Here's another interminably long trip report, and some pictures are to be found at this link: https://photos.app.goo.gl/Devc3UthkhoZYWfr6
I had the idea for this trip soon after my trip last summer from Long Lake to Piercefield, and the conditions seemed ideal for it when I went, with the bugs having slowed down, warmer temperatures, and calm winds forecast. I started out by car, with my paddle board deflated inside and my bicycle on the back on a carrier. I dropped the bike off in Long Lake in the woods behind the long term parking lot by the boat launch and drove to Blue Mountain Lake, where a kind person who was standing near the hand launch told me that if I parked right in front of it on the side of the highway people would assume I was out on the state land and it would be okay to leave it there for the three days I was to be gone. I thanked him for his help, pumped the air back into the paddle board, loaded the baggage on, and headed northwest-ish at about 9:45.
I first headed toward an island which was about half a very large rock, but before I got there a pontoon boat full of people reached it, so I went to look at some smaller but even cuter rocky islands a bit further out. I then went between Long and Osprey islands, and around Bluff Point to look for the trail up to Castle Rock. I had camped near the foot of this trail in 2010, but my mind being what it is, I didn’t remember anything about how it looked from the water side. At first I went too far east, and could see buildings on the shore, so I headed west, and there the landing was. There was an unusual stone structure in the stream that the trail follows up the hill. It looked like some kind of cistern, but I couldn’t figure out how it would have worked. There was a small pipe sticking through the wall on the upstream and downstream sides. If anybody knows why this was built I’d be interested to hear about it.
Nearing the top of Castle Rock I began to hear voices above me, and then I found a thing that might be called a sort of tunnel or passage in the rock, for lack of a better word. It was about 15 feet high at a guess, and was formed by the partial falling away of one part of the cliff face. It was easy to walk through, and interestingly shaped, with some curved walls in places. I wasn’t able to get pictures that really conveyed the shape and size, but it was well worth a visit. I don’t recall seeing this when I was here in 2010, but no doubt it was already there.
At the top there was a large party sitting on the main rock, so I went to a little north view and took a picture, and was joined briefly by one of the party and his dog, which tried to jump a rock gap and nearly fell down several feet, if he had not luckily caught it. I know dogs are widely held to be intelligent, but I have been acquainted with chickens who would have had enough sense not to try that jump. I went out for a moment on the main viewpoint and took pictures, but didn’t linger longer than necessary, as no one answered when I said a general good morning, and they all became silent.
I went back down and took a brief stop at the campsite just west along the shore. If I had known it was there I would have bushwhacked over to it in 2010, as it was much flatter and nicer than where I slept that night, but the map I had then didn’t show campsites. I then headed southwest or so through some small islands, towards the outlet of the lake. A solo paddler in an aluminum canoe followed me from the small islands all the way to Eagle Lake, but that was the only paddle craft I saw on Blue Mountain Lake that day. The old bridge at the east end of Eagle Lake was just as pretty as I had been led to expect from reading about it. I went under the ordinary bridge, as that seemed to be the main channel and I hadn’t seen the other one, but then I saw the fancy bridge and turned around and went under it to look.
Eagle Lake passed quickly, and when I got to the channel to Utowana Lake I decided to have some lunch, as the wind was favorable, though not strong. I sat on the paddle board with my legs dangling in the water and drifted backward down the channel, with only occasional inputs needed to keep from being pushed into the shore. At one point I heard a quiet but noticeable sound close behind me, which sounded like what happens if you say ‘worm’ with your lips tightly pressed together. I turned around to see what it was and saw a beaver lodge only about 10 feet away. I didn’t see the beaver or beavers who made the sound, but I think that must have been who it was, and maybe they could see me through the spaces between the sticks.
After lunch I resumed perpendicularity and paddled into Utowana Lake, having drifted perhaps 1/4 mile informally, in about 20 or 30 minutes. Right at the entrance I met a guide boat going the other way, and then saw a huge old building by the water that had a small flying boat type of seaplane in it. I have seen several floatplanes around the Adirondacks, but not this style. There was also a boathouse there, but no visible house. As I went down the long curved lake I eventually lost sight of these things, and then came to floating box shaped buoy with mysterious signs on it. I didn’t know which direction the motorboat turnaround was requested from, since the box kept spinning, or maybe they meant motorboats going in either direction should turn there. There were a few buildings here, near the west end of the lake, but none in the middle that I could see.
