People sometimes ask me why I am so opposed to urbanization, and turning forests and farm fields into strip malls, office parks, and housing developments. Or at the same time, why I am opposed to closing off more public lands to wilderness, or what some call “neccessary reforms” and laws that will benefit the public as a whole.
My answer is simple: we are losing our freedoms, bit by bit. For every claim that every development is neccessary, that every new law is needed to reflect changing times or real needs, there is a counter point of lost freedoms, lost wilderness.
Wilderness is not a place that is baricaded off from motor vehicles, or is highly remote. It is a a place where man can live his life relatively untrammeled by other men.
Where not every part of his life is decided by strict regulations and policies that seek to control and force him or her to act in a specific way. Where a person can be free to make his or her choices, without government dicating everything her or she must do in her life.
On a nice weekend, expect many people to be joining you on the ever popular Floodwood Loop in the Saranac Lake Wild Forest. While technically not part of the Saint Regis Canoe Area, this area is considered part of series of ponds that makes up this area, and this loop is the most popular of all the canoe routes in this area.
Alternatively, take a look at this Google Map of the loop. Balloons are designed campsites, there are no charge to use these sites. Red lines are portages and other trails.
At around 10 AM I headed out. Bright sunny day, a lot of glare. None of the ponds are paticularly large.
The Fish Creek between the ponds is quite narrow, and don’t be surprised if you hit some traffic. In parts the current can be fairly swift, although one can still paddle up or down stream with relative ease, just avoid the other boats.
There is a 1/4 mile portage between Copreas Pond and Whey Pond. Despite being mostly sandy soil, with some roots, do NOT drag your kayak, if you want to avoid putting holes in it, as I learned the hard way.
There also is another short portage over a road, and through the Rollins Pond Campground, after you leave Whey Pond.
Overview of the Saint Regis Canoe Area, including other ponds and all of campsites.
And if you prefer roadside camping with a trailer or pickup truck cap, take a look at these sites.
… I hope you enjoyed these pictures and maps from the Floodwood Loop.
In the western Catskill Mountains, near Margretville and the Pepacton Reservior is Alder Lake, and old resort lake that is now State Forest, and offers primitive camping around the lake. It is backpack only in, however it is a short walk from the parking area to the approximately 7 designated primitive campsites around the lake.
The 77-acre man-made lake, is handsomely surrounded by a high mountains of the Mill Brook Range, and other unnamed mountains. It is a 6-mile hike to the east to get to Balsam Mountain, home of a fire tower.
Setting up my tent at one of the campsites.
The 1.5 mile trail around the lake has several interesting views of the lake.
Several of the campsites have stone chairs, and other things made out of natural products.
I spend so much of my life looking at mountains. I’ve spent most of my life living in the mountains, but that’s not what fascinates me the most — it’s the distant mountains. I stare and stare, looking south at the Catskills or looking west towards the many hills in Schoharie County or the Taconics to the east. Or up in Plattsburgh, it’s the Adirondack Mountains to the south and the east, and the Green Mountains to the east.
Mountains are just piles of rock pushed up by the glaciers. When your up in them most of the time they aren’t particularly special. They usually have lousy soil for farming, and it’s difficult to build buildings on them. They are good places for timber and wild life, and for those tough enough to try their hand at farming them.
There also is a human element to mountains. People work to conqueror them. They try their hardest to farm them, to climb them, to build highways up and over them. Sometimes quite unsuccessfully. As humans, it’s our job not only to conqueror but to protect them. We sometimes do a good job at that other times it left to their rugged terrain to protect themselves.
None of that ends my fascination with mountains. They are just so beautiful as those big blue hills in the distance, tinted that color for the atmosphere. Mountains always are something that are calling you to explore and at the same time, reminding you how truly small you are in comparison. They also are a challenge to climb them and do something bigger.
I spend most of my time in the mountains. But there are always mountains where I’m not on or that I have not conquered. There always are distant hills unexplored. I will go there some day, and I will climb them. I will see more how mountain people live, how the farm and embrace the land. Yet, for now I will just look into the distance.
