After dinner, we settled in to watch "Harry Potter: The Deathly Hallows, Part 2" and shut our eyes around 11pm. We were up bright and early and Nick offered to make pancakes in memory of all those great pancake breakfasts he made for us on our "Rug Rat Camping" trips with Uncle Tom and Aunt Eileen and a various additional cast of characters, such as Vicki, Mike, Jen, Drew, T.O., Katie, Matt, cousin Sam, cousin Kim, and assorted friends of Nick, Mike and Vicki over the years:
They were blueberry pancakes and they were DELICIOUS!
This fueled an hour's drive into Adirondack Park to start our hike at the Scusa Access Trail, which connects with the Brown's Tract Trail in the Ha-De-Ron-Dah Wilderness section of the Adirondacks. Here Nick and Kathy pose at the start of the trek:
Ha-De-Ron-Dah, like the legendary Phoenix, was reborn and rose again. In the early 1900's, this was the site of one of the most destructive forest fires in New York State. Today, this small wilderness is a refreshing place of trees, lands and water, with several gorgeous lakes and ponds for hikers' enjoyment.
There are two lean-tos in this wilderness; one is located on Middle Settlement Lake and the other at Middle Branch Lake. Our backpack trip spanned two nights, and we spent one night camping at each of those shelters. The fact that the yellow Brown's Tract Trail is a loop trail, and you can reach both lean-tos hiking in either direction, might have been the reason these two hikers seem confused about the proper direction to proceed. As usual, Nick was right:
The first day's hike was filled with small ups and downs, across ridges and through bogs populated with the thickest populations of ferns we've ever seen. Perhaps this season's rainy weather (more on that later) had something to do with making this seem every bit as much a rain forest as the Olympic Peninsula in the State of Washington.
As we neared Middle Settlement Lake, we hiked through an amazing array of huge glacial erratic boulders, any one of which was bigger than Great White. Here, Kathy and Nick pose among their rocky friends:
Our first glimpse of Middle Settlement Lake was bucolic and almost heavenly. David couldn't stop snapping photos, and kept racing ahead of the others to see the next photo opportunity:
We reached the Middle Settlement Lake lean-to and proceeded to set up camp:
It was a beautiful spot, situated at the center of one of the shores of the lake, right on the water, with huge flat-top stone bedrock slanting down to the water. Soon after we arrived, we were greeted by the male part of the local loon couple that resides at the lake. He seemed curious, and paddled close to where we were standing:
As we watched him, he demonstrated his fishing prowess. While he was doing this, he showed us a behavior we had never seen before: he dove and swam at VERY HIGH SPEED just under the surface of the lake, leaving a wake and reminding us of a torpedo, or perhaps the shark in "Jaws." In this manner, he was able to get almost all the way across the lake in one breath. Really interesting:
As soon as we got our tents pitched near the lean-to, Nick gathered some wood, assisted by Kathy and David, and started the fire. On this trip, Nick earned, in addition to his Backpack Badge, his Cherokee "nick"name for this hike: "He Who Breathes Fire," because of his skill at resurrecting a campfire from the wet ashes left by a passing shower. Here he shows his fire talents:
About 4:15, soon after we got our tents erected, the Adirondacks shared with us their talent for blessing campers and hikers with afternoon showers and thunderstorms. We heard thunder in the distance, but all we received locally were drenching showers, most lasting not more than a half hour or so. Here's a photo of one of the fiercer deluges. The lake looked like a bubbling cauldron of slate grey lava:
As the heaviest shower passed, clouds parted behind us to reveal the descending sun, which blessed us with - not just a COMPLETE rainbow, but a DOUBLE rainbow! David took this photo, which captured the nearest of the two rainbows but couldn't pick up the fainter, second one. The rainbow seemed to complete our thought that this lake was like paradise:
As the sun peeped back out between showers, we started to prepare dinner. David offered to take a selfie of us, sitting in our watertight shelter:
After dinner, we watched the fire and enjoyed alternating rainshowers and sunset colors. We turned in fairly early and didn't have much trouble falling asleep after the day's adventures.