At the western end of the wide part of the lake there is a bit of state land, and I almost missed a huge rock that was mostly hidden from the water by trees. On closer inspection I found another sort of tunnel or passage through the rock that was much taller than me, and a small side tunnel that I could only crawl through. The herd path to this rock is maybe 100 yards or a bit more to the east of the sign on the side of Route 28 that says Utowana Lake, and the rock is very close to the highway, though hidden by trees from the road, at least in summer.
My map showed the Marion River Carry starting from the northern blob at the west end of Utowana lake but I could see nothing there that looked at all plausible, so I went into the southern part which also extends further west, and there the carry was, with a dock and lots of informational signage, and the remains of a barge, if I understood correctly, that used to be used to ferry rail cars to Blue Mountain Lake. I read the signs, signed the register, and walked my stuff along the carry trail, which is very wide and flat, being an old rail bed. I had to stop several times to set my load down and take a break, but I got to the other end of the carry much sooner than I expected.
At the put-in the Marion River is quite narrow, and the railway used to cross the river here and go on some distance to where there was enough water for the barges. As I proceeded downstream I noticed some cliffs on an unnamed (on my map) hill or mountain to the north. As I got closer and began to cross beaver dams I began looking for a way north through the swamp to drier ground, and finally found it where a ridge came right out to the edge of the river, by a beaver dam with an island in the middle. I landed and headed NE by compass, and when I reached the slope I began to go up with less regard to the compass bearing.
I found some summit-like areas at or near the top with partially obstructed but expansive views, including a sand or gravel pit, at a guess, in the middle of the otherwise wild-looking valley. I also tried to spot the ridge where I had landed, and get a compass bearing, but I wasn’t sure I was looking at the right spot. I started back down and came to a lower cliff with fewer obstructions in the view. To get past this, after looking at the view some more and taking pictures, I had to veer somewhat far to the east, and climb down carefully on some steep ground. I got to level ground and figured I had better veer a bit west of my projected course, to compensate.
I veered not wisely, but too well, and then every time I tried to go south I would come to very dense thickets and/or swamps, so I kept going further west since that was easier. Eventually I decided I must have gone too far west, and began going south through whatever was there, knowing I would eventually come to the river. It was a struggle and I got a lot of scratches, but I got to the river after a while, about, at a guess, half a mile downstream of where I wanted to be. I walked along through the wetland till I got back to the paddle board, very hot and tired and scratched. In some places here the bushes and other plants were knee high, and waist high in others, but it was easier than walking through the flooded trees and such.
I had spent about two hours on this side trip, almost all in vigorous motion, so I paddled rather dully along for the remaining distance. I had a few miles to go down the river to Raquette Lake. Here a channel had been dredged in several places for the barges, and the oxbows had been cut through, so the arrangement of the water was pretty haphazard. I kept to the straight channel on this trip, but it would be interesting to explore the side channels more someday. There were a few large trees, mostly white pines as I recall, in random places by the river where there was just enough dry ground to support them, with wetlands all around.
As I got down toward the river mouth I began to watch for a cliff on the north shore as described in Adirondack Canoe Waters, which reportedly had a campsite atop it in the ‘70s. I heard voices coming from a site in the general area, although the rocks there were only 5 feet high. It was a bit after 7:30 and I was tired, but it looked like my next opportunity to camp might be on Big Island, so I decided to try to make it before dark. A short distance further, though, I came to a cliff on the north shore and my map appeared to show it as still on state land. At either end of the cliff the ground was very muddy, and I sank up to my knee on the west end where I landed. I found what was clearly an old campsite above the cliff, but it did not have either Camp Here or No Camping disks, so I wasn’t sure about it.
I returned more carefully to the paddle board and unloaded my barrel and large dry bag, and then paddled back out to the cliff area. It was not vertical, but too steep to climb in many places. I found an area with some small rocks in the water and a manageable way up to the top, and landed there, and parked the paddle board on an uphill angle of about 45 degrees, some little height above the water. Since I wasn’t sure of the status of the site I followed the 150 foot rule and went further up the hill to where I found a quite suitable spot, set up the tent, and ate a late supper inside, as the mosquitoes were beginning to make themselves felt.
