Day 2 Cedar Lake to South Lake -17 Aug 2008

I woke up early and felt great! The mist on Cedar Lake was just clearing and the loons were still calling to each other from time to time. We actually all got up at the same time, about 6 am, started a fire and began breakfast. Which for me was oatmeal that I packaged myself with brown sugar and salt. I would boil my water and place it in the pot an let it sit until it thickened. This worked well. My trail mates had coffee and croissants. In fact they had a remarkably varied diet. I on the other hand had a remarkably same diet. The oatmeal was fine each morning, but I need to work on lunch.

We were not in a hurry and took our time packing up and simply enjoyed the fine sunny morning. It was at this time that we met our first hiker, a tall Canadian solo hiker who was loaded down and moving fast. He stopped for a moment and warned us about the trail conditions south of Cedar Lakes. He told us that the trail was muddy all the way to Spruce Lake. He moved on and we started on our way South. He was right the trail was muddy, but manageable. One of the things that we enjoyed was how fast the forest and habitats changed. One minute you are in an old growth hardwood, the next you are in an area with stunted spruce, that are densely packed in a lowland wet area. A half mile later it would change again. We would take a moment to notice this and anything else that we saw. That is yet another thing that I really admire about my trail mates; they stop and observe and notice the littlest things. This is something that I really like about being in the woods. It really was nice being with people who were not as worried about getting from point A to point B, and enjoyed the trip as much as the destination.

We reached the trail head for section 5 at a clearing at the West Canada lakes area. This was the location of a DEC interior outpost. All that was left was some rocks marking the foundation. An exciting moment for me was to see and touch a fireplace built the 19th century Adirondack character French Louie, whom I had read he biography as a teenager and I was very happy to walk some of the woods that he trapped and made a living off the bounty of the Adirondacks.

Now a little story. Before we left my two companions made tuna sandwiches with packaged mayo and pre-drained tuna. Now Guide mentioned that they must eat them within 4 hours to be safe. On the trail you can loose track of time and time actually goes by a lot faster than you would think. Trail Breaker yelled back that it was 2:15 and that 4.25 hrs have pasted since the sandwiches were made. Guide said that they could not eat them. Now is that splitting hairs? NO! That was the wise and right decision 10 miles away from anywhere. They were a little cranky for a bit, but had enough other food that it was not even a blip in the day. In fact not very far down the trail we crossed a long bridge across Mud Lake and were all treated to one the best views in the Adirondacks as we looked out onto Mud Lake to the East and South Lake to the west. The tuna was forgotten. A short way past the bridge we found the South Lake Lean-to and this was a beautiful spot. This night I had plenty of energy to go and find a large amount of fire wood and we enjoyed a fine fire that night. While I was gathering firewood Guide went out and picked a mess of fresh wild blueberries that we were going to have with our breakfasts. After dinner we spent the remaining time looking at the birds and enjoying the wonders that this majestic forest was allowing us to enjoy.

Day 1 Wakely to Cedar Lake

Day 1 15 Aug 2008

We have spotted a car at our end point in Piseco 32.5 miles south and began our treck at the ranger station at the Wakely Dam. For the sake of anonymity one of my hiking partners I will us the name Trail-Breaker because this person was lead on the trail for the entire trip; not only to keep us on the trail but most importantly to remove all the spider webs from the path. The other I will use the name Guide as this person has been to these places and many more in the Adirondacks. I give these names showing the greatest RESPECT to these two awesome people!

As I was saying we started down from Wakely Dam down a dirt road for a little ways before the dirt road turned into a path. This path took us through open hardwoods for the most part. One of the amazing things that we saw was a forest of huge birch trees. Some had a 30” DBH. I have never seen birch trees this large and there was a forest of them! We also saw a great deal of animal sign in the muddy trail during our 9.5 mile hike into the second Cedar Lake Lean-to. We saw coyote tracts, moose scat and a fresh large, clear bear track. The trail was muddy, but the path mostly level with some rolling, but for the most part it was an easy hike in…if I was wearing a 20 pound pack, but oh no I was loaded down, baby…I had everything including the kitchen sink. I made it to the Lean-to in fair shape, but I was shot. No side trips today and now I know why they laughed at me. I barely had the energy to collect wood and at that the fire was small by my standards.

We set up our tents and stowed our gear in the lean-to and enjoyed the rest of the afternoon sitting quietly taking in all the Adirondack beauty that this little place had to offer. That afternoon the Adirondacks were very generous and for that I am thankful. We were entertained for hours by a mother loon teaching a young loon to fly. It was very interesting listening to the juvenile loon try and call like a loon. Trail-Breaker is very knowledgeable on birds and taught me a couple of calls to listen for like a chipping sparrow and geckos. Trail-Breaker also pointed out to me that the birds flitting around an island in the lake were least flycatchers, which would fly out, catch a bug and take it back to a tree and eat the bug and then fly out again…

We spent a nice evening made our freeze-dried meals, which are very good. I also saw where I could have lost 2.5 pounds of weight, I have an old school stove, while my two partners used a Pocket Rocket which weighs 14 oz and cooks all their meals. We sat around the fire and turned in at 9 pm. I was out at 9:01. I was a little worried about the next day as I was very, very tired. I woke a couple of times during the night to loons calling to one another, but I didn’t mind a bit.

I woke up at…

The Preperation for the NPT

I just returned for one of the most wonderful experiences of my life. I just completed a 32 mile stretch of the Northville-Placid Trail (NPT) on a four day backpacking trip. This was so big that I will have to write about in sections in order to do it justice. I went on the trip with two incredible people that I would go hiking anywhere with. I think that instead of just being a narrative of the experience I will also write about my feelings and the many, many things that I learned.

Let’s start with the pre trip packing. This is real funny now, but then I was very tense and very worried. I wanted to make sure that I brought everything that I needed. I really did not want to get out there and not have something, especially when hiking with people with such experience. My experience is old school and really one or two night adventures. I had not done anything thing like this before. When I checked the weight of my pack it weighed 65 pounds. I really did not worry about my pack weight when I was in my 20’s. The max weight I was given was 55 pounds. I had to make some cuts. So, the ax, camera, GPS, some of my GORP and a shirt, lowered my pack weight to 57 pounds with 2 qts of water. That is what I had to live with.

You will see and with many chuckles from my trail-mates, I could have lowered the weight a lot more and would have been able to take my camera. That will have to wait.

Next I will write about the trip from Wakely Dam to the Lean-to at Cedar Lake.

One last thing. I had mentioned that there were some side trips around the different places that we were staying, including looking for a geocache in Fench Louie's Cave. My trail-mates just chuckled and said "sure."

Took a quick run up Black Mt.

Today day was a rare day here in the Southeastern Adirondacks this summer...it didn't rain. I had an opportunity to hike Black Mt from the Lakeside trail and I took it. I used the opportunity to check a letterbox that I planted at the summit, but in July a boxer said that they were unable to locate it.

The air was cool and crisp and the blue sky was only sprinkled with the harmless clouds when I started. I hit this hard as I didn't have a lot of time, plus I wanted to get a good aerobic workout. I made it 3.3 miles up in 1 hr 20 min, without much problem. Actually it took me almost as long to hike down as the rocks were very slippery. I usually don't like to hike this way but since this was such a short hike, and I have a major hiking trip later this summer I needed the workout more than the scenery. HOWEVER! I was able to spend a beautiful and quiet 25 min on the top alone enjoying the views of the Adirondacks and White Mts in stunning solitude.

Also, I am happy to say that the Black Mt Firetower letterbox is sound and in great shape. Infact no one has found it as yet.