We met at one of the campsites adjacent to the boat launch at Hoel Pond on thursday night after work, so that we could talk about the trip and check over gear and get an early-ish start the next morning...it was a beautiful night, and a nice/mellow way to start our trip...View PortageFest 2010 in a larger map
This GoogleMap show the trip as we paddled it...as you can see, most of the trip happens inside the green of the SRCA, which is a motorless wilderness area (not even electric motors allowed...once we got past the first few portages (and until we got back to within a few portages from civilization towards the end of the trip), we essentially didn't see or here people or the things of man...
The four of us ate a good breakfast on Friday morning, shuttled a car to the end of the trip to wait for us, and headed out on a beautiful spring morning...
Brian paddled and portaged the whole trip in his Adirondack Guideboat...it's a thing of beauty, but somewhat awkward to portage with gear
Derek and Stephen paddled in a tandem canoe, sharing the work of portages between them...as you can see from the pictures, it was a beautiful and still morning to start a canoe trip...
The first portage, from Hoel Pond to Turtle Pond is short and pretty simple, we dragged the boats down through a long culvert that connects the 2 ponds...it was on Turtle Pond that we were first attacked by the various tribes of flies that inhabit the SRCA...it would be a love/hate affair that would continue until we rolled up the windows on our cars and drove away 3 days later...my legs still itch like crazy, and look peppered with shotgun fire, rather than bug bites...
By our 4th pond and 3rd portage, we were feeling the morning's activities a bit...we stopped to snack up and drink and rest before the first barbaric portage, from Long Pond up to Nellie Pond...Brian also had some issues with the wooden gunwales of his guideboat lifting a bit...
We worked on the boat for about an hour, using what tools we had available (knives and leathermen and shims/patches made from carved twigs and sticks)...it is amazing what can be done when necessity dictates...the boat repairs were made, and stood up for the rest of the paddle-trip...
About 600 yards into the next portage, there was a beaver-created pond that had flooded out a small portion of the trail, so we had to paddle across it before continuing the hot and buggy and rocky and steep and muddy portage from Hell...luckily, my Hornbeck 14 foot solo canoe is made for this kind of paddle/portage
I made the portage carrying all my gear and boat, and at one point found myself rock-hopping to avoid oozing mud-pits...I missed one step, and post-holed my right leg up to mid-thigh in the nastiest and smelliest mud ever...anywhere...it took me a minute to figure out how to get out of the mud with my 40+ pound pack and 25 pound canoe...without having it sink into the sucking mud or break on the jagged rocks...all the while being drained of my life's blood by blackflies and deerflies and horseflies and mosquitoes...I got out and struggled to a more friendly stretch of trail where my fellow portagers were resting/breathing, and had to laugh at this incredible thing we had chosen to do for fun...
We finally got to the end of that incredible portage and took a break to drink and eat and re-DEET and smoke some cigars (Backwoods, Vanilla, if you're interested) to keep the winged beasts at bay...I had portaged all of my stuff in one trip (which was a goal of mine in planning for this trip), and the other guys had not, so they had to go back for their boats...on many of the portages during this trip I went back to help carry gear or boats...not on this one...I paddled out to the middle of the pond, where the number of flies in my personal cloud was cut in half, and waited them out while floating in the shade...
After a couple more brutal portages, we made it out to Fish Pond, finding our campsite a little after 7pm...on the final approach I paddled quietly alongside a beaver swimming in Fish Pond for about 200 yards...it finally heard a sound from one of the other paddlers and dove...
We camped in tents and hammocks, mine is the hammock at the right of the photo, above the black and yellow Eureka tent...it's a Hennessy Hammock, which is great for all kids of camping down to about 30 degrees...it got down to about 50 that night, and rained a bit on and off in the early morning hours, but my tiny rainfly kept me dry...
The next morning, during one of my waiting times after a particularly horrific portage involving steep hills, ridiculously deep mud, and downed trees across the trail, I found these specimens living on a log in the middle of one of the dozen tiny ponds we crossed during our trip...the big reddish Georgia O'Keeffe-looking plant is a Pitcher Plant, and the smallish ones that look like green/red hairbrushes are Sundews...both are carnivorous plants living in swampy conditions like the ones that we lived in for the 3 days of PortageFest...
It was nice to get out in the boats and paddle between the portages, since we went to all of the trouble of bringing the boats along, but at some points it seemed like we carried the boats more than they carried us...in the picture above, Brian is paddling his guideboat with a canoe paddle because it wasn't worth the effort to detach/reattach the yoke...even so, they were pretty ponds filled with interesting wildlife and a complete lack of people and motorboats and noises-of-man...
After the last of the long portages (which we defined as anything over a mile, although lots of the other ones felt long to us), we stopped to snack and make/drink water and rest...it was on a floating mat of sphagnum moss which had lots of comfy and cushion-y give, even if you got wet from sitting on it...
We covered the world's buggiest portage pretty quickly after everyone got their boat and gear over to the far side of the pond, and then were out onto St. Regis Pond, where we camped for the 3rd night...it was a pretty pond, with wonderful views and wind, and we got there early enough in the day to enjoy some of the afternoon in camp before dinner and bed...
2 pieces of gear which performed flawlessly on this trip, and which I would heartily recommend were my shoes and my water filter...