I found a place to hang my food bag and a short piece of birch log to use as a weight to throw the paracord. I got a nice surprise a bit later when the almost-full moon appeared to the south, across the river. I had not put the rain fly on the tent, so it was very easy to see, and I got out of the tent again and took some pictures. I slept pretty well, and woke up in the morning to some light fog over the water, but none in the woods where I was. After looking around a bit I packed my belongings and put the paddle board back in the water in the little sort-of-harbor, and got everything back on board without incident.
In a very short distance I left the Marion River and entered a bay on Raquette Lake. It was all private land, but there were still interesting things to look at from the water, including strange trees and the roots thereof, spiderwebs, and a historical mini-church. I rounded the end of Long Point and began to go clockwise around Big Island, after duly admiring the rustic gazebos and other architectural details of some of the establishments I passed.
On my way around I came to a lean to with a large and new to me style of sign by the water, where my map showed a campsite, and then a campsite with some people who waved, and their parked motorboat, and then an empty campsite on a sort of rock barrier island with a swamp between it and the rest of Big Island. Then there were two lean tos close together, again with the same type of signs, and one of them had a dock in front of it, presumably for the convenience of people in larger boats. There was another aluminum dock nearby with part of a boat lift on it that I think didn’t belong there. I couldn’t tell if it had drifted there or been put there for some reason, maybe for storage in the winter?
Coming back to the private land on the north side of the island I turned to the north, and after consulting my map and the sun to make sure I was heading in the right direction I aimed for Antlers Point and around it to Beaver Bay. My intention was to go up Beaver Brook, which looked plausible on the map but was in fact barely navigable for the first 1/4 mile, and then I gave up. It was still a pretty spot, and the whole trip on Raquette Lake was full of picturesque scenery, though somewhat built up with summer places. The wind came up a bit, so I had to paddle harder to head back up past The Crags on my way to the south side of Tioga Point. I crossed the main part of the lake just ahead of a tour boat that came up from the south, and found a sandy beach when I arrived at the shore. The sand was slightly painfully hot to the touch, as the sun was directly overhead and there was no wind because of the trees on shore.
At first I sat on a log under the trees, but the stable flies were very active and I headed back out into the sun and they weren’t so bad while I sat on the sand to eat lunch, even though I was only 50 feet away. I decided it was too hot to rest on the sand for a long time, so I went into the woods and lay on my towel on some soft pine needles on a slope and read a book for a while, and considered my next plan.
After about two hours I headed north past the funny line of rocks at Needle Island, and around Bluff Point. I stopped briefly at Beecher Island on the nice rock slab shoreline, but the stable flies were there before me, so I went over to Boucher Point to check out those lean-tos, and found there were none in that area. There was another flat rock slab to land on, and an old stone fireplace/chimney which I discovered later actually had two fireplaces, one on each side, and lots of old foundation remnants. The lean-tos were in nice condition, and while I was standing in one of them reading the journal I heard what I thought was squirrels running but turned out to be a fawn with spots which dashed past the front of the lean to, maybe only 10 feet from where I stood inside. I went out to try to see what was going on and saw the fawn still running west, and another fawn about 200 feet to the north, running east. I lay down for a rest on the grass near the landing rock and no bugs bit me for 20 minutes or so, which was very kind of them.
I kept on heading down Outlet Bay and eventually came to the carry to Forked Lake. My map didn’t show rapids below the bridge so I paddled to the bridge to find out whether the river looked runnable, and found that it didn’t, so I went back the short distance to the carry. The carry goes through someone’s yard at first, and has a couple of benches at the end, near the water, which was a nice touch. Once the carry gets to the main road and crosses it it follows a side road that leads to a boat ramp and dock on Forked Lake’s north shore. The der flies and mosquitos were bad on the dirt road so I stopped and put on some bug spray, and stopped a few other times to rest my arms. Once I got to the lake and signed in at the register I loaded up the paddle board again and headed west, toward the state land. The mountains around the lake made a beautiful background.
I saw one site on the north shore, which was occupied, and two occupied sites on the south shore. The one to the west was near the edge of the wetland, and seemed to have a sailing dinghy and a jet ski moored in front of it, and the other site which was near the state land boundary had tarps set up and some stuff around, but no boats or other signs of life while i was there. It actually turned out to be either one huge site or two very close together, I found the next day, but both were similarly claimed. I saw another rocky cliff-like thing in between the two sites I had seen, and decided to see if it was a possibility. When I got there I could see that it had been a campsite once, but the fireplace had been dismantled. Again there were no disks of either persuasion, so again I followed the 150 foot rule and found a place for the tent which was not quite as flat as I could have wished, but was quite good enough.
