Good evening on this chilly late summer evening. Already down to 43 degrees and clear. Heading 38 degrees by daybreak. While the colors are just starting to turn in the Tug Hill and Western Adirondacks, they certainly will accelerate with the cooler nights of recent.

The morning was cloudy and cold. I wasn’t feeling that great with a cold and sore throat kind of knocking me out. But around 11 AM it cleared out and I had a nice breakfast of grilled sausage and eggs. Eventually I got up and going,   packed up and headed over to Whetstone Gulf Trail.

I hiked the South Rim Trail over to the Overlook then halfway back to Corrigan Hill Road. It was a nice hike and my ankle was fairly strong but I also wore my ankle brace. A bit sore at the end of the hike but by evening was fine. I drank plenty of fluids which kept my throat from getting too dried out.

Later I hiked inside the gorge. With the campground closed, they also had the Day Use Area gated up. But you could still walk inside the gorge. The upper end of the developed area in the gorge, was a mess as earlier this year a landslide caused Whetstone Creek to reroute through the picnic area, leaving tables dumped around everywhere. I hiked beyond the developed area along the old trail, deep into the glen. No remarkable views, but a pretty, deep glen. My cellphone battery was dead, but I got photos on my Digital SLR camera. Will post these photos later on.

It took a while for my phone to charge so I didn’t have my GPS mapping app to find my way to Whetstone Reservoir. I missed a turn but I remembered the directions later on and turned around. I got up to the Whetstone Reservoir and found it was drained. I am guessing that they drained it to reduce the flow when fixing the park below, or maybe to fix the causeway, or maybe because the dam was damaged in the same storm that damaged the park below.

I proceeded to get lost trying to find the causeway across the reservoir without my phone GPS. I took a wrong turn and ended up on North Road, heading south through the Lesser Wilderness State Forest. Beautiful state lands with a lot of marshes and boreal forest, but not exactly where I was planning on going. Spotted two ring-necked pheasants along the road. Eventually my phone charged up enough and booted up. I found my way to the Causeway across Whetstone Reservoir and what used to some beautiful views of the area was now just mud flats. Hopefully, they’ll restore the reservoir by next summer. Jesse told me that the fishing was fairly crappy there as it’s so shallow but the DEC says it’s stocked with large mouth bass and tiger muskie. Oh, well.

Puttered around the dirt roads up there for a bit, hoping to find a dirt road back to NY 177 and then Lowville but the road I was on, while appearing to be a through road on the often very out of date topographic map either petered out or became rough enough when I reached another portion of Lesser Wilderness State Forest, I turned around and went back over Graves Road and through the middle of Maple Ridge Wind Farm. People talk about wind being wonderful but it really is just another industrial source of energy with many of the same impacts as fracking. Wind turbines are noisy and cast shadows. But at least they’re carbon free once constructed. Some nice hunting cabins and pretty rural land up there.

Drove to Lowville and got cough medicine. Got back to camp and started a fire, cooked up some hot chilli with corn, kielbasa, and cheese. With cold milk, tasted good. Sat by the fire for a few hours but retired to the truck around 10 PM as it was getting cold and I was tired. And now I finishing up this blog post under the covers…. Good night!