- Stephen and Billy on our way down Lake Lila
Adirondacks
Journal - 2007
Adirondack Park, New York
July/August
2007
Stephen, Billy, and I could tell that we were getting into the backcountry wilderness of the Adirondacks as we headed for Lake Lila. We had been on dirt roads for awhile and had not seen anyone since turning off the highway from Tupper Lake. The three of us had just finished a fantastic one-week car-camping trip near Lake Placid, New York, with Therese (my wife and Stephen and Billy's mom) and my brother Dave and his wife and daughter, Olivia and Sarah. After Therese had flown back home for work and my brother and his family had started the drive back to Ohio, Stephen, Billy, and I had made our way to the backcountry for a kayak-camping trip.
As we finally arrived at the Lake Lila parking lot (around 3:30 in the afternoon), we couldn't wait to get out of the car and get started. We began with a 480-m portage (locals call them carries, but I use the term portage because it is ingrained in my head) from the parking lot to Lake Lila. While this was a short portage, it was an important step for Stephen and Billy, as this was the first portage that either of them had taken part in. I have to give them much credit. Both boys pitched in carrying loads from the car to the lake and didn't complain at all. I was impressed! We all know the triumphant feeling they expressed the first time they were carrying a load and saw the shimmering, blue lake through the trees. Among the three of us, we managed to get everything to the lake in four trips (we probably could have made it in three).
While I packed up the boat (a Folbot folding double touring kayak), Stephen and Billy swam and played in the water. We met several daytrippers coming out (including two who had beautiful, light (17-pound!) boats made by a local canoe maker, Pete Hornbeck), one of whom suggested that we might like site #5 because of its great beach. We paddled down the lake (against a headwind) passing campers in several sites. As we rounded a point to head around to site #5, we groaned when we saw that the site was taken. We then made our way across the lake to Spruce Island and found that site taken as well. We continued on to site #20 and found it occupied. The three of us were tired and hungry after a long day and began to wonder how much more we would have to paddle to find a site.
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Luck was with us, however, as we found that site #19 was open and featured a private beach, a rocky promontory, and a spacious tent site surrounded by towering white pines and hemlocks. There were also many large, downed trees that looked as if they had been blown down in a windstorm. Together, we quickly set up camp, cooked and ate Mountain House "Chili Mac with Beef" (excellent), and enjoyed a beautiful sunset. After retiring to the tent, we read, wrote, and played cards before going to sleep around 10:00.
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Sunshine and a mist-covered lake greeted us as we leisurely awakened in the morning around 8:00. The three of us had slept well in the mid-fifty-degree nighttime temperatures. After breakfast of oatmeal, we played cards for awhile. As Stephen, Billy, and I headed down to our kayak to go out and paddle, a very odd thing happened. A bumblebee was buzzing around Billy's yellow life jacket. I tried shooing it away, but it was persistent. I finally chased it away, and Billy put on his PFD. Just then, the persistent and misguided bee came back. Billy was frantic because he was buckled into the life jacket, so I swatted the bee into the water (getting stung myself in the process). Billy couldn't get out of his bee-attracting PFD fast enough!
We decided to read and play cards in camp until lunch. After Stephen's and Billy's favorite meal of Mountain House "Macaroni and Cheese" (excellent), Billy was reluctantly willing to try his PFD again. We headed out in the Folbot toward the south end of Buck Island. On the way in the day before, someone had told us about a bald eagle nest in a tree hanging out over the water from Buck Island. When we got there, we found an enormous nest but no eagles. We heard an osprey calling but could not spot it. After rounding the point, we were treated to a view of a young osprey calling from that side of the enormous nest. The three of us took turns spying on it through binoculars. What a fantastic sighting!
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After paddling past Mosquito Island (I wouldn't want to camp there!), we landed at a beach near site #7 for Stephen and Billy to play in the sand. The boys and I then hiked up to the private road behind the campsite and then up to some abandoned railroad tracks. When we got to the tracks, we found an old, unused train station (the old Nehasane station) in disrepair and a sign marking the tracks as part of a snowmobile trail. The three of us explored around the area and then headed back to the beach for some more sand play. The view from the west end of the lake was spectacular! We could see mountains beside Long Lake about twenty miles away!