I went out on the water to eat supper on the paddle board in the sun before it set, and while I was out there two canoes came out of the Brandreth Lake Outlet and went to the western site. The sun went down just as I was finished eating and I paddled back to the landing below the rock, next to a huge log. I carried the paddle board up to the old campsite and left it on the grass for the night. I came back down again when the moon finally got up past the clouds and looked at it, and took some pictures. In the night I heard loons and a barred owl, and again I didn’t have to use the rain fly.
In the morning I packed up and left, and stopped a short way east of the untenanted but set-up campsites where there was a beach and took a swim before heading east in earnest. I hit a rock underwater soon after and fell in, but my baggage stayed put. It was the first time I had done that since Little Tupper Lake two years ago. The scenery was again very pretty, and I took a detour up the Raquette to the point where it got too rocky to be easily paddleable, and met a duck family whom I caused to be nervous, unintentionally, and found a nice rock jetty above the lower, paddleable rapids.
I came back down and continued along the lake till I reached the campground and found no easy way to continue downriver right below the dam, so I carried down the road for about a mile till I saw the river at the foot of a slope ands went down to it. It was still somewhat rapid there, but mostly floatable, although I had to take the fins off the paddle board. After the lean to it was calmer for a while, and except for falling off again once I had an uneventful trip to the top of Buttermilk Falls. The carry was short and uninhabited, so that made it easy and I was off again.
I decided to try the rapids on the last stretch, since the carry trail was very close to the water in case I needed to bail. I did the first bit but then the water was too shallow, so I walked a bit, but the trail was unmarked and so crooked that it was hard to carry the paddle board around all the corners. Soon I came to where I could see the flat water at the beginning of Long Lake at the end of a straight section, and I got back on the water. At first I went very fast, but then I began to stick again, and got hung up several times, though I didn’t tip over. I got off and worked the paddle board free each time, and then got on again. Eventually I got to the stone stairs where the carry trail comes from the road to the Deerland lean to.
I headed down the lake with some mild and intermittent headwinds and found a rock on the state land where I could have a comfortable lunch. I thought I was landing on a sandy bottom next to it, in about two feet of water, so I stepped off the paddle board with one foot and it sank in muck up to my knee. I still had my right leg doubled on top of the paddle board, and could neither move it off nor pull my left leg back up, so I had to throw myself backwards into the water, away from the board. I waded through the muck the few feet to the rock and hopped out, and everything was fine except I was a bit dirty in spots as well as wet.
After lunch I continued, stopping often for a quick dip as the sun was hot. I can unstrap my ankle, hop in and submerge, get back on and restrapped, and resume paddling in well under a minute now, and out in the middle of the lake it doesn’t matter if the shore is private or state land. I got in and out 5 or 6 times in two or three miles.
I came to a huge cliff on state land that had trees here and there on ledges on it, and just after it a place like a kettle hole or pothole in a river, about 5 feet across and 6 or 7 feet high, with one side cut away to face the lake. It was unlike any other part of a cliff I have seen. After I left the state land areas a floatplane flew up the lake, turned around and landed down the lake, and taxied under the bridge, which I had not seen done before. Later as I passed the town beach area it took off again down the lake, having presumably swapped passengers in the meantime. The bridge is newly painted and looks very spiffy, though still as always a bit odd since one end is so much higher than the other.
After coming under the bridge I passed two paddle boarders going the other way with no baggage, and when I got to the state boat launch a large party of what I would guess to have been campers were getting under way in aluminum canoes. I asked the boat launch steward if it would be okay to leave my things on the grassy bank above the ramp for an hour or so and he said they wouldn’t be in anyone’s way there, and probably wouldn’t get stolen, but he was leaving in half an hour. I said it wouldn’t matter as much if they did get stolen now, since I had done my trip. I rode my bicycle over to Blue Mountain Lake and brought the car back, loaded up, and drove back to Piercefield. I saw a medium sized black bear on the side of the road just half a mile or so from the Blue Mountain trailhead as I was driving back, but I of course didn’t have time for a good look or to get a picture before I was past it.
The weather I had for this trip was about ideal, with mostly calm winds, highs around 80 and lows in the 50s. I would like to do some more exploring someday at the lakes I passed through, as there is lots more I didn’t see. I don’t know when I will go camping next, but I’m contemplating a trip to Whiteface sometime via the rail trail, with paddle board camping on the state land on Lake Placid itself, and a hike up the slide on the west side of the mountain.
