Goal distance: 15 miles to Saranac Lake on Flower Lake
Actual distance: 8 miles to Lower Saranac Lake, plus a few "banked" miles
Upper Saranac Site #19 to Lower Saranac Site #57
Weather: Still sunny, light tailwinds, perfectly beautiful
Portages: 1, but for us, 2
#1: .4 mile Bartlett Carry, completely wheelable for us, including the path (.2 miles) from the road (.2 miles) to the lake. One large downed tree across the trail that we could roll under. Path was similar to Brown's Tract carry with the usual roots and rocks.
#2: Upper Locks. Unloaded and reloaded canoe only because there were several pontoon boats in line ahead of us. Was faster to portage. I would have considered running the river around the locks, especially in a kayak. It was a small 3' grade and had a nice looking rolling waves. The only real problem, and it would have been a problem, was the medium sized boulder strategically placed right at the bottom of the run. I think you'd run straight into it or be pushed between that and the larger boulder in front of the eddy. It didn't seem like there was enough room to maneuver an 18' canoe quickly enough.
Wildlife: Family of ducklings, one eagle and kids jumping off the Bluff Island cliffs.
Dinner: Spinach-Rice Casserole with White Chicken Meat (pouch) and Parmesan Cheese, Walnut Spice Cake for dessert (and also tomorrow's breakfast).
Got up at 6 am. Mosquitoes weren't out yet or gone from last night. Yes! Was on the water by 7 or so. Took our time paddling around Chapel Island and then followed a group of boyscouts to the Bartlett portage. The road section of the portage has two large mirrors for cars to see around curves and we stopped to take our picture in the reflection. (This seems to be a common photo opportunity that I've seen on other paddler blogs.)
Middle Saranac Lake was gorgeous and this really looked like BWCA lakes. Apparently we liked the lake so much, we spent extra time on it trying to locate the mouth of the Saranac River. Both Sam and I read the map wrong, using the wrong islands as pointers. While slightly obscure, it still was pretty obvious once we found it. The channel markers were an excellent clue. The river is on the far left side of the bay of bulrushes. We figured, I banked some miles. More on that later.
Continued meandering down the Saranac River toward Lower Saranac Lake. Am still not loving all the meandering. LOVED, LOVED, LOVED Lower Saranac Lake though. I hadn't realized there were all sorts of campsites on this lake. The lake was more or less, one big campground, but instead of roads getting you to the sites, you have to use boats. And the campsites were even on great points and islands. The kind of places you'd want to camp in the BWCA, but most likely wouldn't be allowed to.
Now here's the fix: We had reservations at a B and B in Saranac for Friday. We knew that we were going to be able to change it to Thursday if we arrived sooner and we were on track for doing just that. Sam was already planning on finding the Lake Placid Brewery and both of us were looking forward to hot showers. But the lake! The day! You couldn't have asked for a better place or day to hang out in this area. It was the quintessential summer day on the lake. We stopped at the picnic area and talked over (okay, I had to work at convincing Sam), about our options--which included needing to paddle another 1 mile to register for a site and then back to set up in our assigned site. We asked for something close and nice. Site #57 was FANTASTIC! Camping here isn't free, like the other primitive sites we stayed at, but we did get a picnic table for $29. We also were very near Bluff Island and spent the afternoon watching kids dare each other to jump of the cliffs. Besides the great view, there were few bugs. Definitely made the right decision.
Taking the afternoon off also allowed us to finally do some reading. I started Mina Hubbard's Memoir "A Woman's Way Through The Labrador Wilds." (I've read the other accounts of her husband's expedition in "Great Heart" and Dillon Wallace's account of the same failed 1903 trip.) Unlike our packing lists, her's included 392 lbs of flour, 200 lbs of bacon, lots of firearms and wool underwear.
Heading to the Fogarty B & B tomorrow as originally planned.
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| Mandatory photo op on the Bartlett Carry. |
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| Still wheelable! (Path to Forked Lake.) |
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| View from our fantastic campsite on Lower Saranac Lake. |
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| Walnut Spice Cake |