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Later, we paddled back to our campsite and relaxed, read, wrote in my journal, and played cards. By this time the three of us were famished, so for supper I cooked two meals, Mountain House "Beef Stroganoff with Noodles" (excellent) and Mountain House "Chicken Breasts with Mashed Potatoes" (very good/excellent). After supper, the boys played a made-up, role-playing game in the woods that I only sort of understood. It was fun watching them play together. I took some pictures around our campsite, and Stephen and Billy went digging for rocks. Once we retired to the tent, I wrote in my journal, and we played cards until we lay down to sleep around 9:30.
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Stephen, Billy, and I arose around 8:00 and breakfasted on oatmeal and Mountain House "Lasagna with Meat Sauce" (very good/excellent). The three of us relaxed and played around camp, Steve and Bill enjoying playing in the root-ball dirt of a large, downed tree. They made slides (calling them "squirrel sled" runs, like the bobsled runs that they had seen in Lake Placid), in the dirt for the campsite's resident red squirrels and chipmunks!
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After lunch of Mountain House "Turkey Tetrazzini" (very good), we went out in the Folbot to explore Shingle Shanty Brook. At the entrance to the brook, we found the largest colony of pickerelweed that I had ever seen, and over all of it was a buzzing mass of bees (Billy was not happy!). We paddled up the very windy brook for awhile, passing a breached beaver dam and several beaver lodges. Unfortunately, we did not spot any beavers.
pickerelweed colony |
Steve and Bill survey a beaver dam on Shingle Shanty Brook |
After turning around and backtracking our way out, the boys and I decided it was time for a swim. The afternoon was so hot and humid that the water was calling us to get in and cool off! We stopped at the very nice, gently-sloping sand beach at site #17 which was unoccupied. The sandy bottom was home to many clams and littered with the empty shells of those that had been eaten by some animal. As we waded out, we noticed an amazing thing. Many of the live clams were at the end of tracks in the sandy bottom, marking where they had traveled! Steve and Bill then had fun making their own "clam" tracks by moving around. They soon discovered that some clams would squirt water when lifted out of the lake!
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Later we found a bullfrog that both boys wanted to catch. It eluded capture as it led the boys to and fro in the shallow water and grasses. Twice, one of the boys announced "I have it!" only to have the frog squirm out of his grasp. Finally, Billy did get it, and I took some photographs of it. When he let the frog go, however, it didn't want to leave. It crawled up on each boy's leg as they sat in the shallow water. Even when they splashed water on it, the frog just sat there "enjoying its own private water park" (as the boys explained it). Eventually the bullfrog departed, and so did we.
Stephen and Billy with a bullfrog ... |
... after releasing the bullfrog ... |
... it climbed onto Billy's leg! |
When we got back to camp, the boys played in the dirt in two upturned tree-root systems, and I relaxed and wrote in my journal while lying in the hammock. A great breeze through the campsite kept us cool on this hot and humid afternoon. During the afternoon, the three of us enjoyed a snack of two foil-packaged tuna filets: one flavored with lemon pepper and the other with teriyaki. They were quite tasty!
As evening came around, the boys and I feasted on a late supper of Mountain House "Chicken a la King and Noodles" (very good/excellent). Again tonight, we were treated to an exquisite sunset. Before going to sleep around 9:30, the three of us played cards in the tent for awhile.
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The boys and I got up around 7:00 and had breakfast of Mountain House "Chicken with Noodles" (very good) while we packed up camp. We headed out from camp around 9:00 and got to the portage back to the car around 9:30. This time we managed the portage in three trips with the boys great help! By 11:00 we had started on our two-day, 750-mile trip home to Ohio. We were sad to see our camping come to an end, but we were excited to be going home to Therese and our farm.
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