NYCkayaker Lake George Overnight Trip Report

[debmonster]

I often try to come up with ideas of how to combine the many activities that I enjoy. Last weekend, I had the opportunity to lead a 3 day paddle & backpack trip for the Appalachian Mountain Club in the upper Lake George and Tongue Mountain region in the southeastern Adirondacks. The proposed itinerary was to put in at Hague, NY at the public beach, paddle 14 miles south to the Narrows Islands with their many DEC campsites, camp on Mohican Island, paddle the next morning 3 miles southwest to the Bolton Landing Boathouse, store our boats for a night and car shuttle up to the Tongue Mountain trailhead for an overnight backpack. Below is a report on the paddle portion of trip. 
  Cheers,
  Debbie Melita
   
  We started early on Friday, September 22, 2006. Participants were myself, Ara Jingirian, Ken Cunningham, Russ Faller, John McCarthy, Art Portmore and Ted Ripley-Duggan. All but Ara and Ken were in solo sea kayaks. Ara and Ken are whitewater paddlers who had never tried sea kayaking before and they rented a tandem kayak from the Lake George Kayak Company in Bolton Landing, NY (a fantastic store and very helpful outfitter if you are ever in the area).
   
  We met at the LGK boathouse on Green Island in Bolton Landing. I had pre-arranged with LGK for them to shuttle us and our boats to the put-in point in Hague, NY to minimize the hassle of leaving cars at both ends of the trips (definitely well worth the $10 per person fee). We drove up route 9N over the Tongue Mountain Range and arrived at Hague as the sun started to peek through the clouds. Once on the water, we were greeted by notorious Lake George winds and waves of 1 to 2 feet; just enough to have fun in and not worry about. The water was warm (65 degrees) and I was happy to feel the sensation of the Lake open up as the water deepened below me. It was good to be back on (somewhat) open water after months spent mostly on hiking trails. 
   
  The first hour of the trip moved more slowly than I had anticipated - we had traveled barely over 2 miles south to Silver Bay - and a notion of concern started to creep up on me. I feared that the wind resistance would only increase when we rounded the point below the Bay, paddling in less protected waters, and that it would take extra time to reach camp. Luckily, just the opposite happened. The winds decreased, the sun came out and we got to enjoy the spectacular scenery, surrounded by mountains on either side. Motor boat traffic was at a minimum, considering it was a weekday after the summer crowds had left, and it felt like we had the Lake all to ourselves. The next 2 hours went very smoothly; we covered over 6 miles, gliding past Sabbath Day point to stop and have lunch on the lovely Vicars Island (one of the northernmost islands with official campsites). We then continued south past French Point, after which the islands of the Narrows came into view. Just a few more
 miles south and we'd reach our destination for the night.
   
  We paddled south of Big Burnt Island and crossed east between it and Uncas Island to the DEC office on Glen Island and reserved our camp sites (reservations are done only on a walk-in basis after mid-September). We were told that there was a large group from Renssalaer Polytechnic Institute who were occupying all 33 campsites on Turtle Island, which is right next to Mohican Island, so we decided to camp on Juanita Island instead to be farther away from the crowd. This was an excellent decision. Juanita has 6 large campsites and 2 very nice composting toilets. The best part was that we had the entire island to ourselves! We set up camp, changed out of our wet paddling clothes and sat down to dinner and hot beverages. The evening was relaxing and beautiful - the weather remained warm and the wind kept to a minimum.
   
  That is, until about 3am when I woke up to the sound of rain on my tent and strong winds outside. Saturday morning started out very soggy and windy. We quickly packed up camp, ate breakfast, loaded our gear and were in the boats by 8:30am. Today's paddle headed southwest and was across much more open water. It would not be much fun if the weather continued to worsen. We faced stiff winds, constant choppy water and 2 ft. waves, but made the 3 mile crossing back to the boathouse in just over an hour. Of course, soon after we finished paddling the rain stopped - typical luck! 
   
  Still, it was an extremely enjoyable trip and a great opportunity to experience peace and tranquility on what is usually a very busy body of water. 

 		
---------------------------------
How low will we go? Check out Yahoo! Messenger’s low  PC-to-Phone call rates.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.rockandwater.net/pipermail/nyckayaker/attachments/20060927/db065e28/attachment.html