Part 1 - canoe on the Raquette River
I had remembered to bring my ancient Silva compass to North America but we did need a map and settled for the third edition of the Adirondack Paddlers' Map. A large map, maybe four feet square, doubled sided and waterproofed for our greater convenience. A proper map, about 1 inch to the mile, fairly like our own purple coloured Landranger maps from Ordnance Survey, and including a lot of stuff about walking trails as well as stuff about paddling trails.
Thus equipped we took ourselves off to the Raquette River Outfitters at 1754 New York 30, Tupper Lake, just off the southern end of the bridge which divides Simon from Raquette Pond. A very proper establishment with a huge array of canoes and canoeing equipment in and around a very artisanale wooden shack, They even had a wooden canoe under construction - spruce root ribs, white pine planking, clenched copper rivets, the works. A labour of love, with maybe one turned out a year and with a waiting list, a bit like the viols we know of back home. We settled for the Royalex version, smartly finished with wood and stainless steel trim, rather smarter than the sort of thing one might hire at Hampton Court, but, oddly, with no painters. Plus a neat wet bag, three paddles (a red spare against accident), two life jackets and a map in a plastic bag, a slightly bigger version of the sort of thing one might walk with.
Launched into the south west corner of Simon Pond, just to the east of Route 30 and headed east across the pond to look for the cut through there into Raquette River. Set off happily enough but soon got into what seemed like a stiff east wind and we found ourselves lurching about in waves of an alarming size for beginners. The canoe kept falling off to the left or the right and it was hard to keep the thing moving forward. But we did keep moving forward after a fashion and ended up bumping rather unceremoniously into the wrong bit of the eastern bank of the pond. Compass not up to taking a good enough bearing to work out which way to go, so we headed the wrong way in the first instance, before heading the right way into the cut, where we were quickly doing the sort of peaceful canoeing one sees in the advertisements. We could see the point of it all again! We were almost the only boat out and it was all very nice. The western end of the marshes (maybe including some of the warfarin forbidden cranberries) which we had seen the day before from the wild centre.
After about an hour of that we emerged in the narrow neck of open water which separated us from our landing place, handily marked by a just about visible pile of rocks. Back in the wind but not much in the way of waves on this occasion. Shot across to reach the bank a little upstream, a little to the east of the landing place and made a better landing than that on the eastern bank. We had stopped maybe fifteen minutes short of blisters. And we managed to get out without falling over or even getting our shoes significantly wet.
Part2 - lunch at Wolf Pond (illustrated)
Calmed down with lunch, the mainstay of which was the remains of the pizza from the day before, at Wolf Pond. A nice place, a sort of Dawlish Warren transposed from sea side to pond side. Campsites, barbecues, beach games, lifeguards, rafts to swim from, once again the works. Even some original conifers which, for some reason, had not been cut down when Tupper Lake was a logging town.
Part 3 - make an attempt on Ampersand Mountain
From one of our leaflets, Ampersand Moutain seemed the thing to go for in the afternoon. We were not going to make it to the top - 2000 feet climb in 2 miles - but we would have a go. The brochure said first half easy after which it got progressively steeper. So off to the jumping off point at Middle Saranac Lake, on the northern edge of the High Peaks Wilderness Area - with Mount Ampersand being a modest 3,352 feet, a bit short of Snowden. We arrived a little late, maybe 1500 and we had some trouble finding the entrance to the trail, having been misdirected by the Paddlers' map.
Where we found a little wooden booth where we were invited to record our names and numbers in the register, a substantial black book, before setting off, the idea being that one checks back out on the way down. By the time we got back it was clear that not many of the day's hikers had bothered.
Then got off into what turned out to be a mixed virgin forest, something I do not think we have done before. Lots of big trees, lots of autumn colours. Lots of dead and damaged trees, but we thought that this was probably OK. Natural causes, mainly the weather, nothing to do with acid rain or unpleasant diseases. Although I had seen a brown stoat like animal at the start, no more animals, just a little bird song. BH disappointed in her ambition to see a live moose in the wild.
But we did pass various people. A couple of older ladies with their dogs. Several pairs of young people happily on their way down after summitting - a summit which we were told was muddy and very windy. A couple of singleton males, serious walkers. One of whom explained that he had done the hike, which he rated as one of the best short hikes in the area, 41 times this year so far. An uncle had been the chap who mounted fire guard on the summit in years gone by, living in a cabin, sometimes with wife and family, just below the summit. His father had succeeded in due course.
We got as far as the elbow of the trail, where it started to climb in a serious way. Scrambles up over roots and boulders.
A fine walk. Maybe we will be back one day to finish it off.
Close
Finished off the day back to Little Italy for supper, for once in a while driving rather than walking down. More box fun.
PS 1: I see from http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/ that one can buy maps for one's telephone now. Must give it a try. Maybe we will retire our much-loved collection of paper.
PS 2: despite Royalex being a well regarded material for making canoes, it seems from Wikipedia to have gone out of production. Not enough canoes bought to make it worth while. Some panic on the paddlers' front.
PS 3: back home we read that the forest had originally gone right over the summit of the Ampersand, but that it had been cleared, partly for fire watch reasons.
PS 4: a record 120 snaps yesterday. Maybe I will actually fill my telephone up before reaching base for a proper download.
Reference 1: http://raquetteriveroutfitters.com/.
Reference 2; http://www.lakeplacid.com/do/hiking/ampersand-mountain.
No comments:
Post a Comment