Streeter Fishpond

The following is an account of day six of my epic hike from Wanakena, NY to Stillwater Reservoir, Cranberry Lake and then back to Wanakena. The entire trip required backpacking via trail into the heart of the Five Ponds Wilderness, a lengthy bushwhack to the northern terminus of the Red Horse Trail and another trail hike, and then a short bushwhack to Gun Harbor on Stillwater Reservoir. The trip back followed a similar route except heading to Cranberry Lake before returning to Wanakena. The sixth day consisted of bushwhacking west from Toad Pond through the interior of the Five Ponds Wilderness to Streeter Fishpond.

Date: July 2, 2010
Length: 2.3 miles
Difficulty: Moderate (pockets of blow downs and thick conifers)

The morning was wet and cold but fortunately sunny with plenty of blue sky. Given the previous day’s arduous hike/bushwhack combined with the late day soaking shower, I was in no mood for an early start this morning. It was nearly 10 AM before I had eaten my breakfast and packed up my campsite and was ready to start my last full day of bushwhacking. Today’s bushwhack was not particularly long and entailed trekking west and crossing some familiar territory to reach Streeter Fishpond. Streeter would then act as my staging area for returning to the Five Ponds trail system the next day.

Before leaving I went out and took a final look at Toad Pond. This is a pretty wilderness water body with numerous large rocks in and along its shore. In typical Adirondack pond fashion, the shore was boggy and indistinct, and surrounded by spruce and fir. There was no evidence of civilization here and it was easy to imagine being thousands of miles from the nearest road rather than in one of the most populous states in the eastern United States. The only sound was an olive-sided flycatcher singing to the south and the ever-present buzz of the voracious mosquitoes flying around my head. It was difficult to leave as the quiet and stillness begged for a longer stay. But my woolgathering about a longer stay came to a cataclysmic ending when I considered the comfort-challenged condition of my campsite on the previous evening.

Finally, I turned away from Toad Pond and proceeded west, immediately skirting around some blow-down. After covering a short distance I came to the edge of a wetland just to the west of Toad Pond. This wetland was bordered with blow-downs and open water so I moved around it to the southwest and took to the higher ground located along a northern shoulder of a hill. Just before cresting the hill’s shoulder I passed through a forest of beautiful American beech trees with many young spruces in the understory. Upon reaching the top of the shoulder I struggled through multiple blow-downs as I attempted to work my way down to a wetland where numerous small streams merged. At point #63 I changed my bearing to 290 degrees so as to cross a single stream to the east of the wetland just in case crossing the wetland proved overly difficult.

Toad Pond

As I was setting my Silva Ranger compass I heard the begging of a nest full of famished baby woodpeckers. No other baby forest birds to my knowledge make as much noise as do a nest full of hungry baby woodpeckers. Most likely these were either yellow-bellied sapsuckers or hairy woodpeckers since these two species are the most common woodpeckers in the Adirondacks. I performed a half-hearted search of the area but I never did hone in on the nest’s location before moving on in a westerly direction. After trekking about fifteen minutes to the west I encountered a male yellow-bellied sapsucker with food and could not help but wonder if this was one of the parents of the vociferous baby woodpeckers I left behind a little ways back.

As I continued to descend to the west I encountered more blow-down. These frequent pockets of blow-down were not too arduous to get through but their frequency did start to tire me out. The lumpy and uncomfortable campsite for the previous night probably played a role in my drowsy condition too. At the top of a bump of a hill (point #64) I once again changed my bearing to try and hit the stream where it crossed a contour line on the map in the hope that the stream could be easily rock-hopped there. I returned to my descent into the low area where the seasonal stream flowed now at a bearing of 330 degrees. Or so I thought. When I ended up at a smaller bump of a hill to the west of the previous one, I realized the blow-down and the downward slope were making it difficult to keep my bearing. After navigating around a large glacial erratic (point #65) I changed my bearing to 25 degrees and once again tried to head for the stream where it crossed a contour.

American beech forest

After navigating through some thick blow-down, I finally arrived at the stream but unfortunately there was no easy rock crossing. I headed upstream to the northeast through the spruce trees lining the stream until I came to a poorly made beaver dam (point #66). As I crossed the dam I realized it was not shoddily constructed but rather it was a very new dam as there was only a small beaver pond and it was nearly choked with young trees of all kinds still sporting their entire canopy of foliage. With each of my footfalls the mud and debris of the dam compressed and the water started noisily flowing over the dam.

