We slept Thursday night at the boat launch, and then puttered around a bit on Saturday morning before heading upriver...
I fueled up before we put paddle to water with some cheese-spread and Bacon SPAM...it was yum-tastic...
Because of the high water, cold temps, and paddling uphill, we made a small flotilla, but we came ready to play...
A couple of kayaks and canoes heading upstream over beaver dams and the occasiional minor rapid...it was pretty and quiet and remote and lovely...the water was about 50 degrees, and the air was close to the same as a high every day...
The Oswegatchie is a narrow and twisting and wild river, with water the color of coffee...
There were a bunch of beaver dams that we had to climb/paddle through on our way upriver...
It was harder going than coming back down, but we all worked together, and made it without mishap...
It was gorgeous paddling our way into the wilderness...
We stopped at High Rock a couple of hours into the first day of paddling, for a stretch, a snack, and to find a geocache that was hidden nearby...
We paddled another hour of so until it started into a cold, hard, steady rain...luckily, we were able to pull off the river at a lean-to to camp for the night...
Here's a group picture of us, plus a retired NYFD fireman...
We spent a cold and wet night, and were a bit late getting going the next morning...
It was a sunny and clear morning, with blue sky and more current in the river, from the rain the night before...
One of the obstructions that we ran into was a huge log, entirely across the river...my friend Rick was able to dislodge it, at which point we realized that we had to dodge the log as it cam downstream at our boats...
We had a lovely day on the water...
Some of the rapids and beaver dams were more than we could manage...I made 4 runs at this dam before taking some help (and a tow) from people who had already made it upstream...
This dam was about 18 inches high, and I managed to climb up on it, and help to pull everyone else over...
After that last big dam, we were close to High Falls, our destination for the night...it was smooth paddling as the afternoon wore on and the sound of the falls grew in our ears...
This great blue heron was waiting for us on the last turn before we got to High Falls...
The falls were lovely...
We paddled up into mist before pulling off onto the side where we had another lean-to for the night...
It was nice to have clear skies as we unloaded and set up camp, and the constant roar of the falls made a nice background for our happy/proud chattering...
I slept all 3 nights in my Hennessy Hammock...it was great...comfy and warm and gently rocking in the wind and rain...
I saw this freaky spider on one of the trees that I set up my hammock on...blech...
One of the guys who came along, Dan, had a neat Kelly Kettle, a really cool water heater and stove that uses a chimney jacketing the water that it is heating...
Later that night, we were visited by a mouse, who wanted to share some GORP that had been left out by one of our party...
We caught him/her in a bottle, and released the poor beast a ways away a little while later...
The next day we had to make 2 days paddling in 1 day to get back to the boatlaunch...this was apart of our plan, as it was nearly twice as quick heading downstream as paddling upstream...
The dams and rapids that had been a workout the previous day were a pleasant ride on the way down...
It was a pretty and cold day, with vivid colors and wonderful fall smells...until it began to rain...a hard and chilling rain that worked on our tired and sore arms, and kept us from wanting to stop and stretch and eat as much as we should have been...luckily, we were all tough as $2 steaks, so it worked out OK...
We got back to the boat launch at about 2pm, tired and happy and feeling as though we had adventured through some serious wilderness in the Adirondack Park...
It was a great trip, and we'll try another similar one in the spring, once the ice goes out!
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