Mileage: 15 miles
Wildlife: Loons, mergansers, geese, other assorted birds
Portages: 1
Theme song: Don Mclean's American Pie
Last year, Bruce Cockburn's "Wondering Where the Lions Are" and U2's "Beautiful Day" were the songs we kept singing along the trail. This year it was American Pie, thanks to hearing it play on the late night drive through Michigan. We have since been trying to remember all the verses. Was much easier when singing along with the radio.
Besides paddling this section at a slower pace than last year, we also are planning to make more stops in a sort of pub crawl with the canoe. Started out the morning by having breakfast at a diner in Long Lake near Hosse's, then headed south back to Old Forge, passing the Adirondack Museum in Blue Mountain Lake, which once again, I have yet to visit.
After a quick visit to MountainMan Outfitters to pick up a stuff sack for the raingear, signed the registries and we (re)launced from Old Forge around 10:30 am.
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It is Sunday and a warm day in July. Lots of motorized boats were out and about enjoying the day. On Fourth Lake, we saw tell-tale table umbrellas, a large deck and beer signs, so we parked our canoe by the marina, and stopped for lunch at Daikers Bar and Grill.
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| The canoe is dwarfed by the other pleasure boats |
Last year we had been met by John, a summer resident on Fourth Lake, who had invited us to their camp on Fourth Lake for a fine breakfast of blueberry pancakes. After lunch, we looked, and found, the camp again and stopped in for a quick visit with John's wife Kathy. We had just missed John who may have passed us as we were paddling toward their place.
On to Inlet, NY and the first portage from Fifth to Sixth Lake. It was a different feeling to actually KNOW what we were looking for and just paddle to the take-out without referencing the map. Calf muscles still burned wheeling the canoe up the hill, so no difference there.
Put in on Sixth Lake where we met two boys who were swimming at the Sixth Lake dam. Learned from one of them that he is from one of the original local families and that his grandfather was an ADK guide. Paddled past the first beautifully located, but occupied, lean-to on a bluff on Seventh Lake. Last year we missed all opportunities to stay in the lean-tos due to the mileage goals and/or occupations. This year we wanted to take advantage of them. The second one was open, so we stopped. Sam was pleasantly surprised to find recent copies of Golf and Sports Illustrated left on the shelf. I read an entry in the lean-to journal about a family who had returned to this place year after year for over 50 years. In the early years, mom and kids spent the entire summer here while dad worked in Buffalo returning on the weekends. Over the years spouses and then grandchildren would join them in the annual trip back to this specific lean-to. Only a few weeks earlier, they were here again, this time to spread the ashes of their dad in the woods.
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View of Seventh Lake from the lean-to |
Dinner: Cream of spinach soup with smoked salmon, croissants, carrot sticks and cookies.
