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Just a quick (first) post. I've picked up a lot of solid information from these forums and they've definitely been a big help in planning my first canoe trip into the ADK.
I chose Lila because of the remoteness, and dang, it's remote.
We arrived on Thursday in hopes of beating out anyone else for an island site. No such luck. Buck Island was available, but we didn't care for the very reedy "beach" there. The weather and lake conditions were decent enough for paddling, but is hard to tell which sites were available and which weren't until we were up close. This resulted in an 3 hour paddle around the lake as we inspected sites only to find that they were taken. We finally settled on #3 as I was close to getting whacked with a paddle if I didn't pick a site (5, 6, 7, 8, 16, 19, 20, and 21 were all taken). We got the site set-up and dinner made as it was getting dark and rain and mosquitoes started to move in.
And rain it did. From 9-ish Thursday night until 11-ish Friday AM. But our gear held and we stayed dry.
When it started getting nice out, we paddled around to check out the other sites and found most of the ones that were occupied the previous night had cleared out and I contemplated moving sites, but was told that ours was fine. We also had to make a quick trip back to the parking lot to grab another canister of fuel for the stove that I had stashed in the truck since the one I brought clearly wasn't going to make it through the weekend. More people started rolling in to the lake in the afternoon. We cut some firewood and it started raining again. Off and on, but it was very wet. By Friday night, the weather improved and it was fairly cool and dry with fewer insects.
Saturday AM, it was raining again. But it cleared enough to go hiking and we made our way to Frederica Mountain where we met up with a group from the interpretive center/museum(?). It was partly sunny, but from our vantage point we could clearly see weather rolling back. There was a small group camping at site 8 and the one sour old grape clearly didn't have time for pleasantries. I'm terribly sorry he picked a campsite next to the trailhead. The patrolling ranger we met with was very pleasant and said she had stopped by our campsite and it "was beautiful". We paddled back to our site while being chased by rain and increasingly larger waves. The weather rolled through and we ended up with a very pleasant night.
Sunday morning was picture perfect as we packed up and headed back home. Mirror calm and bright blue skies. Such a shame we had to leave.
As far as the three annoyances we were expecting (on a scale of 1-10), rain was a 7, mosquitoes were a 6, and black flies were a 1(!).
As for wildlife, we only saw one doe as we paddled into our camp the first time and that was pretty much it. Also a lone loon and an osprey, I think, I didn't get a good look, but it was large bird. However, on our way out on the Lila access road we had a mature black bear run across the road ahead of us. Because of the weather, I didn't do as much fishing as I would have liked, but maybe next time. I also noticed that it seemed like it was much harder paddling with the wind and current on Lila as opposed to paddling into what seemed like the current (based on aquatic vegetation). Weird.
I chose Lila because of the remoteness, and dang, it's remote.
We arrived on Thursday in hopes of beating out anyone else for an island site. No such luck. Buck Island was available, but we didn't care for the very reedy "beach" there. The weather and lake conditions were decent enough for paddling, but is hard to tell which sites were available and which weren't until we were up close. This resulted in an 3 hour paddle around the lake as we inspected sites only to find that they were taken. We finally settled on #3 as I was close to getting whacked with a paddle if I didn't pick a site (5, 6, 7, 8, 16, 19, 20, and 21 were all taken). We got the site set-up and dinner made as it was getting dark and rain and mosquitoes started to move in.
And rain it did. From 9-ish Thursday night until 11-ish Friday AM. But our gear held and we stayed dry.
When it started getting nice out, we paddled around to check out the other sites and found most of the ones that were occupied the previous night had cleared out and I contemplated moving sites, but was told that ours was fine. We also had to make a quick trip back to the parking lot to grab another canister of fuel for the stove that I had stashed in the truck since the one I brought clearly wasn't going to make it through the weekend. More people started rolling in to the lake in the afternoon. We cut some firewood and it started raining again. Off and on, but it was very wet. By Friday night, the weather improved and it was fairly cool and dry with fewer insects.
Saturday AM, it was raining again. But it cleared enough to go hiking and we made our way to Frederica Mountain where we met up with a group from the interpretive center/museum(?). It was partly sunny, but from our vantage point we could clearly see weather rolling back. There was a small group camping at site 8 and the one sour old grape clearly didn't have time for pleasantries. I'm terribly sorry he picked a campsite next to the trailhead. The patrolling ranger we met with was very pleasant and said she had stopped by our campsite and it "was beautiful". We paddled back to our site while being chased by rain and increasingly larger waves. The weather rolled through and we ended up with a very pleasant night.
Sunday morning was picture perfect as we packed up and headed back home. Mirror calm and bright blue skies. Such a shame we had to leave.
As far as the three annoyances we were expecting (on a scale of 1-10), rain was a 7, mosquitoes were a 6, and black flies were a 1(!).
As for wildlife, we only saw one doe as we paddled into our camp the first time and that was pretty much it. Also a lone loon and an osprey, I think, I didn't get a good look, but it was large bird. However, on our way out on the Lila access road we had a mature black bear run across the road ahead of us. Because of the weather, I didn't do as much fishing as I would have liked, but maybe next time. I also noticed that it seemed like it was much harder paddling with the wind and current on Lila as opposed to paddling into what seemed like the current (based on aquatic vegetation). Weird.
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