The sound of running water over the slightly breached dam brought a curious beaver over almost immediately after I crossed to the other side. I laid in wait behind a young conifer with my Olympus E-420 camera hoping to get a good photograph of the beaver up close. The beaver crawled up onto the dam with his nose in the air obviously catching my scent (which was undoubtedly strong given the six damp days I had been in the backcountry). Before I could spring out from behind my hiding spot, the beaver slinked back into the water with a surprising speed given his (her?) bulk. There were several splashes of his tail but the beaver never returned to the dam despite the nearly 10 minutes I continued to lay in wait.

Beaver dam

Irritated beaver

Following the stream for a short while, I finally took a new bearing of 251 degrees toward the northern side of the wetland to my southwest. I stopped near a small clearing (point #67) made by a couple of blown-down trees and decided to eat my lunch. I took off my socks, shoes and rain gear to let them dry in the sun along one of the fallen logs and I retired back into the forest a little ways. Resting comfortably and wearing my Cayman Crocs I ate my lunch, dried out and filtered water from a small, clear stream located nearby. The flute-like song of a nearby hermit thrush was pleasing to hear and undoubtedly assisted with the digestion and enjoyment of my lunch.

Wetland between Toad Pond and Streeter Fishpond

After taking a 90 minute lunch break, I packed up my dry gear and returned to my 251 degree bearing toward the wetland a short distance to the southwest. After about 10 minutes of forcing myself through dense coniferous vegetation I arrived at the open wetland (point #68). The boggy surface of the wetland was sloppy and soggy but I managed to reach the western end by hugging the northern border until open water forced me back into the thick coniferous forest. The wetland was mostly open with a few scattered snags and an occasional tall eastern white pine along its border set back into the forest a short distance. Several tree swallows flew about as they foraged for insects above the wetland vegetation and a northern flicker moved up a snag possibly in search of a meal.

By 2:30 PM I come to the first of two stream crossings. Since there was no immediate easy crossing available I headed north in search of one, hoping I would not have to go too far before finding one. After going 15 minutes or so I was able to cross on a small beaver dam (point #70). The trampled vegetation along the stream was evidence of the flooding waters from back on the first night of this trip.

Spruce forest between streams

After completing the first stream crossing, I continued west toward the stream I followed when heading toward Riley Ponds on the second day of this trip. The mature spruce forest here was dark and dank with the ground pitted with rocks, giving the entire area a remote and ancient feel. The terrain was rolling despite the lack of topography found on the topographical map. Within 15 minutes I crossed the second stream on a log (point #72) and then followed the stream’s shore south out in the open along the same route as I did on the second day of the trip. At one point I was forced to move back into the forest at a blow-down and observed one of my own foot prints in the mud. After bushwhacking a short distance, I stopped and picked up the remains of green balloon with a blue ribbon still attached.

I left the stream (point #73) and headed west again cutting over the ridge toward the outlet stream from Streeter Fishpond. Some blow-down was located along the top of the ridge but soon I reached a wetland just southeast of Streeter Fishpond. While approaching this wetland (point #74) I hear a loud crash in the distance that could only have been a tree falling. After my heartbeat returned to something approaching normal I continued on toward Streeter Fishpond at a bearing of 335 degrees.

Open area along stream

At around 4:15 PM I arrived along the eastern shore of Streeter Fishpond (point #75) after struggling through some blow-downs in the southeast corner of the pond. Streeter Fishpond is an attractive small wilderness pond with blow-downs along the southern shore. There were very few shrubs along the shore with the usual conifer trees crowding right up to the water’s edge. I observed no waterfowl but a beaver swam around the dam in the southeast corner of the pond and bullfrogs and green frogs were calling on an intermittent basis. Mosquitoes, deer flies, black flies and no-see-ums were all present at different times during the afternoon and evening.

I set up my campsite back in the forest near a large eastern hemlock tree. This was probably my most uncomfortable campsite of the trip as I neglected to notice two large hemlock roots that I would be sleeping on. A Swainson’s thrush continually sang near my campsite around dusk. During the evening I heard a barred owl to the south and in the middle of the night a northern saw-whet owl was vocalizing across the pond to the west.

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