Labor Day Weekend in the Adirondacks

3-7 September


I'm almost a month behind with this one. I'm sitting in an internet cafe in Florence, Italy, where the keyboard barely works, so we'll have to go with what I wrote before I got here or I'll use up my half hour just hunting for keys that do what I tell them to do. Anyway...



Over Labor Day weekend we went with sixteen other Freewheelers to North Creek in upstate New York. Don and Mary Anne have a condo up there that sleeps six. They rented two others for four nights. We spent the weekend eating, hanging out, hiking, eating, biking, and eating.

Jack and I drove up in a caravan, following Fred and Louise in the middle and Cheryl and Jeff in the lead. Jeff kept our speed at sixty-five miles per hour. I got great mileage. We stopped in Saratoga Springs where we met Marilyn and Lenore for a very late lunch and a look around. I bought a bunch of beads for myself and for a pair of earrings Marilyn commissioned on the spot.

Our condo was the cool one because Bob and Norene were staying there with us, Marilyn, and Lenore. We scattered at dinnertime, some of us searching for real food, some heading to the tapas bar in town. Eventually much of the group wound up at Trapper's Tavern.

The next day, Friday, Jack and I took a short walk in the woods at Thirteenth Lake, at the bottom of Garnet Hill, with Michael H. and Carol.



We talked about music, about "I Walk On Guilded Splinters" by Dr. John. There really are words in this song, despite what one might think one is hearing.












For the first time I tried taking a video with my camera. Here goes:



When we got back to the condos I ran into Bob. He'd been out all morning looking for a place to do some plein air painting. Having come up dry he'd returned to fill his gas tank and set out again. I hopped in with him. We drove as far as we could up Gore Mountain, but it's a ski slope and the road ended in a boring parking lot below the gondolas. Next we drove to the top of Garnet Hill. There's a lodge up there, but it didn't seem worth painting. So I directed him to Thirteenth Lake.

While he looked around I followed a chipmunk with my camera.


Almost everyone else had gone kayaking. Bob, Jack, and I hung out on the deck and waited. I took some pictures of the trees reflecting in the windows.



At night we piled into as few cars as possible and drove to Susan's, a friend of Don's and Mary Anne's. She'd opened up her house to us, none of whom she'd ever met except Don and Mary Anne. Laden with potluck we descended upon her living room to stuff our faces. She lived on Garnet Hill. This was the third time today I'd been up this road.

Saturday morning Don was leading a bike ride. The plan was to meet
Susan and her new beau at Cafe Sarah in North Creek. They were late. I took pictures of the town.



Half an hour later we set off, only to have Susan and her friend (who was riding a hybrid) part ways after six miles. Don had a map, though, so he figured out a route.

Early on we passed what might have been a forest fire. You can see a bit of white smoke in the trees.


Here's another Hardsrabble Road to add to my collection:


We reached Schroon Lake, where we'd been last year. This time, though, we were riding along the other side.



There's sort of a beach at one end. Around the corner is the Adirondack General Store. We stopped there.

A year ago I'd found a bulletin board with a flier advertising "used cows for sale." The bulletin board here advertised something almost as amusing:


At the entrance were various beach-y items for sale, among them the best party raft ever:

Those colorful circles are cup holders.

I like the signs at the entrance to the store:


Inside, Don was asking directions. "What's the name of the road this place is on?" Then he asked about a numbered road.

The clerk, who, judging from his age, must have owned the place, said, "I dunno. Depends on which map you're looking at." So not only did Don have to buy another map, but he and the owner spent some time poring over it. The locals know the names; the mapmakers go by numbers. Eventually they figured it out.

I bought a stuffed moose for Jack. Marilyn took this picture:

I should always wear a moose in my back pocket. It's rather slimming.

Back to goofy road names again:


Somewhere along the way, as we climbed long hills that never got steep, we stopped to wait for everyone by a weed-filled pasture in which two ribby horses tried to graze. Michael, feeling sorry for them, tossed apples that had fallen by the road into the pasture. The horses went after them. Jeff joined in the tossing.

