Paddling Black Water

All were to convene at 9 AM at the put-in near Wanakena, but Russ and Randy stopped for a fine breakfast at the Blue Anchor Restaurant and Cabins just outside of Poland, NY.  It’s a fine spot to relive the 50’s in the tiny tidy doll house cottages, immaculately painted white with blue trim.  The picket fence completes the effect.  And the restaurant’s clientele fit right in.  

The stop at the diner also concluded the most dangerous portion of the trip.  Since there were no services in the garage at Randy’s camp where Russ and Randy had spent the night, there was no coffee to be had until the stop.  Russ’ knuckles regained their color as he chowed down.

Randy's canoe awaits.

The gang's all here.

Let's go!

They were glad to have stopped, and even more so when they learned that they did not need additional late-arrival excuses regarding fog and construction.  The rest of the party was much later due to oversleeping.  All finally hit the water around 10:30, but no matter, since no one else was headed in the same direction except one pair, who couldn’t coordinate paddling to save their lives.  Their bow man had that distinctive Charles Manson look, but there was no concern, because it was apparent those two would never make it far enough upriver to create an event requiring the participation of the media and law enforcement.

Six hours after starting, they arrived at the spot on the Oswegatchie where the foot bridge carries the blue trail across the river.  There are two campsites right at the junction, one high above the bridge on the western side, and another more spacious one on the east.  Both were good choices, but the group opted for a site a short distance upstream on the west, which would prove to be a good decision.

The main reason for the choice of site was the proximity to a natural spring.  While the flow from the plastic pipe someone had inserted was nothing great, a little patience allowed filling one’s containers with great tasting water without purification.  A major benefit.

Water falls from the spring.
It tastes fabulous!

And it had a privy.  A new-fangled stainless steel one.  Much better than digging a hole in the ground, even if the placement was a little too close to the blue trail.  Just like crossing the street, look both ways before you go.

A very minor example of the twist and turns.
Most of the way, the Oswegatchie writes its signature into the flood plain
in flowing cursive.

As for the time span of the upstream trek, everything is against you.  The narrow channel flows swiftly, sapping your inertia at every opportunity.  Though there are very pretty straight stretches, they are overshadowed by the many, many serpentine turns as the river makes its way through the flood plain.  Only the position of the sun indicates the direction of your progress, since one can rarely see anything over the thick bushes that crowd the shore and often squeeze the thoroughfare into a channel just wide enough for a single canoe or kayak.

Mike and Matt make their way upstream.

The gang at High Rock,
a good spot for a break and a view.
Attractive group, eh?

Then there are the rocks.  Some are exposed, providing a picturesque view, but many more are lurking close beneath the surface, just waiting to grab your boat, stalling your progress.  You point your canoe around the spots indicated by the riffles, assuming the fluctuations of the water will be your guide, but they often lie.

Are those rocks I see up ahead?

Where to go, where to go...

It's often good to learn the best channel
from the lead boat.
More often, it's good to know where not to go.

The finishing touches are provided by unseen rodents.  Though they rarely make an appearance, their presence is everywhere.  The slides grooved in the banks and the pointed chewed ends of the bushes would be an adequate indication, but that is not enough for them.  They also create barriers to insure they are not overlooked.  Beaver dams, we call them, but after getting out of the canoe for the 5th time to pull the boat over one, the word order is reversed.

It is good the weather cooperated.  I’m not sure it would be all that much fun dragging the boats over the mud and sticks in cold, wet weather.  I can’t imagine doing it in the spring with icebergs in the high water.

Yanking up and over.

Sometimes there is no other way than to get out and pull,
particularly when the canoe is laden with all your gear.

Jim being a good citizen.

Urging the canoe through the debris field.

They sleep comfortably in their condominiums while we struggle with their handiwork.

There is a space wide enough for the canoe,
but the edge-on current does not make for easy going.

Major traffic jam.

Mike is becoming a sail,
hoping a gust of wind will push him through.

Not again!

The group set up camp and got firewood as Jim cooked dinner.  Though they had begun driving before 6 AM, they still ended up eating and cleaning up in the dark.  

A good shot of Jim by the campfire.

New fleece, now a certified camping-only bit of apparel. 

Though dead tired, it did not stop them from passing a bottle while telling campfire stories.  None can relate all that transpired, but suffice to say that Russ is now the Grand Imperial Emperor of the Northern Spider Monkeys.  With a business card.

The schedule highlight for a following day was paddling on up to High Falls.  More beaver dams, and some very pretty sections of the river as well.  Mike and Randy settled on a policy of not trusting their memories in regard to order of occurrence on the river.  They verified that one memorable stretch with a campsite overlooking some small rapids did not repeat itself above the bridge, so they resigned themselves to the fact that the area was indeed located downstream.

Mike is sporting Randy's most excellent duct tape job.
Jim asked for more paddles, but did not specify that they should be good ones.
The splits in this one made it only marginally useful.
They said the fix wouldn't last,
but it served Mike well, all the way home.

