- Joined
- Dec 25, 2025
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After posting here looking for advice, I set out to spend a couple days solo in the ADK, trying to get in a first trip just after ice out, and make a first trip to the Adirondacks in around 20 years. I might have been a little late for that, but with scheduling conflicts, I was determined to take what I could. After some morning meetings, I jumped in the car and started driving.
I’m fairly goal-oriented, so this trip had 6 objectives:
In the early afternoon, I pulled onto the road to Little Clear. There were a lot of cars on the Hatchery road, and I was pretty unclear why. Did they know something I didn’t? Was the dirt road too muddy or impassable? Was I supposed to park on the road and carry to the boat launch? I decided to risk getting stuck and drove to the launch to find a completely empty parking lot at the end.
Later, someone told me the gate had been closed until that morning, so I’m going to (dubiously) claim that I was very first to park at Little Clear Pond this season.
I loaded up my gear; I’d stuffed a single large portage pack with my hammock and bear can and the like, but I’d also brought along a camp chair I like, an extra tarp, a steel coffee mug that weighs about a ton, and a camera bag with a decent lens, extra battery and so forth. The first problem I ran into is that it almost didn’t fit; I’d really sized the portage pack for a 17” tandem canoe and there was really only one spot I could even get into my Northwind Solo. Solved with a little bit of force to really jam it in there.
Second problem: since I only had one heavy bag, I couldn’t really trim the canoe evenly, but I figured it was good enough unless I had strong winds.
I got on the water by 2pm. The water wasn’t quite glass but it was close. I was fairly shocked that given how close the pond is to civilization it was dead silent.
It was also fairly warm as I worked my way north into Little Clear. By now it was maybe 60 out; very comfortable. The water was surprisingly warm, too. The dry suit felt pretty stupid at this point, but the problem is that I hadn’t really packed paddling clothes other than the suit. This will come up again.
Relevant to objective #6 (Commune with the loon god and tell people about my loon cult), I was greeted halfway by a mournful loon call. There’s just something about this call that’s somehow primal, almost religious. Long ago, I was an Eagle Scout and spent a ton of time in the outdoors, but for the last two or three decades I’ve spent my life mostly in front of a computer, concentrating on my career and family and things that mostly don’t involve standing up much-less canoe tripping. The loon calls here seem to say “Welcome Back, ReluctantFarmer.”
I’m not a very good photographer, but here’s two loons on Little Clear. Let’s check objective 6 off the list.
See some loons and tell people about my loon cult.
I tried to take my time on Little Clear but at some point I had to do a carry. I’d decided I’d head to Little Green or St. Regis, depending on which I happened to come to, first.
So the carry to St. Regis it was.
As it turns out, I’ve never done a substantial carry before, and I had no idea what I was in for. I’d made sure that I could carry around my 40# portage pack, so by itself that wasn’t too horrible. And I’m paddling a composite boat… but it’s a whitewater layup, and weighs another 42#.
I threw on the pack and put the boat on my shoulders and after 10 steps I knew I was in trouble. I considered doing multiple trips but this early on, was feeling pretty stubborn and just got to it. I think it took me 2 hours, but the timestamps on my photos say it was like 20 minutes. It was a very very long 20 minutes.
Along the way I saw not one, but two broken carts. So I presume that’s how most people are doing this carry. I don’t care that the paddler’s map says this was only 0.6 miles, this was super hard. Checking Objective 2 off the list.
Do a hard thing.
Finally arrived at the boardwalk into St. Regis, which I’d seen in other people’s trip reports. This felt super nice. First thing I did was jump into the muck to cool down, because, well, I’m still wearing the dry suit. I think really hard about taking it off at this point but my only other pants are at the bottom of the pack.
An eternity later I pull out my map and paddle out into St. Regis. The view of St. Regis mountain over the pond is just amazing the weather couldn’t be better (except I’d like it to be colder, because dry suit).
I have no reference, but for a wilderness area, St. Regis was moderately busy. As I took my time heading north, turning west towards the fish dam, maybe half the sites were occupied. I made note of #1 and #4 free, deciding one of those would be my fallback plan if Ochre was busy.
There was plenty of water at the fish dam. Plenty.
Enough that someone with a whitewater layup and a dry suit might be tempted to simply run the dam. Hypothetically.
After draining the swamped canoe I paddled on towards Ochre. I think it’s interesting that this waterway is barely visible on the Paddler’s map and felt privileged to be able to paddle this instead of doing another carry. Google Maps says this is technically a river but even with the high water that seems ambitious.
Along the way were two downed trees someone had helpfully chainsawed, and 4-5 small beaver dams. I had to get out and drag 3 of them but nothing too intimidating.
As I was dragging the last one, I dug out my phone to get this picture:
And then promptly dropped my phone in the river.
Like a lot of people, I have a huge portion of my life on my phone, not the least the driving directions I need to get home. So, I didn’t have a choice. I shoved the canoe back onto the dam and began to comb the bottom for anything that felt like plastic, or looked square. Would the current be enough to move the phone downstream? I didn’t know.
All in all, I spent about an hour systematically searching the water and… I found it. Still on, still working.
An hour wading with my legs and torso in the water was awfully cold, but not unmanageable and I wasn’t wet, because dry suit. I would probably have given up much faster otherwise. I’m calling that thing justified solely by getting my phone back.
Justify buying a dry suit last year.
Putting the phone away (and the incident behind me) I paddled out only Ochre and could immediately see it was empty. I scouted both camp sites and decided to take the hilly site to the north. It was earlier than I’d expected but honestly I was hungry and decided to call it a day, setting up camp overlooking the pond. Everything went up nicely.
It was clear that someone had been here a couple of days earlier (and considerately left some firewood) but I didn’t see even a single other person after I left St. Regis Pond.
