Spectacle Pond - July 18, 2010

Unfortunately we forgot the camera! Claire, DJ and I went out around 2 so we had to do something relatively close and not too long so we weren't getting back too late. We chose to check out Spectacle Pond on the east side of Schroon Lake and not too far from Crane Pond a previous trip we had done. The trail is 3.4 miles round trip and follows Spectacle Brook for much of its length. The brook is beautiful with wonderful little falls and deeper pools and big rock slides. The flora are all rich site indicators and the spring ephemerals must be beautiful when in bloom. The trail is well maintained and is definitely well used. We saw 4-5 other families while out.

The pond itself is surrounded primarily by marshes and beaver activity is pretty apparent. We had hoped we might get to take a swim in the pond, but alas I don't think we have ever seen so many leeches... yuck... Still a pretty spot and a nice hike. We had our nets with us so we caught lots of little fish, newts and yes leeches. Also beautiful damselflies and dragonflies with the butterfly net. We stopped at a deeper pool in the brook on the way back out and cooled off a bit in the water. Claire played in the waterfall and in the deeper water (above her belly button) for a while. A bad moment to not have the camera! Nice little hike we thoroughly enjoyed it!

Inman Pond- July 8, 2010

Out of order post but thought I'd record it anyway! Claire and I did an afternoon hike to Inman Pond. We've been before but this time we did some letterboxing as well. It was a nice afternoon and the pond was pretty in the late day light. Claire feasted on raspberries and we scrambled around on all the downed logs big rocks on the water's edge. Easy, relatively level 1.1 mile hike each way... Camera was crazy fogged up so only a random photo!

Crane Pond, Pharoah Lake Wilderness - July 11, 2010

Beautiful pond/lake! Hike is along an old road and can be upwards of 2.3 miles to the pond if you do it from the official trailhead. The "road" is drivable a ways so we went in about a mile and parked at the goose pond trailhead which made it only about 1.3 miles each way. You could drive even further to nearly the end of alder flow and only have very short jaunt to Crane. I am told people will start to be ticketed for driving it but for now rangers are looking the other way. This makes it a bit easier to get to some of the further away spots like Pharoah Mountain and Pharoah Lake! We're definitely heading in there on another trip.

Crane Pond is wonderful - we saw a loon and it said hello right away! Lots of fish and deep clear waters. We swam at a campsite that had big flatish rocks at the waters edge with very deep water so we jumped in. It clearly is higher use because of the accessibility, but there was only one other party that had kayaked down to the end of the lake campsite. We also saw some fishermen come out in a canoe when we were leaving, but no one else on a beautiful Sunday afternoon in July.

Above - Alder Flow - We could put a boat in an paddle right to the Crane pond with just a short carry over to Crane.
Below - Claire climbed this root system of a huge white pine that had tipped over.

Buck Mountain - June 27, 2010

So this kid has developed something she calls "fancy footwork" which basically involves running as fast as possible over roots and rocks, over streams and up mountains.... We don't know how she does it! Buck Mountain is 5 miles round trip... She ran up it and down it... Scrambling around on top was also quite fun!

We saw many red efts on the trail...

And at the top... tadpoles in a little pool of water on the rocky summit!

And delicious blueberries...

View of Tongue Mountain and Lake George from Buck Mountain.