High Falls directs the full flow of the Oswegatchie in split channels over a rock ledge 20 feet high.  It is really more impressive from the lip above than from below, since one can see the speed and power of the water in the channels in addition to the cascade.  But the falls must be much more impressive during the spring run-off, since large sections of surrounding rock have no clinging vegetation.  No standing on the lip then.

Not going to paddle up these rapids.

One of those much-more-impressive-in-person cases.

One on the brink, looking downstream.

Upon returning to the campsite, all engaged in some tightly focused lollygagging, and also set up a tarp against the light rain.  With just enough time to make the trip before dinner, Russ and Randy made their way to the first of the 5 ponds, for which the wilderness is named, for the pleasure of the unspoiled view.  

The trail to the Five Ponds, as trails should be.

Shrooms along the way.

The beavers have made Big Shallow Pond even bigger.

Contrary to proper woodsmanship and the primary purpose of escaping into the wilderness, Jim placed a 2 hour limit on the duration of the hike due to the planned dinner hour.  With Randy tasked as timekeeper, their return was only 30 minutes late.  And they timed their return to the readiness of Jim’s famous Hoover Curry, so all was well in the world.  Tired from three days of escapades, all turned in early.

Shortly before 10 PM, the intermittent rain intensified.  3 of our five became one with the rain due to leaking tents, leaking tarps, or just plain bad luck.  Once wet, it’s hard to dry out, and harder to sleep even if the problem has been resolved, so it was a long night.  The next morning, the tent Randy had provided for Russ was decommissioned, and will spend the rest of it’s life as a mystery object in a basement somewhere.

They ate oatmeal, packed and headed out as soon as possible.  The uneventful trip down the river took half the time the upstream paddle had taken, and they soon had the boats atop the cars and were on the road back to civilization.

Downstream and out.

The Saddest Day of the Year

It is always the saddest day of the year.

The sky over the water will be set afire no more.

From the water, watching the sun set is always fabulous.  But that's over for this year.

The Smores are history.

But I want some more!

There is no place to sit by the fire pit.
Fire mound, really...it needs to be cleaned out.

The lawn chairs a stacked by the cooler, with care.

The kayaks and collector's-item-canoe are tucked away
where the snow and ice will barely touch them.

No longer needed, 
the paddles have been disassembled according to Bob's instructions,
and are hidden in their corner.

Bob says that one must disassemble paddles from time to time, lest they lose their two part nature.  Sounds reasonable, and I always follow good advice.  And yes, sometimes bad advice as well.  I've made up my mind to never again reply in the affirmative when someone suggests that a chainsaw is a better alternative.  

Silence.

Drained and blown out, the pipes are empty all the way back to the pump house.
On this sad day, one can't help but feel like the pipes...
blown out and empty.

The pink stuff is in the traps.

Essential equipment has been rendered inoperative,
and is prepared for hiatus.

And on the electrical panel...

The main breaker is off.

Sigh.

But...

There is a distinct possibility that this sadness, this malaise, this emptiness may become a thing of the past.  With greater occupancy, there is less impetus driving shutdown.  So...

The variance application has been filed with the Adirondack Park Agency.  All true and in earnest, of course, but if you find yourself in need of hooey in painful minutia, I am quite willing to share the mind-numbing supply created in completing this application.

If you're going to create something more habitable, you want the basement floor to be above the flood plain, don't you?  And since the shallow pitched roof of the garage succumbed to the weight of snow in 2003, you'd kinda want to be sure the new roof is steep enough to shed that weight, right?  So we're asking for 2 more feet of height than the regulations allow.  And a couple hundred more square feet, so that we'll only feel inconvenienced, not cramped, when everyone arrives for the holidays.

Our Architect, in addition to throwing parties at the existing camp, has provided us with renderings of options for rebuilding.  What do you think?  Where would you prefer to swat blackflies?  On which deck would you rather sip your cocktail when you come to visit?

Option 1:  Nouveau Adirondack Lean-to
Mary's silhouette is enjoying the view.

Option 2:  Roofines similar to the original,
with lovely scissor-trusses.

Get your votes in now!

More reasons for spending time in the Adirondacks

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.

So we cautiously crossed the top of the dam.

Industrious.

I'm really glad they like wood, not flesh.

Fine "mouthiwork."

Looking back, the trail marker on the tree was ludicrous.

One last glimpse of the swamp on the trail back.

We trekked upwards of 8 miles, and slept well that night.

But wait, there's more !!!

What's that in the water?

Chippy Swimmer!
I had no idea they swam.  And relative to his size,
this was the chipmunk equivalent of a human swimming the English Channel !

Did I mention the fall colors?

My next door neighbor Pete finally put his canoe in the water!
Oh,  never mind...it's the reflection.

From my dock.

A mile and a half upstream, looking toward Kane Mountain and Camelhump.

And the parting view from the human dam downstream.