I had the idea for this trip soon after my trip last summer from Long Lake to Piercefield, and the conditions seemed ideal for it when I went, with the bugs having slowed down, warmer temperatures, and calm winds forecast. I started out by car, with my paddle board deflated inside and my bicycle on the back on a carrier. I dropped the bike off in Long Lake in the woods behind the long term parking lot by the boat launch and drove to Blue Mountain Lake, where a kind person who was standing near the hand launch told me that if I parked right in front of it on the side of the highway people would assume I was out on the state land and it would be okay to leave it there for the three days I was to be gone. I thanked him for his help, pumped the air back into the paddle board, loaded the baggage on, and headed northwest-ish at about 9:45.
I first headed toward an island which was about half a very large rock, but before I got there a pontoon boat full of people reached it, so I went to look at some smaller but even cuter rocky islands a bit further out. I then went between Long and Osprey islands, and around Bluff Point to look for the trail up to Castle Rock. I had camped near the foot of this trail in 2010, but my mind being what it is, I didn’t remember anything about how it looked from the water side. At first I went too far east, and could see buildings on the shore, so I headed west, and there the landing was. There was an unusual stone structure in the stream that the trail follows up the hill. It looked like some kind of cistern, but I couldn’t figure out how it would have worked. There was a small pipe sticking through the wall on the upstream and downstream sides. If anybody knows why this was built I’d be interested to hear about it.
Nearing the top of Castle Rock I began to hear voices above me, and then I found a thing that might be called a sort of tunnel or passage in the rock, for lack of a better word. It was about 15 feet high at a guess, and was formed by the partial falling away of one part of the cliff face. It was easy to walk through, and interestingly shaped, with some curved walls in places. I wasn’t able to get pictures that really conveyed the shape and size, but it was well worth a visit. I don’t recall seeing this when I was here in 2010, but no doubt it was already there.
At the top there was a large party sitting on the main rock, so I went to a little north view and took a picture, and was joined briefly by one of the party and his dog, which tried to jump a rock gap and nearly fell down several feet, if he had not luckily caught it. I know dogs are widely held to be intelligent, but I have been acquainted with chickens who would have had enough sense not to try that jump. I went out for a moment on the main viewpoint and took pictures, but didn’t linger longer than necessary, as no one answered when I said a general good morning, and they all became silent.
I went back down and took a brief stop at the campsite just west along the shore. If I had known it was there I would have bushwhacked over to it in 2010, as it was much flatter and nicer than where I slept that night, but the map I had then didn’t show campsites. I then headed southwest or so through some small islands, towards the outlet of the lake. A solo paddler in an aluminum canoe followed me from the small islands all the way to Eagle Lake, but that was the only paddle craft I saw on Blue Mountain Lake that day. The old bridge at the east end of Eagle Lake was just as pretty as I had been led to expect from reading about it. I went under the ordinary bridge, as that seemed to be the main channel and I hadn’t seen the other one, but then I saw the fancy bridge and turned around and went under it to look.
Eagle Lake passed quickly, and when I got to the channel to Utowana Lake I decided to have some lunch, as the wind was favorable, though not strong. I sat on the paddle board with my legs dangling in the water and drifted backward down the channel, with only occasional inputs needed to keep from being pushed into the shore. At one point I heard a quiet but noticeable sound close behind me, which sounded like what happens if you say ‘worm’ with your lips tightly pressed together. I turned around to see what it was and saw a beaver lodge only about 10 feet away. I didn’t see the beaver or beavers who made the sound, but I think that must have been who it was, and maybe they could see me through the spaces between the sticks.
After lunch I resumed perpendicularity and paddled into Utowana Lake, having drifted perhaps 1/4 mile informally, in about 20 or 30 minutes. Right at the entrance I met a guide boat going the other way, and then saw a huge old building by the water that had a small flying boat type of seaplane in it. I have seen several floatplanes around the Adirondacks, but not this style. There was also a boathouse there, but no visible house. As I went down the long curved lake I eventually lost sight of these things, and then came to floating box shaped buoy with mysterious signs on it. I didn’t know which direction the motorboat turnaround was requested from, since the box kept spinning, or maybe they meant motorboats going in either direction should turn there. There were a few buildings here, near the west end of the lake, but none in the middle that I could see.
