In search of the mysterious loon
Hey, it's time to tell a little more about last 3 day week end in the Adirondacks...
First of all, it seems like it's so remote, so out of this world... But actually, it's "just" upstate NY. Same country, same state as this crazy NYC...
So the thing is you just have to rent a car in Manhattan, drive 6-7 hours north, past smallish towns with "South Park"-like names (e.g North River, North Creek etc), and you end up in the middle of pine trees and spruce deep forests. You are in... Blue mountain lake, NY.
Actually the town was so small that there wasn't even a decent grocery store to buy water in another form than Gallon or mini bottle!
We have to drive to Long Lake to find those, and even some fuel for the stove... sigghh, relieved... this trip in the middle of nowhere was getting out of control for me...
Even on a 4th of July week end, we somehow managed to find a campsite with vacancy, next to long lake, and just had enough time to pitch the tent and make a quickie ascent of Blue Mountain (650m elevation difference). It was different than our usual US hiked: steeper and shorter. Can I say French Alps sttyle?
The next morning, we returned to Blue mountain lake to rent a canoe, drive to the bog river with the canoe on our sporty Chevy Monte Carlo coupé (why do they always give us these beautiful cars??) and we could start our real canoe trip. Paddling, paddling, paddling, carrying the canoe for a short portage, paddling, paddling... The sensations were really great, just floating on calm water, sourrounded by nature and animals noise. Almost no tourists!!
It was fairly hot and we were just thinking about diving to the water.
We met a park ranger in her kayak, and she indicated us a few campsites for the night.
Finally, we found the perfect location, the most beautiful campsite ever maybe, with a tiny beach for us, on an island, and sheltered by pine trees. The water was really warm (much warmer than the Atlantic Ocean in Montauk) and the afternoon swim was deliciously relaxing...
Just before sunset, we decided to explore our island, first on foot and then with the boat. All the animals kind of woke up at this hour. We saw a deer and her baby coming to drink at the river, and heard many strange noises. Is this a wolf? No, it must be a night owl or something... Didn't see anything so it was still a mistery...
The sky turned pink and violet, and it was absolutely beatiful... Couldn't hear or see any track of civilization around... Not even a plane in the sky...
The next morning, we woke up very early to try to encounter other animals. didn't see any big mammal, but we finally saw was thing was making this strange wolf/owl-like noise: it's the loon, a kind of small duck! They are particularly abundant in the part of the river...
So the mistery was solved, we could go back to NYC, just in time to see the 4th of July fireworks. Richard invited us at his friend's place on York Avenue, so we had a nice view, kind of the same as what was on TV at the same time! Nice fireworks, but nothing like as one to remember for a life time...
First of all, it seems like it's so remote, so out of this world... But actually, it's "just" upstate NY. Same country, same state as this crazy NYC...
So the thing is you just have to rent a car in Manhattan, drive 6-7 hours north, past smallish towns with "South Park"-like names (e.g North River, North Creek etc), and you end up in the middle of pine trees and spruce deep forests. You are in... Blue mountain lake, NY.
Actually the town was so small that there wasn't even a decent grocery store to buy water in another form than Gallon or mini bottle!
We have to drive to Long Lake to find those, and even some fuel for the stove... sigghh, relieved... this trip in the middle of nowhere was getting out of control for me...
Even on a 4th of July week end, we somehow managed to find a campsite with vacancy, next to long lake, and just had enough time to pitch the tent and make a quickie ascent of Blue Mountain (650m elevation difference). It was different than our usual US hiked: steeper and shorter. Can I say French Alps sttyle?
The next morning, we returned to Blue mountain lake to rent a canoe, drive to the bog river with the canoe on our sporty Chevy Monte Carlo coupé (why do they always give us these beautiful cars??) and we could start our real canoe trip. Paddling, paddling, paddling, carrying the canoe for a short portage, paddling, paddling... The sensations were really great, just floating on calm water, sourrounded by nature and animals noise. Almost no tourists!!
It was fairly hot and we were just thinking about diving to the water.
We met a park ranger in her kayak, and she indicated us a few campsites for the night.
Finally, we found the perfect location, the most beautiful campsite ever maybe, with a tiny beach for us, on an island, and sheltered by pine trees. The water was really warm (much warmer than the Atlantic Ocean in Montauk) and the afternoon swim was deliciously relaxing...
Just before sunset, we decided to explore our island, first on foot and then with the boat. All the animals kind of woke up at this hour. We saw a deer and her baby coming to drink at the river, and heard many strange noises. Is this a wolf? No, it must be a night owl or something... Didn't see anything so it was still a mistery...
The sky turned pink and violet, and it was absolutely beatiful... Couldn't hear or see any track of civilization around... Not even a plane in the sky...
The next morning, we woke up very early to try to encounter other animals. didn't see any big mammal, but we finally saw was thing was making this strange wolf/owl-like noise: it's the loon, a kind of small duck! They are particularly abundant in the part of the river...
So the mistery was solved, we could go back to NYC, just in time to see the 4th of July fireworks. Richard invited us at his friend's place on York Avenue, so we had a nice view, kind of the same as what was on TV at the same time! Nice fireworks, but nothing like as one to remember for a life time...
posted by Jn at
6:40 PM
RSS Feed
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home