Morning on Day Two dawned clear, calm and beautiful. The rising sun poured into our campsite from across the lake, and we got some beautiful colors and mists:
The water was still, we could see the entire lakeshore mirrored, with puffs and streams of mist appearing and disappearing in the air above the trees, and low on the lake surface:
Here is a photo of our campsite from behind, with one of those erratic rocky presences keeping guard over us:
As we began our trek on the second day, we found the ground damper and the boggy areas wetter than the previous day, but the sunny morning weather kept our spirits undampened. Nick and Kathy even did little dances as they hopped rocks on the numerous stream crossings:
We made our way around the loop and into camp at the second shelter, on Middle Branch Lake, just after noon, leaving us plenty of time to loll about and explore:
This early arrival was good, because the afternoon showers started earlier on this second day. By 2:30 we were getting pounded with rain. Kathy and David originally decided to have Nick put his tent up inside the lean-to (allowing the tent screening to protect against stray mosquitos and black flies), but found a spot up the hill to pitch our tent. Midway through the first flood of rain, we realized we had calculated wrong, because there was so much rain, even within an hour or so, that the flat spot we found for our tent was bound to get flooded. We were concerned that our sleeping bags, which we put out in the tent to permit them to reloft, might be getting wet without any moisture protection other than the tent floor and ground cloth. As soon as a break came, David raced up and rescued the sleeping bags - still dry thankfully. Later, in another break in the rain, we brought the tent itself down, to set in the lean-to alongside Nicks after dinner.
Meanwhile, there were sunny moments, and in the earliest one, Kathy and Nick found the chance to take their boots off and dip their tootsies in the cool water. Kathy thought about taking a swim - tried to tempt David and Nick into it although each declined - and did finally dip her head in to cool off.
Kathy didn't mention it as we approached the junction for the spur trail to the Middle Branch Lake lean-to, but she spotted a black bear paw print and some bear scat along the trail. She didn't want to unduly alarm Nick. However, Nick himself had seen the paw print, so there was no secret. We hung our food and equipment from a tree branch as our usual bear-bag precaution, and neither we nor the food was disturbed by ursine interlopers during the night.
We woke up on Day Three to a heavy, overcast sky, humid and possibly threatening more rain at any minute. As we packed up our camping gear, some of the half dozen loons that populate Middle Branch Lake serenaded us with their crazy songs. They seemed to be saying that, while the rainstorms may have dampened spirits a little, nothing could dampen the spirit of the loons - or the awe their calls provoke in our hearts.
We regularly spotted sprinkles on the lake and were sure that our hike out (which was the longest of the three days) would be wet of foot and body. However, we were very lucky: we experienced no rain, and only got our feet wet because many stretches of trail were little ponds or streams from the two or three days of constant rainshowers. But our spirits were high and the weather just warm enough, so we whistled and sang and chatted and marched along the whole way out.
We met two groups of day-hikers as we circled around toward the trailhead. With some cheery chat and farewells, we continued on, reaching the truck by a little after noon.
What does any good backpacker do almost immediately after completing a backpack? FEAST! And so we did at the first diner that came our way on the drive back to our RV. Here, Nick and Kathy are tucking into a good, big, juicy burger and a fresh and substantial taco salad, respectively:
After getting home, we feasted on leftovers from our pre-hike dinner, then settled down to watch the earliest of the Harry Potter movies. Afterward, it was bed-time a little earlier tonight - both because Nick had an early train to catch and because, frankly, we were narcoleptic after our hike and belly-filling meal. We all slept soundly (NOT on the ground or on a wooden lean-to floor), and were up before 7:00 am for our morning coffee and to prepare with Nick for his train ride home.
Nick, we had a great time introducing you to the joys (and the darker sides) of backpacking. Only you will be able to decide whether all the pleasures and rewards outweight the grunt-work of the hikes and the chores related to camping. But we all agreed that we had some pretty amazing adventures on this trip and we'll remember them forever!
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