A Long Weekend in the Southern Adirondacks (Part I of III)

One of the best parts about owning a camp in the Adirondacks is your freedom to come and go as you please. No reservations, no worrying about showing up on time, or leaving early. Just coming and going as you please. This weekend was one of those such occasions.

I had finished a short week of training on AP Environmental Science and planned a quick trip to our camp on Friday morning, coming back Sunday night or Monday morning, we hadn’t yet decided.

We left a little bit later than I would have liked on Friday morning, around 10am, and pulled in to our camp exactly three and a half hours later. The kids took a few turns on the zipline as I unloaded our clothes and not much longer than we arrived, we were off again. This time heading to Speculator to pick up some groceries and figure out how we were going to spend the rest of the day.

We only ended up getting a few items: Uncrustables, a bag of apples, and a new book. We, and by we I mean I, decided that our first hike would be off of Perkins Clearning, a long way back on a dirt road leading to state land. I gave the girls a few options and they only needed to know which was the closest before choosing Pillsbury Mountain. Pillsbury Mountain is located in the Jessup River Wild Forest along the West Canada Lakes Wilderness. It’s a short and straight, but steep, hike up the mountain to a waiting fire tower and what’s left of the caretaker’s cabin. The cabin was actually being dismantled this summer so it was apparent how much was actually left.

We didn’t expect anyone out on the trail. It was a hot day and the area isn’t known for as many visitors as the high peaks area to the north. We were surprise to see nearly a dozen cars in the parking area heading off on their own wilderness adventures.

We dutifully signed in to the register and immediately started hiking downhill to cross the Miami River of Hamilton County. The girls loved crossing the decent sized stream over a newer bridge as we headed up the mountain.

The trail immediately started increasing in elevation after the crossed the bridge, and the lower few hundred feet consisted of mud. The girls were not happy, but we trudged on. Shorts after the mud subsided, we continued up the path and were greeted by a number of small toads and wild mushrooms. Addy had no problem voicing her concern about the elevation change, “I want someone to carry me”. I offered to put her on my shoulders, but she declined “in your arms”. I made it perfectly clear that I would do no such thing. Not because I didn’t want to, but because she was heavy and honestly she’s in better shape than me so there was no way I would be able to carry her more than a few hundred feet.

The trail wasn’t long. Maybe 1.6 miles from the trailhead to the fire tower. We continued despite the whining. At this point I was getting a little warm and decided to take a drink of water. As I reached for my 32oz Nalgene water bottle, I realize I didn’t have it. It was still sitting in the back of my truck. That’s okay, we still have two 16oz bottles of water to share among the three of us and a brand new Sawyer water filter waiting to be used. If there were a source of water.

Once Emily started questioning how much further (we were only about 1/3 of the way up) did we decide to turn back. Neither of the girls were having fun and I didn’t have any water. So we took a quick picture on a cool rock as our “summit” and turned back around. I’ve never seen them so happy as when we stopped going uphill. Practically leaping downhill, we made it back to the Miami River much quicker than we had started. This time we decided to spend a few minutes wading in the water and cooling off before the short, stair-stepped, climb back to the parking area.

We walked back up the “steps” to our parked car and my waiting water. The girls were exhausted and so was I so we headed right back to town in Speculator. The girls and I rested on our 30 minute or so drive back into town where we took a short break at the Speculator playground and a walk to the beach on Lake Pleasant across the street.

On our way back to camp, we decided to stop by the day-use area of Piseco Lake to eat our dinner. Bad idea. It looked beautiful, as usual, but the no-see-ums, or biting midges were out in full force, forcing us to abandon our dinner plans for the car before we could finish. It didn’t take much time to get back to camp and we started a quick fire for roasted marshmallows before heading to bed.