At the western end of the wide part of the lake there is a bit of state land, and I almost missed a huge rock that was mostly hidden from the water by trees. On closer inspection I found another sort of tunnel or passage through the rock that was much taller than me, and a small side tunnel that I could only crawl through. The herd path to this rock is maybe 100 yards or a bit more to the east of the sign on the side of Route 28 that says Utowana Lake, and the rock is very close to the highway, though hidden by trees from the road, at least in summer.
My map showed the Marion River Carry starting from the northern blob at the west end of Utowana lake but I could see nothing there that looked at all plausible, so I went into the southern part which also extends further west, and there the carry was, with a dock and lots of informational signage, and the remains of a barge, if I understood correctly, that used to be used to ferry rail cars to Blue Mountain Lake. I read the signs, signed the register, and walked my stuff along the carry trail, which is very wide and flat, being an old rail bed. I had to stop several times to set my load down and take a break, but I got to the other end of the carry much sooner than I expected.
At the put-in the Marion River is quite narrow, and the railway used to cross the river here and go on some distance to where there was enough water for the barges. As I proceeded downstream I noticed some cliffs on an unnamed (on my map) hill or mountain to the north. As I got closer and began to cross beaver dams I began looking for a way north through the swamp to drier ground, and finally found it where a ridge came right out to the edge of the river, by a beaver dam with an island in the middle. I landed and headed NE by compass, and when I reached the slope I began to go up with less regard to the compass bearing.
I found some summit-like areas at or near the top with partially obstructed but expansive views, including a sand or gravel pit, at a guess, in the middle of the otherwise wild-looking valley. I also tried to spot the ridge where I had landed, and get a compass bearing, but I wasn’t sure I was looking at the right spot. I started back down and came to a lower cliff with fewer obstructions in the view. To get past this, after looking at the view some more and taking pictures, I had to veer somewhat far to the east, and climb down carefully on some steep ground. I got to level ground and figured I had better veer a bit west of my projected course, to compensate.
I veered not wisely, but too well, and then every time I tried to go south I would come to very dense thickets and/or swamps, so I kept going further west since that was easier. Eventually I decided I must have gone too far west, and began going south through whatever was there, knowing I would eventually come to the river. It was a struggle and I got a lot of scratches, but I got to the river after a while, about, at a guess, half a mile downstream of where I wanted to be. I walked along through the wetland till I got back to the paddle board, very hot and tired and scratched. In some places here the bushes and other plants were knee high, and waist high in others, but it was easier than walking through the flooded trees and such.
I had spent about two hours on this side trip, almost all in vigorous motion, so I paddled rather dully along for the remaining distance. I had a few miles to go down the river to Raquette Lake. Here a channel had been dredged in several places for the barges, and the oxbows had been cut through, so the arrangement of the water was pretty haphazard. I kept to the straight channel on this trip, but it would be interesting to explore the side channels more someday. There were a few large trees, mostly white pines as I recall, in random places by the river where there was just enough dry ground to support them, with wetlands all around.
As I got down toward the river mouth I began to watch for a cliff on the north shore as described in Adirondack Canoe Waters, which reportedly had a campsite atop it in the ‘70s. I heard voices coming from a site in the general area, although the rocks there were only 5 feet high. It was a bit after 7:30 and I was tired, but it looked like my next opportunity to camp might be on Big Island, so I decided to try to make it before dark. A short distance further, though, I came to a cliff on the north shore and my map appeared to show it as still on state land. At either end of the cliff the ground was very muddy, and I sank up to my knee on the west end where I landed. I found what was clearly an old campsite above the cliff, but it did not have either Camp Here or No Camping disks, so I wasn’t sure about it.
I returned more carefully to the paddle board and unloaded my barrel and large dry bag, and then paddled back out to the cliff area. It was not vertical, but too steep to climb in many places. I found an area with some small rocks in the water and a manageable way up to the top, and landed there, and parked the paddle board on an uphill angle of about 45 degrees, some little height above the water. Since I wasn’t sure of the status of the site I followed the 150 foot rule and went further up the hill to where I found a quite suitable spot, set up the tent, and ate a late supper inside, as the mosquitoes were beginning to make themselves felt.
I found a place to hang my food bag and a short piece of birch log to use as a weight to throw the paracord. I got a nice surprise a bit later when the almost-full moon appeared to the south, across the river. I had not put the rain fly on the tent, so it was very easy to see, and I got out of the tent again and took some pictures. I slept pretty well, and woke up in the morning to some light fog over the water, but none in the woods where I was. After looking around a bit I packed my belongings and put the paddle board back in the water in the little sort-of-harbor, and got everything back on board without incident.
