I cannot, with good conscience, give the account of my recent canoe trip without firstly giving credit to my wife Kate and the three other wives (Beth B., Becky B. and Lisa M.) who, with all their grace and generosity allowed us the time away from our families. Thank you Kate, I love you.

So it hit me one day this summer that I had been seriously deficient in my “outdoors” time the last two or three years and so I started planting seeds with my wife and my good friend Brandon B. At last a semi-concrete, though still quite vague plan hatched and I contacted two of my good friends from my Northern Frontier days, Jason M. & Peter B. to see if they were interested in joining Brandon and myself on a four-day canoe trip in the Adirondacks. They both replied with a resounding YES and we began to hammer out the details. I planned a 4 day trek from the Route 30 bridge over Long Lake, into the snaking Raquette River, across Simon Pond and into Tupper Lake. A 40.5 mile journey from beginning to end, with a 1.3 mile portage (canoe carry) around Raquette Falls. The plan was made, the packs were packed and we headed north.

DAY ONE – Thursday, September 15, 2005
After picking up Brandon in Manhattan, NYC at 6:00 am, we shot up the NYS Thruway, picked up our canoe outside Saratoga, and met Jason and Peter in Glens Falls at 12:20 (yes, we were 20 mins late) just below the Adirondack State Park. The two rugged outdoorsmen I once knew sat waiting for us in a Friendlys parking lot in their metallic violet mini-van, under a shiny red canoe. We headed up the Northway to Warrensburg where we turned Northwest toward Blue Mountain Lake and the Adirondack Museum (passing NF along the way) and then due north to Long Lake. We dropped off our canoes and packs at the boat launch. Jason and Brandon sat with the stuff while Peter and I gassed up our cars in town, picked up some VERY cheap cigars and then drove the 36+ mile roundtrip to the Tupper Lake Boat Launch to drop off my car at our ending point. We then headed back to Long Lake together in the metallic violet mini-van.

Canoe Trip 2005

We got back to the Long Lake boat launch just as two older men were pulling out their canoe. They informed us that a large group of German tourists were on a guided trip downstream. This news did not excite us, as there would only be a handful of lean-tos on our route and we didn’t want to have to fight a group of Germans to get them… but we would. We put into the lake at 3:30 pm (a half-hour later than I had hoped) and paddled north on Long Lake. We passed a gentlemen on the shore (apparently taking a break from canoeing) who asked us where we were headed.

“Tupper Lake.” Jason replied.
“Eventually…” the man chuckled back.

He then asked us where we were staying that night and Jason, incorrectly – though accidentally – told him we were going to stay in a lean-to about a mile further than we were going to go that night. He seemed impressed that we were going that far. We laughed about it later. As we canoed on the eerily calm Long Lake I spotted and pointed out an American Bald Eagle soaring down the eastern shore of the lake, just passed our canoes. It turned out to be a beautiful evening to canoe on Long Lake. We were all really glad to be where we were. We canoed almost a full 4 miles before pulling into Plumbley’s Landing – a campsite with two lean-tos. We settled into camp, had a short-lived bear rope competition, Peter made our fire and we ate our dinners. There was a pesky field mouse which was overly brave at times. He seemed about as scared of us as he would have been a leaf. Jason and Peter were kind enough to supply 2 beers for each of us which had been cooling in the lake. We drank those down in the darkness, save the light from the crackling fire, while having a fascinating and much too intricate discussion on breast-feeding, the La Leche League and contraceptive alternatives. It was a very non-sexual and yes, very manly evening. It had been a good day and we were all very tired. One-by-one we all passed out in our lean-to, praying that the mouse would not run over our faces as we slept.

Canoe Trip 2005

DAY TWO – Friday, September 16, 2005
I was the first to awake shortly before 8:00 am. It was cooler than the day before, overcast and misty. I took down our food and got our fire going again. As the wood we had gathered the evening before was almost out, and the rest of the guys showed no signs of waking, and I knew we had our longest day ahead of us… I decided to wake them up. I took a branch of pine needles and lightly tossed it into the fire. The crackling of the sap was enough to wake them all up simultaneously. We ate our breakfasts and took down camp and got in our canoes at 9:10 am.

Canoe Trip 2005

We left Long Lake and entered the Raquette River. As we navigated the curves we began to play a trivia game that would last to the end of our trip. The rules were simple. The first to answer the question correctly gets a point. If nobody knows, the asker gets the point. This kept us occupied far longer than it should have. After 9 miles on the river we came to our portage site. The head of Raquette Falls.

Canoe Trip 2005

We got out and strapped our packs to our back. With our canoes held high above us, we hiked 1.3 miles up and down several hills until reaching the bottom of the falls. I admittedly, had the hardest time with the carry. Poor bag packing and poor conditioning were the cause, but the four of us as a team got the job done. At the other end, we ate our lunches before canoeing away and back into the river at 1:00 pm.

