So the story of this trip goes back to Vinnie's prematurely ended campaign on the Long Trail. The story of the lost toe nail and inflamed Achilles is his to tell. The original plan was for me to meet his weary party for their final week and provide a much needed resupply.
My intention was to get off the grid and be unreachable for a week. This is becoming more and more a necessity for my survival, and the advent of Sarah's deepening interest in camping and Emmett's tolerance to it, has given me new vigor. There was no way we would be doing a Long Trail backpacking trip as a family though, and when the opportunity arose to do some recon in the Adirondacks (a place in which Sarah and I both have interest), as Theodore Rex once said, "I took it." The limiting reagent for this trip became the single vehicle. At 4+ hours from home, the drive was onerous enough without having to make it in two cars. There are several circuitous routes in my ADK paddlers guide, so we looked for one with shorter portages (carrying an 80# canoe is a PITA) and more wilderness.
Vinnie had already bought a lot of backpacking grub, so we went mostly with that. We added a six pack and some whiskey because it was a luxury afforded us by the canoe, and some cheese, honey, and oatmeal. That way we could add flavor to the dinners and eat warm breakfasts since we were not going to be rushing into 15 mile hiking days.
As I get older (read; achy, weaker, fatter, less resilient), I am finding, fortuitously, that I can keep biking and that my other interests seem to compliment my abilities. Besides the biking, and arguable the interest in craft brews, I'm finding less desire for self destructive pastimes. The canoe has been such a breath of fresh air. It is beautiful, interesting, has a learning curve and an always present skill development, gets me away from people, and an almost endless variety of optional gear to look at, research, and get. And with the addition of overnighting with it, I can add chopping wood and building fires. It's almost a complete package.
Enough of that for now. Here are some pictures of our first day. (Some of these are mine, some are Vinnies. Sometimes I know which is which, and I'll indicate.)
This photo is out of order... and possibly out of focus, I just realized. Anyway, I can't believe we didn't take more pictures of Betty loaded up, but I want to give her her due. At almost 200k, she got us and all our gear to ADK and back again. The canoe looks pretty good on her, too.
The trip was pretty easy and straight forward, it was just long. 4+ hours is a long way to drive. Fortunately, central NY and ADK are beautiful.
We launched from Floodwood Rd into Floodwood Pond. At #12 on the map. We stopped at
St. Regis Outfitters (Mark is in the 8th photo on their scrolling slide show) and talked to Mark for a bit. He was super kind and helpful. We talked to him when we got done, too and he pointed us to two more great spots. Big thanks to Mark!
The water was glassy and the paddling was easy.
Pure bliss. Thanks for packing the beer, Vinnie. Not sure I needed an 8%er on day one in 80 degree weather, but sometimes sentiment trumps practicality.
Here she is, fully loaded and not very well organized after lunch. I think we did pretty well for our first trip. Vinnie would have preferred his hiking pack to the deck bag, and I admit it would have been a lot more comfy on the portages, but all the books recommended deck bags, so there you go. After looking at thwart bags for $80, I scored a mountain hardware fanny pack at
Old Goat for $15 and it worked perfectly. Bonus points for strapping to my body during portages.
On the ride up, we wondered about whether we'd see loons or even hear any. Not only did we, they wound up being like our totem animals for the trip. After our first amazing campsite on Copperas Pond, where we watched and listened to a family of loons all evening, we looked for loons to indicate good campsites and fishing grounds. They treated us right. This family had a male, female, and two chicks. They communicated all the time and the male and female took turns hunting and watching the chicks.
We fished for awhile. I was interested in having fish for dinner. Vinnie was altogether more obsessed. Neither of us know anymore about fishing than what we remember from our youth. Vinnie even brought his childhood fishing rod (more about that later). Neither of us got more than a nibble on Copperas, but it was enough to keep us going for a long time.
Sorry these are blurry, but they get the point across. This guy swam right by us, with both hooks in the water and grabbed a fish, showed it to us, then took it over to his chicks. I'd call him cocky, but he's a loon.
Some of the following sunset shots are mine, and some are Vinnies.
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Vinnie's shot, I think, of our first camp. And Vinnie's shots follow.
Crap spread out everywhere for dinner. We kept a generally cleaner camp than it appears.
I brought 3 stoves to try out. This is a
firebox. It's really cool, but made of stainless steel, and really heavy. For canoe camping I like it a lot. It takes all kinds of different fuel, is super sturdy, and you can even set it up like a hibachi. It's way too heavy to consider for backpacking. I'll keep it in my emergency kit in my truck. Chance of emergency use: practically 0.
Nope, that's not Bob Ross in a canoe; ADK is known for it's bugs. All things are relative, and I would say we really lucked out. That being said, I wore a bug net and used a lot of spray and slept inside a mosquito net. Got away relatively pain free.
We ended the first night with a nice campfire and fell asleep tired, happy, and listening to loons and frogs.