In a very short distance I left the Marion River and entered a bay on Raquette Lake. It was all private land, but there were still interesting things to look at from the water, including strange trees and the roots thereof, spiderwebs, and a historical mini-church. I rounded the end of Long Point and began to go clockwise around Big Island, after duly admiring the rustic gazebos and other architectural details of some of the establishments I passed.
On my way around I came to a lean to with a large and new to me style of sign by the water, where my map showed a campsite, and then a campsite with some people who waved, and their parked motorboat, and then an empty campsite on a sort of rock barrier island with a swamp between it and the rest of Big Island. Then there were two lean tos close together, again with the same type of signs, and one of them had a dock in front of it, presumably for the convenience of people in larger boats. There was another aluminum dock nearby with part of a boat lift on it that I think didn’t belong there. I couldn’t tell if it had drifted there or been put there for some reason, maybe for storage in the winter?
Coming back to the private land on the north side of the island I turned to the north, and after consulting my map and the sun to make sure I was heading in the right direction I aimed for Antlers Point and around it to Beaver Bay. My intention was to go up Beaver Brook, which looked plausible on the map but was in fact barely navigable for the first 1/4 mile, and then I gave up. It was still a pretty spot, and the whole trip on Raquette Lake was full of picturesque scenery, though somewhat built up with summer places. The wind came up a bit, so I had to paddle harder to head back up past The Crags on my way to the south side of Tioga Point. I crossed the main part of the lake just ahead of a tour boat that came up from the south, and found a sandy beach when I arrived at the shore. The sand was slightly painfully hot to the touch, as the sun was directly overhead and there was no wind because of the trees on shore.
At first I sat on a log under the trees, but the stable flies were very active and I headed back out into the sun and they weren’t so bad while I sat on the sand to eat lunch, even though I was only 50 feet away. I decided it was too hot to rest on the sand for a long time, so I went into the woods and lay on my towel on some soft pine needles on a slope and read a book for a while, and considered my next plan.
After about two hours I headed north past the funny line of rocks at Needle Island, and around Bluff Point. I stopped briefly at Beecher Island on the nice rock slab shoreline, but the stable flies were there before me, so I went over to Boucher Point to check out those lean-tos, and found there were none in that area. There was another flat rock slab to land on, and an old stone fireplace/chimney which I discovered later actually had two fireplaces, one on each side, and lots of old foundation remnants. The lean-tos were in nice condition, and while I was standing in one of them reading the journal I heard what I thought was squirrels running but turned out to be a fawn with spots which dashed past the front of the lean to, maybe only 10 feet from where I stood inside. I went out to try to see what was going on and saw the fawn still running west, and another fawn about 200 feet to the north, running east. I lay down for a rest on the grass near the landing rock and no bugs bit me for 20 minutes or so, which was very kind of them.
I kept on heading down Outlet Bay and eventually came to the carry to Forked Lake. My map didn’t show rapids below the bridge so I paddled to the bridge to find out whether the river looked runnable, and found that it didn’t, so I went back the short distance to the carry. The carry goes through someone’s yard at first, and has a couple of benches at the end, near the water, which was a nice touch. Once the carry gets to the main road and crosses it it follows a side road that leads to a boat ramp and dock on Forked Lake’s north shore. The der flies and mosquitos were bad on the dirt road so I stopped and put on some bug spray, and stopped a few other times to rest my arms. Once I got to the lake and signed in at the register I loaded up the paddle board again and headed west, toward the state land. The mountains around the lake made a beautiful background.
I saw one site on the north shore, which was occupied, and two occupied sites on the south shore. The one to the west was near the edge of the wetland, and seemed to have a sailing dinghy and a jet ski moored in front of it, and the other site which was near the state land boundary had tarps set up and some stuff around, but no boats or other signs of life while i was there. It actually turned out to be either one huge site or two very close together, I found the next day, but both were similarly claimed. I saw another rocky cliff-like thing in between the two sites I had seen, and decided to see if it was a possibility. When I got there I could see that it had been a campsite once, but the fireplace had been dismantled. Again there were no disks of either persuasion, so again I followed the 150 foot rule and found a place for the tent which was not quite as flat as I could have wished, but was quite good enough.
