chapter 438

7/10/2016

Adirondack Wilderness

let's go RV-ing

My first real RV experience was a winner. Winning. We burned wood for no good reason and we liked it. It was primal like going back to the cave man days. We ate, we drank, we partied. We recreated and recharged.

Colleen's sister let us share at the hugely popular NYSDEC Fish Creek Pond Campground. We were at site #275 (six photos describing on-line) but we noticed site #143 was larger and included a view of Whiteface Mountain. All the sites are good right on the water.

These ponds are included as part of the Saranac Lake Wild Forest Management Area. Andy Arthur has created a beautiful set of maps of the area. Primitive camping is  free anywhere on Adirondack Preserve Lands.

This additional website contains a lot of information about camping in this area, and there are plenty of others on-line references.

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Up Fish Creek with paddle into these "Special Waters" where no motorized vessels are allowed. Got up to Copperous Pond a 4 mile round trip and did a 5 mile round trip to upper Follensby Clear Pond.

Another Follensby Pond (access prohibited) south of Tupper Lake is where DEC began the Bald Eagle hachling program in the early 80's bringing in Alaska juveniles and placing them in established nests for native NY eagles to rear.

Future trips should include interconnecting with a bunch of remote reaches of Rollins Pond and Floodwood Pond etc via portages and small channels.

The Great Blue Herons are widespread. This one sitting in a Balsam Fir warming to the morning sun.

Found two nesting common Loons sitting on large greenish spotted eggs at shoreline on Fish Creek. Normally you can't get close except when they are protecting the nest. Careful not to annoy too much as they are a large birds that could do a some damage to you.

This Mallard Duck was also nesting presenting a peaceful scene along the shoreline.

I drifted a little closer than I'd expected to in the current but momma Mallard didn't attack. A quiet approach in a kayak seems OK to wildlife. Guess they think you are like a big duck.

Fish Creek gets hundreds of thousands of visitors each year so be mindful not to get sucked into a mass gathering mania experience where the ugly side of human nature could manifest. I was shocked by the majority of vast numbers of huge and expensive RV rigs but nevertheless, the DEC has managed to keep the experience one of communing with nature.

Fish Creek Pond history since 1920 

Ranger Terrible Terry on his Harley would catch camp speeders back in the 40's.

Vintage Photos of Adirondack Camping

NYSDEC water classifications these are top Class AA clean waters, Table I (I worked on getting these things put on line with great difficulty- it's tedious because there are hundreds of thousands of bits of information, but at least they are documented and publicly accessible)

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