Exploring the Adirondacks
Early morning a few days ago, I slipped the canoe into Osgood Pond, perhaps 10 miles north of Saranac Lake in New York’s Adirondack north country. From the launch area the pond and the conditions seemed ideal.
A loon surfaced in the distance. The shoreline was thick with forest. The sky was sun and clouds, mostly sun, and the pond was calm. I seemed to be alone. Before me was a beautiful body of water to explore. Me and the lake.
At times I paddled briskly, moving the boat quickly through the water, the only sounds the stroke of paddle through water, the subsequent tinkling of water off paddle. Though I followed the shoreline, if anybody was listening there, I doubt they could even hear me.
Far more often it was an opportunity for the pond to slow me down, permeate my consciousness, let it show me things, at a pace that the pond, somehow, dictated. At times I was barely moving, lost in the personality of the pond. It was very quiet.
Which is what I came for. I’ve paddled extensively all over America, in Canada, too, even once in Spain. But my experience in the Adirondacks was heretofore limited to paddling on Lake George, the massive, fine lake in the southern Adirondacks, and, once, rowing an Adirondack guide boat on Tupper Lake and the Raquette River.
My wife, Susan, and I rented a cabin on Lake Colby, just outside of Saranac Lake, which I looped the afternoon we arrived. A pair of loons. Good start.
Before I left for this trip, I joined the Facebook page Paddling in the Adirondacks, told the page where I would be staying, and asked for suggestions for paddling. I heard from dozens of people, including a woman who suggested I try Osgood.
I paddled northeast on Osgood headed to the Upper Osgood River. The shoreline is not entirely forest, there are some cottages, but they are tasteful and not obtrusive, unlike many other lakes today. The pond and river really amount to a showcase for northern forest species, the river shore especially thick with black spruce, balsam fir and one of my favorite trees of the north country, tamarack, or American larch, with its tiny clusters of needles that turn gold in fall.
Merging into the river, there is a tiny building on a point, reached by a wooden bridge. It was meant as a teahouse as part of the White Pine Camp, which served as the summer White House for President Calvin Coolidge in 1926 - 100 years ago this year.
Black chokeberry in bloom. Labrador tea in bloom. Leatherleaf in the boggy habitat beside the river.
I spent more than two hours on Osgood, a 515-acre pond, and, pulling into the boat launch, could make out a fisherman in a kayak in the distance, and, closer, a couple of women paddling in solo canoes. They were the only people I saw.
The next morning with rain threatening I launched early again at the Kushaqua Narrows, a body of water between Kushaqua Lake and Rainbow Lake. No sooner had I taken a stroke than it began to rain and quickly became a torrent. Wearing a a rain parka I kept my upper body dry, but my floppy hat and shorts got soaked. The rain stopped after 15 minutes and, for the rest of my two-hour paddle into Rainbow Lake, it stayed dry.
Heard or saw red-eyed vireos, black-and-white warblers, song sparrows, blue jays as I paddled, again with a mostly forested shoreline.
What struck me on my way back from Rainbow Lake were two lichens.
Hanging from dead lower branches of white pines, extending over the water, was a lichen called Witch’s Hair, or Beard Lichen. These lichens were perhaps slightly smaller than a tennis ball and consisted of a tangle of tiny spindly growths. Sensitive to air pollution, Witch’s Hair is known as an indicator of good air quality.
Nearby, overspreading a granite outcrop was Reindeer lichen (Caledonia rangiferina) most likely. It is a lichen with intricate, forking whitish-gray tufts and it covered an area perhaps 10 feet wide by 5 feet high.
Nearby was bunchberry in bloom. Is bunchberry the most perfect spring wildflower? Four petal-like bracts that are a brilliant white, set off by a whorl of deeply veined oval, deep-green pointed leaves.
Our last day in the Adirondacks, I put the canoe in the state boat launch on Moose Pond. It threatened to rain almost the entire 90 minutes I was there, but didn’t. I looped the pond, which is 140 acres at 1,548 feet elevation. The shore is entirely wooded, among the species yellow birch, paper birch, white pine, northern white cedar, red maple, balsam fir and black spruces.
Maximum depth is 71 feet and the mean depth if 28.5 feet. As if to emphasize its depth, in places along the shoreline slabs of granite ledge descended steeply, drawing the eye to the water, which in a matter of a few feet became so deep I could not see bottom.
Saw a lonely tiny cluster of early azalea blooms (Rhododendron prinophyllum) their rich pink petals and protruding dark stamens unmistakable amid a backdrop entirely of green. Lots of Labrador tea in bloom along the shore. Paper birch leaves especially bright on this otherwise most cloudy morning.
The Adirondack region, a huge chunk of New York State real estate, is flush with rivers, lakes and ponds that I needed to know better. That could take a lifetime; I had four days in ADK with Susan. We got a sample. More, next time.
On Moose Pond, in places, slabs of granite descend into the water, as if to draw attention to the deep water of this pond, entirely surrounded by forest. Click to enlarge.
Balsam fir and black spruce line the shore of Upper Osgood River. The river and Osgood Pond amount to a showcase for northern forest tree species. Click to enlarge.
The teahouse at White Pine Camp, where Osgood Lake becomes the Upper Osgood River. President Calvin Coolidge made the camp his summer White House exactly 100 years ago this year. Click to enlarge.
Steve paddling in the Kushaqua Narrows between Kushaqua Lake and Rainbow Lake. Photo by Jovan Jock, a student at nearby Paul Smiths College. Instagram; Jvn.dslr. Thanks, Jovan. Click to enlarge.
Reindeer lichen in a colony perhaps 10 feet by 5 feet in the Kushaqua Narrows. It is a lichen with intricate, forking whitish-gray tufts.
Bunchberry is handsome wildflower that was in bloom during my stay in the Adirondacks. Click to enlarge.
Labrador tea blooms beside Moose Lake, Adirondacks.