The stragglers began to straggle longer. Don gave us the route back. I remembered the roads from last year and I knew that the worst hills were in front of us.

When we reached the turn from Igerna Road Cheryl took off. I nearly caught her at the corner of Bird Pond, where she turned without waiting for the rest of the group. I chased her, losing ground up the rollers, gaining as I pedaled downhill.

"Where's Route 28?" she lamented.

"All I know is that this ends at an uphill. At a church or something." We'd passed by this morning on our way out.

The road rolled forever before we hit Route 28. I stopped on the bridge over the Hudson. Cheryl waited for me at the next corner.

The most difficult part of the ride was the very end, up the driveway to the condos. It's all uphill and steep. Since I was staying in the unit at the top of the hill I had an extra hump to get over. It looked worse than it was, though.

After I showered I made some coffee for me and Cheryl. This was the plan from the beginning. She paid for the beans from Rojo's, I had some decaf from Homestead, and I had the big French Press. Every morning she'd climb the little hill for her java fix.

Jack liked the moose. He sat in on the arm of the living room chair, where it stayed for the rest of the weekend.

Sunday was the day for Jeff's Big Hike. Unfortunately his description scared the crap out of everyone, including me. So in the end only Cheryl, Marilyn, and I accompanied him to the Ausable Club for a hike to Indian Head.

The Ausable Club is an exclusive membership organization that owns a golf court, villas, and about a zillion acres of land in the Adirondack State Park's High Peaks. Through an agreement with the state they graciously allow low-lifes like us to traipse through their property, onto the trails, to the tops of a handful of mountains nearby.

Fall starts early in the Adirondacks. Here we have the first tree to really go for it:

Here are some shots from the East River Trail:

A couple of toads:


The ground was spongy.



Whoops. This one loaded sideways. Not much I can do about it from an internet cafe.

We reached Beaver's Meadow, where the Ausable River flows.










A little further on we reached the Ausable River dam.


We took the bridge over the river to a side trail headed for Rainbow Falls.





We ate our lunch there, chilled by the shade from the high rocks. Then we crossed the bridge again and began our ascent to Indian Head.

We followed a road to a view of the river, but a sign warned that access to the boathouse below was for Ausable Club members only. I saw a few people down there look up at us.

Jeff had warned us that one of the trail guides said there's be a ladder. I'd imagined a sheer rock face on a cliff, studded with rusting iron rungs.

Yeah, right. Here's the ladder:

Then there was another one:
And a third:

We almost rushed to the top when Jeff said we were nearly there. Here it is. That's Marilyn on the left.

Here are some views from all directions. This is the view facing north-ish, looking at some of the High Peaks. I think that's Gothics with the bald spots. A kid pointed all the peaks out to Jeff. The kid's father came along and put his hand on his son's shoulder. "He knows 'em all. He spent nine weeks here this summer. He's a Forty-Sixer." In other words, he's climbed all forty-six of the Adirondack High Peaks. The kid was probably ten or twelve years old.



That's the Ausable dam down below.


Here's a video of the view from the top as we were ready to leave:



There was one more ladder on the way down.

We had to do a lot of root-hopping during our descent. Here, Cheryl finds her way before Jeff and Marilyn.

We were on the Gill Brook trail. The water ran clear:


More root-hopping:


By the end my feet hurt. I was wearing my nineteen-year-old, Pinelands-acid-water-worn, leather hiking boots that went "squeaky-squeaky" at every step. Time for a new pair.

On our way home Jeff stopped the car so I could take some pictures of the lawn sculptures we'd passed on our bike ride the day before. I'd seen them last year but missed them this time because I was focusing on an eighteen-wheeler carrying a load of logs past me instead. So I hopped out of the car and looked at what I'd missed yesterday. The sculptures have changed since last year.



We had potluck in Don and Mary Anne's condo that night, finishing up as much of the food we'd carried up from New Jersey as we possibly could. Then we loaded our cars with the leftovers (the nights were chilly). We ate breakfast at a greasy spoon in town the next morning, Labor Day, and headed home early, beating most of the traffic.