I went out on the water to eat supper on the paddle board in the sun before it set, and while I was out there two canoes came out of the Brandreth Lake Outlet and went to the western site. The sun went down just as I was finished eating and I paddled back to the landing below the rock, next to a huge log. I carried the paddle board up to the old campsite and left it on the grass for the night. I came back down again when the moon finally got up past the clouds and looked at it, and took some pictures. In the night I heard loons and a barred owl, and again I didn’t have to use the rain fly.
In the morning I packed up and left, and stopped a short way east of the untenanted but set-up campsites where there was a beach and took a swim before heading east in earnest. I hit a rock underwater soon after and fell in, but my baggage stayed put. It was the first time I had done that since Little Tupper Lake two years ago. The scenery was again very pretty, and I took a detour up the Raquette to the point where it got too rocky to be easily paddleable, and met a duck family whom I caused to be nervous, unintentionally, and found a nice rock jetty above the lower, paddleable rapids.
I came back down and continued along the lake till I reached the campground and found no easy way to continue downriver right below the dam, so I carried down the road for about a mile till I saw the river at the foot of a slope ands went down to it. It was still somewhat rapid there, but mostly floatable, although I had to take the fins off the paddle board. After the lean to it was calmer for a while, and except for falling off again once I had an uneventful trip to the top of Buttermilk Falls. The carry was short and uninhabited, so that made it easy and I was off again.
I decided to try the rapids on the last stretch, since the carry trail was very close to the water in case I needed to bail. I did the first bit but then the water was too shallow, so I walked a bit, but the trail was unmarked and so crooked that it was hard to carry the paddle board around all the corners. Soon I came to where I could see the flat water at the beginning of Long Lake at the end of a straight section, and I got back on the water. At first I went very fast, but then I began to stick again, and got hung up several times, though I didn’t tip over. I got off and worked the paddle board free each time, and then got on again. Eventually I got to the stone stairs where the carry trail comes from the road to the Deerland lean to.
I headed down the lake with some mild and intermittent headwinds and found a rock on the state land where I could have a comfortable lunch. I thought I was landing on a sandy bottom next to it, in about two feet of water, so I stepped off the paddle board with one foot and it sank in muck up to my knee. I still had my right leg doubled on top of the paddle board, and could neither move it off nor pull my left leg back up, so I had to throw myself backwards into the water, away from the board. I waded through the muck the few feet to the rock and hopped out, and everything was fine except I was a bit dirty in spots as well as wet.
After lunch I continued, stopping often for a quick dip as the sun was hot. I can unstrap my ankle, hop in and submerge, get back on and restrapped, and resume paddling in well under a minute now, and out in the middle of the lake it doesn’t matter if the shore is private or state land. I got in and out 5 or 6 times in two or three miles.
I came to a huge cliff on state land that had trees here and there on ledges on it, and just after it a place like a kettle hole or pothole in a river, about 5 feet across and 6 or 7 feet high, with one side cut away to face the lake. It was unlike any other part of a cliff I have seen. After I left the state land areas a floatplane flew up the lake, turned around and landed down the lake, and taxied under the bridge, which I had not seen done before. Later as I passed the town beach area it took off again down the lake, having presumably swapped passengers in the meantime. The bridge is newly painted and looks very spiffy, though still as always a bit odd since one end is so much higher than the other.
After coming under the bridge I passed two paddle boarders going the other way with no baggage, and when I got to the state boat launch a large party of what I would guess to have been campers were getting under way in aluminum canoes. I asked the boat launch steward if it would be okay to leave my things on the grassy bank above the ramp for an hour or so and he said they wouldn’t be in anyone’s way there, and probably wouldn’t get stolen, but he was leaving in half an hour. I said it wouldn’t matter as much if they did get stolen now, since I had done my trip. I rode my bicycle over to Blue Mountain Lake and brought the car back, loaded up, and drove back to Piercefield. I saw a medium sized black bear on the side of the road just half a mile or so from the Blue Mountain trailhead as I was driving back, but I of course didn’t have time for a good look or to get a picture before I was past it.
The weather I had for this trip was about ideal, with mostly calm winds, highs around 80 and lows in the 50s. I would like to do some more exploring someday at the lakes I passed through, as there is lots more I didn’t see. I don’t know when I will go camping next, but I’m contemplating a trip to Whiteface sometime via the rail trail, with paddle board camping on the state land on Lake Placid itself, and a hike up the slide on the west side of the mountain.
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