wreck. The 4-wheelers had turned it into muddy hole after muddier hole. It was ugly and not fun to walk on. But the DEC must have done something to let them know they were not welcome, because the trail had mostly healed, and walking it was a pleasure. We soon came around the east end of the swamp and up the little rise that leads to a pretty little meadow.

I saw a bear out there once.

Very peaceful place.

Years ago, my next door neighbor Pete told me that there was once a town in this vicinity. "Be careful you don't fall into an old well," he cautioned. I had searched several times for the remains, but even though my imagination could easily place buildings on the grassy high ground overlooking the meadow, I found little evidence of a town. "There's a huge old boiler there," he said. You can't miss it!" Maybe Pete thinks too highly of me.

Bob and I had walked out into the meadow for a better look, and then decided to make a bee line for the feature we wanted to explore. After consulting his GPS, we set out on a course that ran straight toward the mysterious feature of the internet. Bob stumbled across a couple of small gauge rails buried in the weeds. Soon after, I found a wheel mostly buried in the soil.

Rail wheel from long ago.

Bricks under the grass next to my hiking pole.
Yes, the poles really save a lot of pain for old hikers.

Our tack continued into the small gully formed by the stream flowing out of the meadow. There, under the sumacs, was the boiler. Just as Pete had indicated, it was huge. It looked a lot like a locomotive without anything attached to make it motive. A locostationary?

Has not moved in a long, long time.

Bob giving the boiler scale.

120 years ago, nearly the entire Adirondack region was clear cut. The logging companies cut down every tree they could lay their saws on. It is likely that this boiler was used to power the saws that cut the logs into planks, since there was no appreciable waterway nearby to float the logs to a sawmill downstream. The small gauge railway was probably used to move the boiler in, and possibly also to move the sawn wood out.

Why it was left behind is a mystery. Perhaps it was no longer functional, and the value of a few tons of scrap metal was not enough to move the miles to claim the prize. But now it's yours, if you want to drag it out...

Minimum flow, maximum beauty.

We did manage to get a view of the feature we had seen on the computer.
Kind of a letdown.
It may have been a dam at one point,
but beaver engineering downstream put the whole area underwater.

Bob heads up the hill away from the swamp.

Next stop was a pretty little unnamed pond.
As we came down into its watershed,
you could see that this rock was surrounded by water.

Looking out across the marsh.
Late September is a great time to hike.
In the summer, the deerflies and mosquitos would have carried us away.

Bob is plotting our next move.

Little white flowers dotted the meadow.

A hardy hippie dandelion?

We followed the deer path that skirted the pond.

Fine accommodations for oversized rodents.

And they put on a nice show on the far side of the little pond.

The three of them were happy to play as we watched, a comfortable distance away.

Usually, when I have seen beavers, I catch a glimpse and then they're gone. These guys were happy to go about their business as we watched. We got tired of observing before they were done. There is no trail near this pond, so maybe we were so foreign to them, they didn't know that humans are bad news.

And I can only describe their business as playing. Swimming this way and that, separating and coming back together. Splashing for no apparent purpose.

They treated us to a not-quite-synchronized swim.

Compared to much of the country, it's wet here in the East,
even when it's dry. I had not rained in weeks.
Back on the trail, we were glad to use the boardwalk.

But even though we made it back to the trail, we had to contend with obstacles.
The beavers had put their dam right atop the trail, and also built another downstream,
making the usual route out of the question.