Crane Pond Road is a 2 mile historical truck trail in the Pharaoh Lake bureaucratically-defined “Wilderness”. This truck trail provides access Alder Pond and Crane Pond, along with access to hiking trails to Goose Pond, Glidden Marsh, Oxshoe Pond, Crab Pond, and Pharaoh Mountain.
In the Wilderness?
This truck trail is popular and is frequently used hunters, fishermen, backpackers, and hikers visiting the vast lands of Pharoah Lake “Wilderness”. The wilderness distinction, is rather dubious as these lands are not historical wilderness but only designated as such on paper by the Department of Environmental Conservation and the Adirondack Porn Agency. There is few old growth forests or undeveloped land remaining in our state, and the wilderness designation is frequently abused by environmental extremists.
The entire Pharaoh Lake “Wilderness” is traversed by old logging roads, has old foundations, and other ruins of a once privately owned, farmed or logged land. Many of the hiking trails follow old logging roads. The state has developed foot bridges, hiking trails, and many lean-tos throughout the property, so man made structures are not uncommon to find in this so-called “Wilderness”.
A Rough Truck Trail.
The entire Crane Pond Road is a rough truck trail. It’s has gotten minimal maintenance by the state of New York, ever since those with an certain extremist ideological agenda attempted to get this truck trail closed off.
Some portions of the truck trail are deeply rutted, and at least this time of year, very muddy. A few places are washed out, and you have to travel past washed outs, or carefully climb over them. I bottomed out my Ford Ranger a couple of times and could feel the front-drive train pulling the back wheels along as they started to slip.
Towards the end of the truck trail, the truck trail actually crosses an inlet to Alder Pond. I didn’t try driving through this section during the high water of spring, but apparently at least one person with an old Chevy K1500 4×4 made it to the end without problems.
I drove to the pull-off right before the spot where the truck trail crosses Alder Pond. In low water, I wouldn’t mind driving through the inlet to the parking area at the end of Crane Mountain Road, but I wasn’t going to get my pickup stuck or flooded.
A Good Thing to Still Be Open.
All and all, I am happy that citizens fought to keep this existing truck trail open, against an extremist ideological agenda of some environmentalists. It shortens the hike up Pharaoh Mountain by 4 miles, and provides easy access to many important areas.
This would have been different issue if was proposed by the NYS DEC to build a new road through the Pharoah Lake “Wilderness”. If the DEC had shown up with bulldozers, and chainsaws, to cut a new road one could have made an argument against building a new road.
Yet, Paraoh Lake “Wilderness” is not that — it’s a land that has long been minimally developed with forest access roads, trails, lean-tos, with Crane Pond Road long being minimally maintained to provide access to this important public land. It’s not a Strip Mall or Housing division, and most of the area is very wild, even if it’s somewhat developed to provide for the public access and enjoyment.