Vibram 5-fingers are like gloves for your feet, and I wore them all day everyday...for paddling and portaging and getting in and out of water/mud/rocks...they were great...the other guys had to change shoes during the day for different things, and some lost their shoes in thigh-deep mud, but my 5-fingers worked across the whole trip...I did, however, bring a pair of crocs to change into for camp every night...
My Katadyn Basecamp Filter is a perfect piece of camping gear...simple, light, useful...I fill the bag with water in camp, or on one of the ponds during the day, and gravity pulls it through the filter in the bottom of the bag and through the tube and into my nalgene bottle or hydration bag or cooking pot...I used it to make water at camp and to fill my hydration bag for the day...if/when I ran out of water during the day, I either hung the bag up on the trail for the amount of time it took to fill my needs or just purified some with 3 drops of clorox in my nalgene...the other guys all had pumps to make their water, and they used them some of the time, but quickly got in the habit of just filling up at mine...because it's easier...a whole lot easier...
As always, I slept a great night swinging gently in my hammock, and then woke up long before anyone else...I got up and made some coffee and oatmeal and enjoyed the sun creeping over the pond with it's orange-y light...
It was nice (and early) enough that I took my boat out for a spin, to spend some time with the wind and waves and water and the loons and the late owls still out on the shores of the pond...I took some coffee and a Clif bar...I gave up coffee while camping a bunch of years ago, as the result was always disappointing, but the new instant Via coffee from Starbucks is good enough to get me back in the camp-coffee business...it was a gorgeous morning out on the water, and I think it says something about the place that after all of those ponds and portages, I was eager to get out and do some extra paddling...
I got back in time to hear...snoring...so I made some cold drink powder drink and settled in to enjoy the still-arriving morning in my hammock chair, a gimmick that I bought mainly to suspend my pack off of the ground on nights when it's raining, but soon found would hold me in nearly sinful comfort when hung unevenly between 2 trees, and it only weighs a couple of ounces...it was a lovely way and place to pass the time until I heard the guys groaning their way out of hammock and tents...
We hit the water a bit earlier on the 3rd day than on previous and got moving through the final 5 portages quickly...
It was yet another gorgeous day, and we were buoyed by the knowledge that none of the portages were either long or tough in comparison to the ones we had already done in the last few days.
The beauty of the woods and waters that we passed through continued to stun us...even as the adventure was winding down, we couldn't help but admire the beauty, and take solace from, the wilderness through which we traveled...
Derek and Steve made the last few portages in 1 trip, and between pods, we just hung out and listened to the birds and beasts around us while snacking or drinking and swatting flies...
Brian's portages were done with skill and ease, although how the guides of olden days managed to carry those big boats and all the gear that their clients wanted/needed in the ADKs is beyond all of us...in the pic above Brian has a little Captain in him...
I saw this big brute sunning himself on a log...snapping turtles are a fact of life in the ADKs, sometimes getting as big around as car tires...I floated up towards him without paddling, and he didn't mind a bit until the bow of my canoe bumped his log, at which point he slipped in the water, and I subconsciously pulled my fingers a bit higher above the pond...
When I was a kid, we used to stop on Bear Pond for picnics and swimming, and would often stop on this island...the water level has obviously risen a bit, and not much is left of the island, except for some dead trees, which have DEC signs pointing out that you cannot camp or have fires on the island...I love this pic of Steve on the island...
We stopped for a final snack and break once we got to Upper St. Regis Lake, as from here to our takeout is almost entirely private land, and stopping would constitute trespasssing...I took a brief (and cold) swim in the lake to try and clean off some of the accumulated grime and DEET and blood and stink of the last 3 days, so that I would be a bit more in keeping with the subdued fanciness of the lake...I failed at that, but smelled somewhat less bad after my swim...
We paused at the mouth of Spitfire Lake to read the plaque with information about Dr. Trudeau's activities on Rabbit Island, which is an interesting piece of Adirondack history...
It was outrageously pretty on the lake while we paddled towards our final destination...the wind picked up a bit, which took the bugs away, and made for fun paddling...we had a great time admiring the views of the mountains that surround the lake, as well as the incredible Great Camps that line the shore...it made a superb counterpoint to the rest of the trip, and also felt wonderful to stretch out our muscles with over an hour of continuous paddling not interrupted by portaging...
We got to the boat launch at Paul Smith's College at a bit after noon...tired, bruised, bug-bitten, dirty, and in awe of the amazing paddle-trip that we had just completed...at times during the trip, it seemed impossibly long and difficult, but in the end we made it back to civilization without mishap...
I'm grateful for the super group of guys that went on this trip, grateful that I was able to pack and portage such that I only had to make 1 trip on each portage, and grateful to live in such a glorious part of the world as the Adirondack Park!
Before we parted ways, we went to a local BBQ place to eat large quantities of fatty and fried foods, and to drink cold beer in abundance...I always enjoy the "Tail o' the Pup", but also usually find it costs about 25% more than I would have thought while eating and drinking my way through the food/drink.
All in all, it was a great trip...I am very glad that I did it, and never need to do this one again...the good news is that there are lots of other great trips and ponds and portages in the ADKs...more than I could paddle in 10 lifetimes...but I'll try!
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