Tickel a bear, they like that, even more if you play with there cubs.
FWIW - it all depends on how far from civilization you want to get…
I’ve been to Cranberry Lake and slept on Joe Indian Island - there are first-come-first-served State campsites all over (no reservations).
I’ve also done long canoe trips down the St. Regis chain to Upper Saranac Lake and Follensby Clear. If you’re willing to carry your canoe and your crap, you can get way into the woods where noone else is around, and stay at other State campsites to hang out. The thing about the State campsites is that you might get a Ranger stopping by, so I’d read up on what you have to bring in and bring OUT.
Thanks for all of the input guys, here’s a quick recap.
I drove up there using a modified version of Jay’s route like he suggested. It was a ton of fun. It started off as a good but then got even better as I approached NY 30. I remember a couple of very fun stretches of road in that area. The scenery was also amazing! I’ll post pics sooner or later.
The week was filled with a lot of relaxation like canoeing, fishing, and the like. We were on Horseshoe Pond which connects to a body of water called Deer River Flow which the Deer River flows into (go figure). It took awhile to paddle from our pond into the flow but when we got there the view was amazing. You turn a corner and it goes from a swamplike area to open blue water with pine trees and Debar Mountain in the background. It was unbelievable. I chickened out on bringing the camera or my phone though because we were in a canoe lol.
We hiked up Debar mountain one day which I believe is about 3,100 ft and got a great view. The hike was 3.7 miles each way with the first 2.5 or so being pretty easy, the remaining being a pretty steep, rocky climb. It seemed like the trail was essentially a dried up brook or stream. It was a challenge even for the healthiest people in our group. It soured the attitude most of had toward hiking in general and decided to skip the Marcy idea at least this year. We decided to paddle the canoe into DRF and drink instead. The view was amazing on Debar though and I’ll post pics.
We went into Saranac Lake and Lake Placid and explored what they had to offer. Lake Placid was cool but a bit touristy for me, Saranac Lake was much more of a real town. I still enjoyed LP though - we checked out the Winter Olympics complex where the 1980 and 1932 rinks were which was cool. We stumbled upon some kind of scrimmage or game that Team USA and Team Sweden were playing, with all kinds of NHL scouts looking on. One guy was wearing an Ottawa Senators pin. Pretty crazy because we literally just walked in off the street and found ourselves in the middle of it.
We did a beer tasting at a restaurant there, then did another beer tasting at the Lake Placid Brewery. The LP brewery actually puts out some really good brews. I wanna see if I can find their Hefeweizen anywhere in Buffalo. We did a wine tasting too at Goose Watch Winery which was cool, my first time every doing it.
The rest of the time we pretty much spent at the cabin, which was more like a house - eating, drinking, relaxing, etc. We had fires just about every night in the outdoor fire pit and just hung out and shot the shit, played drinking games, all that.
We’re already talking about going back next year, maybe even to the same cabin, to do more activities that we didn’t know about or didn’t have time for this time around. Thanks again all for the suggestions and like I said, I’ll post pics as soon as I can.
Some pics that are not mine but help get my point across:
Channel between Horseshoe Pond and Deer River Flow:
Deer River Flow with Debar in the background:
View from Debar Mountain:
Sounds like an awesome time. I need to get up there again before the weather turns to do some hiking and kayaking.
Definitely get some pics up. :tup:
Pics:tup:
Heading to Old Forge again this weekend!
sounds like a great time
word… here are pics from my last visit: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150326708892495.389831.504852494&type=1
i LOVE the ADK. i’ve gone yearly ever since i was 8 months old
^Great pics. They have an identical fire watch tower on Bald Mt. in Old Forge. Very cool!
I was just in lake placid 2 weeks ago, if you ever go back, drive up whiteface mountain, its a hell of the view and the drive up wasn’t bad either. Also, try the brown dog cafe, real good