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…