Dense Saplings at Height of Land
My last day in the southern Five Ponds Wilderness of the Adirondack Park starts out cold, super cold. After six wet days, a couple of nice days, a couple of stretches on the Red Horse Trail, a multitude of water bodies, umpteenth stream crossings, a smattering of old campsites and many miles of bushwhacking through thick forest, it all comes down to a single very chilly morning at Hidden Lake.
And at 43 degrees Fahrenheit, I am left wondering, is this July? Or September?
It is not easy getting out of a sleeping bag at these temperatures. Apparently, the birds feel the same. Consequentially, the morning chorus is fairly brief, starting around 4:30, ending for the most part at 5:30. And it is only early July too!!
My lack of get-up-and-go has me slipping back into safety of slumbertown, where the chilly air cannot hurt me, or at least, make me uncomfortable. Maybe I will wake up again when summer returns. Or, next year, whichever comes first.
These low temperatures are no surprise, as it was bone-chilling late last night when I got up for a pee break. Despite the cold, it was a beautiful night, with the full moon so bright the surrounding forest was fully illuminated. The moonshine caste a ghostly glow over the area. All I could think about was how lovely the scene would have been if I had camped on Hidden Lake, with the moon hanging over the open water.
As I finally arose from my morning slumber, a brilliant idea dawns on me. Instead of sitting at my campsite, slowly eating my breakfast in the cold, I should pack up my gear and head down to Hidden Lake’s shore to enjoy the early morning view. At the very least, this burst of activity should warm me up some more.
Section Stats:
Date: July 3, 2015
Length: 0.9 miles (0.9 total daily miles; 39.6 total trip miles)
Difficulty: Moderate
When my body warms up enough to emerge from my sleeping bag, I start disassembling my campsite as efficiently as possible with my still frigid fingers. I get down the food bag from its hanging tree, take down the tarp and pack up my backpack for the short trek down to the lake. Before leaving, I top the whole process off with a breadcrumb right on the ground where I slept the night before.
The delay in my sleeping bag cost me valuable morning time. It is almost ten in the morning before I begin breakfast near the lake’s shoreline. Trying to make the most of my time, I alternate between eating and some photography. Unfortunately, some of my breakfast occasionally lands on my camera, but luckily does not impact the images any; at least, not as far as I can tell.
While consuming my first meal of the day some of the local fauna make themselves known. Two hooded mergansers swim out from near the outlet and move around to the mid-south shore, carefully keeping their distance for me. A common raven croaks repeatedly before flying over the water heading west, perhaps notifying the forest denizens of my presence. Mink frogs call out, their woody “cut-cut-cut” sounding like a wooden mallet pounding on one of the many logs at the shoreline.
With breakfast eaten, I pack up the last few things and prepare myself for the last day of my bushwhacking adventure. However, bushwhacking is just a minor component, as after going over a low mountain (or is it a large hill) to the north, a series of old logging roads guides me back to Raven Lake Road.
As I begin my bushwhack along Hidden Lake’s shoreline, weaving in and out of the surrounding coniferous forest, heading toward the northernmost point of the lake. It is a beautiful sunny day, unlike the majority of the time on this trip. A perfect day to enjoy time out in the outdoors, unfortunately, it will not last long; either by me making back to my car or the weather changing unpredictably.
Out of nowhere, a slice of the frontcountry slaps me in the face, breaking my wilderness illusion.
Hidden Lake fire remains
Wood pile at campsite
The charred remains of a fire lies just a few feet within the forest from the lake’s shore. A small stack of wood is nearby, apparently unused by this makeshift campsite’s last occupant. The campsite appears hastily chosen, as there is no sizeable clearing to provide a resting place for a weary traveller, with conifer branches coming from almost every direction. Perhaps it was only used for cooking fish.
When I reach the northernmost point on the lake, I set my compass bearing to 295 degrees and head for an unnamed pond south of Ginger Pond. The climbing out of Hidden Lake’s basin starts immediately as I move away from the lake. It quickly levels off for a while, before the climbing begins again in earnest.
Cliffs cause several minor detours as I climb over the shoulder of a low mountain (large hill?) separating Ginger Pond from Hidden Lake. After getting through the first set of cliffs, the terrain levels off, revealing an unanticipated wetland. I pick my way carefully across the wet area, leaping from one tiny island to another as if I were a dry frog (as opposed to a frog that enjoys moisture).
Rocky cliffs northwest of Hidden Lake
After clearing the wetland, the rock cliffs return, requiring more detours. Please, make this the last one, as this is getting way too repetitive. An occasional cut within the hillside resembles an old skidder road; whether man-made, or just my imagination, it is difficult to say. Unfortunately, each is perpendicular to my bearing, so provide no useful assistance or guidance for me.
As I near the height of land (or what I am praying will be so), the forest transforms from older trees into a stand of dense young hardwoods. Young striped maple, yellow birch, American beech, even an occasional red spruce (just to mix things up), form a nearly impenetrable barrier.
I did hope that there would not be another wetland to cross, did I not?
After a few more short climbs (totally destroying my previous height of land proclamation), a descent begins, slight as it is, but consistent. Soon the descent plummets through dense softwoods, with glimpses of open water appearing between the trees. Rather than descend through these thick conifers, I take a hard turn west on the remnants of an old skidder road that keeps to the high ground, paralleling the pond’s shoreline instead.
Old skidder road
This is not my first time here, so now my bearing, and the compass used to follow it, are no longer of much use to me. Instead, the old logging road acts as my guide westward, with the steep drop-off and the pond keeping me from straying too far when the road becomes increasingly sketchy and hard to follow.
Once clearing the pond, the forest along the steep slope becomes devoid of understory vegetation, giving me a clear view of the bottom below. Despite its steepness, I start switch-backing down it, taking my time and putting my hiking poles to full-use. I am certain another old road should be down there somewhere, which should allow me to get over to the well-worn logging road near Ginger Pond.
The steep descent abruptly stops, yielding level ground, spongy from all the moisture it absorbed over the last few days of rain. It soon gets even wetter, when I cross a small stream and find myself surrounded by some illegal campsite storage. A metal stovepipe hangs along the trunk of a tree, while in an adjacent tree hangs a large tan stuff sack, appearing to hold tent poles. Nearby, behind a large glacial erratic, a brown tarp covers a stash of other goodies, almost certainly left behind by the same group of individuals, most likely a hunting group.
Gear hanging in tree
The gear has moved from its previous location from when I came through the area in 2014, which was just a short distance to the east, near the shore of the pond I just navigated around. This is the third location where I found their loot over the last few years. Most likely they move it around to escape detection, as it is illegal to store personal property on state land. They just need to put a little more effort into hiding it though.
A short trail leads from the storage area to an old logging road. This road leads east back to an old log landing where a wood stack still stands, as it did several years ago when I came through the area. The wood is neatly stacked, and cut in such a way that suggests a chainsaw, also illegal in a wilderness area. Nearby is the old storage site, now empty of all its gear.
From one corner of the log landing, a trail climbs through a dense sapling stand up to the remains of an old logging road. Pausing here, I wonder, should I just continue out, following the old road west, or go check on original old hunters’ campsite where I first found all the stored equipment many years ago.
It is a nice sunny day, and there is plenty of time. Which would you choose?
Unnamed pond south of Ginger Pond
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