First beaver pond southwest of Cracker Pond

The following is a description of an eight-day bushwhacking adventure into some of the most remote areas within the Five Ponds Wilderness in the northwestern Adirondacks. The trip includes traversing areas of intense blowdown along the oddly-shaped Oven Lake, exploring a cluster of wilderness ponds and following the wild Robinson River. The first part of day five includes observing river otters on Oven Lake before bushwhacking to Cracker Pond.

Section Stats:
Date: July 2, 2011
Length: 0.9 miles (0.9 miles for the day)
Difficulty: Easy

Bright sunlight and warm temperatures greet me on my sixth day within the remote interior of the Five Ponds Wilderness. Now that I visited my primary destination of Oven Lake, it was time to start looking forward to the small ponds located to the north. On today’s agenda was Cracker Pond, the largest and southernmost of the three ponds.

I go through my usual early morning ritual at my campsite at the very northern tip of Oven Lake. Since today’s bushwhack is a relatively short one (providing there are not any arduous blowdowns to fight through), I was in no hurry to get an early start to the day.

I listen to the morning chorus for a considerable amount of time as I ponder about today’s trek. Northern waterthrush, white-throated sparrow, winter wren, olive-sided flycatcher are just a few of the species I hear from my campsite among the dense young hardwood trees.

When I finally exit my comfortable sleeping bag, I head immediately for my food bag. The light dinner due to my late lunch yesterday has left my famished this morning. I found myself dreaming of oatmeal and brown sugar last night and I was bound and determined to have them as soon as humanly possible.

While down near the water’s edge attempting to get the knot out of the food rope, I am distracted by a female hooded merganser and her 6 ducklings swim through the channel. When the mother finally notices my presence, she quickly leads the little downy ducklings off into the shrubbery along the water’s edge. They quickly disappear within the dense growth along the far shore, never to be seen again.

After finishing my breakfast and packing up my belongings, I went down near the water’s edge to sit and enjoy what could possibly be my last view of Oven Lake. While standing there admiring the scenery, I heard some squeaking coming from down the channel out toward the lake. I spot something swimming around out in the lake, so I imitate the squeaking as best as I am possible. I continue the imitation while retrieving my compact binoculars from their case on my backpack’s hipbelt.

With the binoculars I can see the wake of three different animals swimming quickly in my direction. There can be no mistaking it; the three river otters are obviously curious about my imitation and are coming to investigate.

They swim right up within about three feet of shore, obviously unable to figure out what is making the squeaking noises. I try to remain as motionless as possible, except for the taking of pictures with my digital camera. But when the biting mosquitoes become unbearable I am forced to act in a semi-violent manner in the form of a good old-fashioned swatdown.

The otters react immediately to my sudden movement, hastily moving back out into the water. No matter how much I squeak, they fail to be as interested as they were before my performing an “Adirondack wave.”

One seems larger than the other two, so I assume it is a mother and two young. This seems likely especially since the larger one seemed to be the least curious of the three. Before long the otters swim down the channel and I lose track of them completely.

River otters on Oven Lake

With the excitement of the otters over, I set my compass to 42 degrees and start my trek toward Cracker Pond. Immediately, I bushwhack through the dense young hardwoods surrounding my campsite. I pull away from the water as the vegetation appears to be less dense just a little distance to the northwest.

Unfortunately, I encounter a moderate amount of blowdown soon after leaving my campsite. Most of the downed trees are large eastern white pines or yellow birches. Based on the condition of the downed logs these blow downs must be the result of the 1995 Microburst. Just like all the others in this area.

Despite the blowdowns there are still quite a few large mature trees left standing. Most of these are yellow birches and other hardwoods; it appears most of the white pines did not survive the violent 16-year old storm.

The mature forest slowly transitions to a less-mature forest dominated by American beech. The birds are much more active here than in the prior mature forest. Black-throated green warbler, blackburnian warbler, winter wren, hermit thrush and ovenbird sing frequently, while a yellow-bellied sapsucker drums somewhere in the distance.

Beech forest between Oven Lake and Cracker Pond

Within an hour of departing from my northern Oven Lake campsite, I exit the uninterrupted forest at the southwestern end of a small beaver pond. This is the first of two small beaver ponds along my route to Cracker Pond, at least according my aerial photographs. Only scattered coniferous trees remain in this corner of the pond obviously due to past beaver activity. A beaver trail exits the water and weaves through the dense fern cover here before disappearing off into the surrounding forest. The distinctness of the trail suggests a beaver may still be active here, or perhaps other animals are using it to gain access to the water.

Despite using the beaver trail to quietly approach the pond, a single duck takes flight. It flies off to the northeast leaving me little opportunity to identify it to species. Perhaps I will get another opportunity with the duck when I arrive at Cracker Pond.

The beaver pond’s water is crystal clear, revealing its shallow depth and mucky bottom. Snags of various sizes emerge from the water, scattered around near the shoreline. Several logs crisscross each other, some at the surface and others submerged in the clear water.

Cracker Pond

After retreating back into the forest, I resume my original bearing toward Cracker Pond. As I pass the second pond, I avoid another pile of moose droppings. It appears the moose in the area do not just stick to the regenerating blow down around Oven Lake. I may still get an opportunity to see one on this trail after all.

Following the shoreline of the beaver ponds eventually led to the southwest corner of Cracker Pond. Come back later in the week to read about my exciting adventure of laundry and personal hygiene near the shore of this remote pond in the heart of the Five Ponds Wilderness.

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