Canoe Trip 2005

We continued on for two more hours of paddling and trivia. Before the first drops of rain fell we were treated to two A-10 Thunderbolt II fighter jets (aka Warthogs) soaring above us – no doubt from the military base in Plattsburgh, NY. Soon we were covering our packs to protect them from the rain, as our t-shirts soaked up the first drips. For the next 2 1/2 hours of canoeing we were poured on mightily. We paddled on with nearly zero complaints through thunder and distant lighting. As we finally reached our lean-to at Trombley’s Landing – which seemed to forever be around the next bend – the rain began to die off. I later would calculate that we canoed a total of 25 miles in this one day.

Canoe Trip 2005

We tossed our damp packs into the lean-to and changed into warm, dry clothes… but not before Pete jumped off a short cliff into the warm river. As we collected what little wet firewood we could find I spooked a nearby deer who quickly pranced away. Pete took it upon himself to battle the wet wood and get our fire going. He swiftly emptied the fuel out of Jason’s lighter – the only lighter we had – before moving on to and dwindling down our match supply. In the end, he got the fire blazing and we enjoyed a very nice campfire the rest of the evening. I won’t tell you his secret, but I will say it’s price/gallon in northern New Jersey dropped about 10 cents in the last week to $2.95… No mice at this lean-to, but we did have a pesky chipmunk which was as brazen as the field mouse. He took our violent warnings more to heart than the mouse had and didn’t bother us much the rest of the evening. We continued the trivia game which the rain had halted, told lots of camp stories, and smoked our cigars. We even enjoyed our hot chocolate with a shot of Peppermint Schnapps, supplied by Peter. As we laughed about how the non-sexual breast talk of the night before would be portrayed in this blog, it was heartily & proudly made know by one of our party that “…I LOVE breasts!” I have come to accept that this individual was actually speaking for all four of us and so his identity will go unpublished, however the sentiment was quickly seconded by another.

Canoe Trip 2005

The lean-to had a few leaks in the roof which we were able to avoid, as it continued to drizzle on and off the rest of the night. As we lay in our sleeping bags drifting to sleep we told more camp stories and quoted Monty Python. It was a long day and we were glad it was over.

DAY 3 – Saturday, September 17, 2005
We got back onto the water at 9:30 am. We knew we only had just over 10 miles to canoe that day and would get to our final lean-to in time for lunch. The trivia game continued as we canoed through the spit and mist. We saw two deer – already growing their thicker winter coats – on the river bank eating the low leaves. Soon after the deer sigthing we entered the Oxbow. The Oxbow is easy to take a wrong turn in and we, of course, did not disappoint. We took a single wrong turn and cost ourselves an extra 1/2 mile of canoeing a big loop. I felt kinda bad about guiding us the wrong way, but nobody else seemed to mind terribly.

Canoe Trip 2005

Back on track we were entering Simon Pond before we knew it. We canoed into the direct wind across the pond to the Route 30 bridge which seperates the pond from the much larger Tupper Lake. As we glided under the bridge and passed some wood ducks we brought the boats together. I pointed out Indian Point where our lean-to would be found, as well as the Tupper Lake Boat Launch where my car would be waiting us the next morning. As we drifted a bit more into Tupper Lake we could see a blue tarp where the lean-to should be. The shocking blue color is usually a sign of inhabitants and so it was suggested, by Peter, that if the lean-to was occupied – being the last and only lean-to on our journey – than we could cut our losses and drive 1 1/2 hours south to his house for steaks and beer. We all agreed and canoed the 1/3 mile across the lake to Indian Point. As we pulled up to shore we quickly realized it was much worse than we had imagined. The first unmistakeable sight was the piles and piles of empty beer cans and garbage that just covered the entire camp site. As we walked toward the lean-to, we realized first that the two side walls were completely gone, leaving only the studs. The roof was caving in severely and the blue tarp we had seen from across the lake was loosly affixed to the roof, covering a hole big enough to crawl through. The roof was braced by a set of 2x4s which had inscribed in black marker “SAVE THE LEAN-TO”. Evidently, this lean-to was a special place to someone, at some time… but not recently.

Canoe Trip 2005

We decided, as a group, that the alternate plan of steaks and beer was decidedly more desireable than this campsite and hopped back in our boats and headed to the boat launch. As Jason and I drove my car back to Long Lake to fetch the metallic violet mini-van, Brandon and Peter stayed with the gear. Once all packed up with the boats strapped down, we headed south. Brandon and I drove to Saratoga to return our canoe and Jason and Peter headed to Peter’s house to get the food. We met up shortly after 6:00 pm at Peter’s house (we would have been earlier had our directions not been sabotaged) and had quick showers, enjoyed a wonderful meal and the company of Peter’s wonderful wife Becky (who had just run a half-marathon and finished 4th place in her age group! GO BECK!). I got to see the Irish make a fantastic comeback against Michigan State, only to lose in overtime.

DAY 4 – Sunday, September 18, 2005
The next morning, we had a great breakfast, said our good-byes and headed home. It was a fantastic trip with some fantastic friends that must be repeated… maybe with our four wives.

Canoe Trip 2005
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