Hitchins Pond and Low's Ridge

October 13, 2008

On Columbus Day we had great weather and really wanted to go on a nice day trip. We decided to head back to Hitchins to spend the day. This time we paddled directly to the old homestead at the portage spot between Hitchins Pond and Low's Lake/Bog River. We hiked up to the top of Low's Ridge which provided us with some gorgeous views! Claire was really impressed! She was a great hiker and did not ask to be picked up once. She practically ran up and down the 1.1 miles each way. She insisted on wearing her "backup" wonder woman crown to which paddlers on the way out from camping over the weekend commented incorrectly "what a beautiful princess" - she corrected them of course. We made some hot food for Claire to eat on the way out and headed out at sunset. We were a little nervous paddling in the dark, but the full moon came out from behind the clouds and we were able to see quite well to get back to the car. Beautiful day!

More pictures here: http://picasaweb.google.com/kseleen/HitchinsPondLowSRidge#

West Branch Sacandaga River

September 29, 2008

Claire and I headed out on what is likely our last Mother-Daughter adventure in the kayak this season... we will see! We had very fall-like weather - threatening clouds that turned to full sun in minutes and everything in between! We put in at the southern Route 10 bridge and first paddled north to the Trout Lakes (~2 miles). We had a little picnic at one of the campsites on Big Trout, though it was difficult to find a spot to get out that wasn't deeply mucky! We tried to get to Little Trout but the channel just got too shallow (low water at this time of year). We could see it from the boat though. After our snack we paddled back towards the put in which is actually upstream from the Trout Lakes.

We checked out a little stream that went off to the east on the other side of Trout Mountain but didn't get very far in the very very narrow channel before coming upon a very tall beaver dam. The channel was nearly as narrow as our boat so it was tricky paddling backwards out :-) We then tried to get to Chub Lake, a place we had visited earlier in the summer, but alas the water was too low to get through although we were so close to the deeper water - it was only a few feet in front of us... I had to literally paddle through deep muck for several yards to get back out (sore shoulders the next day). Claire thought all the flying mud was great though!

So after all of this (several miles of paddling and lost count of how many dams after 6 or 7) we decided to go past the put in and continue upstream to Good Luck Lake. We only had one dam to get past and the channel was nice and easy paddling. Good Luck Lake is beautiful and we saw at least 3 campsites that all looked great, albeit well used. We had a short hop out at one of the campsites and ran around, climbed trees and rocks, etc. Had it been earlier in the day we would have checked out some of the trails. But since the sun was setting we decided to head back to the car. We didn't see another person on the water all day! More pictures here: http://picasaweb.google.com/kseleen/WestBranchSacandaga#