A surprising amount of solitude considering it was only a few hours paddling.
Find some solitude.
I did some exploring around the camp site, and I discovered that it looks like people like to hike through here; there was clearly paths headed back to the tiny ponds that show up on my map. I didn't see anyone, however. Also, I found a brook that wasn't on my map:
Ochre was also patrolled by 1 duck who kept swimming around the pond in circles as I settled in. I’m not sure why, but am tempted to attribute complex motives to that behavior.
I watched the sunset and took some cheesy photos to “impress” my wife back home (she rolls her eyes but I think it’s funny).
You can see a lot more stars up here than down in Boston. I hadn’t forgotten what that was like, but I’d missed it.
The next morning, I set out to try paddling to Fish Pond as a morning trip. I left the boat mostly empty, and headed over to the log jam that marks the continuation of the “river”. It was very obvious that it wasn’t going to be any fun.
The bottom line is that the water was high enough but there were so many downed trees and other strainers and I’d have to drag most of this section. I pulled the canoe into the woods on the south bank, and bushwhacked a little beyond here. It looked like it opened up after maybe 100 yards but my heart wasn’t in signing up for another carry on the way back.
'
I would say this is possible at the moment if you’re willing to line and drag or are willing to use a saw. I declined.
Try paddling from Ochre to Fish ponds. - Fail
I headed back to camp to have a nap. I’d been up pretty late taking milky-way photos, and I never get to take naps back in the world.
The patrol duck was still keeping an eye on me. Google says this is a Common Merganser, but I’m not really a duck guy.
After a very early lunch rolled around it was time to pack up and head back “up river” and back to civilization. I don’t have much to say about camping stuff except hammock was plenty warm for the 30ish degree night. I’d had this expectation of surprise storms and cold winds but all in all the weather was perfect.
Test my equipment for longer trips.
I’d considered spending another night on St. Regis but the idea of doing the carry in the dark (which I’d need to do to make it home in time) sounded horrible.
I took my time getting back over the beaver dams on the way back, and the phone stayed in my bag this time. I finally met a nice fisherman at the fish dam, who mentioned he’d never seen anyone in a dry suit before. I didn’t explain that I’d found my phone or that I’d not packed any other pants. I thought it'd make me sound like a lunatic (loon pun?) so I just said I thought it'd be colder.
Back on St. Regis the winds started to pick up, but not bad. I explored around the islands a bit, aimlessly. I took some bad pictures here after not noticing I’d left it on the wrong mode.
After a bit, though, the wind picked up a little more. I was fairly surprised to see whitecaps as the wind blew out of the northwest. It was largely at my back as I started to head towards the carry again, but when I had to turn east around camp site #1 a couple of them were high enough to go over the bow. Remember 1500 words ago when I mentioned not really being able to trim the canoe? With my pack in the front of the boat, it really wasn’t how I’d like it if I knew I was going to get whitecaps over the side and wind at my back.
But honestly, other than needing to keep my camera bagged it was fine. This does mean there really are no more pictures.
I got back to the carry and this time I made two trips. I was just too sore for a #80 portage this time.
As I was leaving a tandem was just starting to head north into the whitecaps. I wonder how they did. Little Clear was uneventful but another loon said goodbye as I was taking out at the parking lot.
Bottom line:
Find some solitude.
Do a hard thing.
Test my equipment for longer trips.
Justify buying a dry suit last year.
Try paddling from Ochre to Fish ponds. -
Commune with the loon god and tell people about my loon cult.
I wish I’d had more time on the water and less time carrying, and I think I learned a valuable lesson about how much I like portaging (not at all). I'd been planning to do the Moose River Bow trip with this setup and the 1.25 mile carry. No, I don't think I'm going to be doing that.
The paddle between St. Regis and Ochre was really a great recommendation, and really appreciate everyone who gave me advice. No bugs. I’ll be back for sure.
I’m fairly goal-oriented, so this trip had 6 objectives:
- Find some solitude.
- Do a hard thing.
- Test my equipment for longer trips.
- Justify buying a dry suit last year.
- Try paddling from Ochre to Fish ponds.
- See some loons and tell people I like loons.
In the early afternoon, I pulled onto the road to Little Clear. There were a lot of cars on the Hatchery road, and I was pretty unclear why. Did they know something I didn’t? Was the dirt road too muddy or impassable? Was I supposed to park on the road and carry to the boat launch? I decided to risk getting stuck and drove to the launch to find a completely empty parking lot at the end.
Later, someone told me the gate had been closed until that morning, so I’m going to (dubiously) claim that I was very first to park at Little Clear Pond this season.
I loaded up my gear; I’d stuffed a single large portage pack with my hammock and bear can and the like, but I’d also brought along a camp chair I like, an extra tarp, a steel coffee mug that weighs about a ton, and a camera bag with a decent lens, extra battery and so forth. The first problem I ran into is that it almost didn’t fit; I’d really sized the portage pack for a 17” tandem canoe and there was really only one spot I could even get into my Northwind Solo. Solved with a little bit of force to really jam it in there.
Second problem: since I only had one heavy bag, I couldn’t really trim the canoe evenly, but I figured it was good enough unless I had strong winds.
I got on the water by 2pm. The water wasn’t quite glass but it was close. I was fairly shocked that given how close the pond is to civilization it was dead silent.
It was also fairly warm as I worked my way north into Little Clear. By now it was maybe 60 out; very comfortable. The water was surprisingly warm, too. The dry suit felt pretty stupid at this point, but the problem is that I hadn’t really packed paddling clothes other than the suit. This will come up again.
Relevant to objective #6 (Commune with the loon god and tell people about my loon cult), I was greeted halfway by a mournful loon call. There’s just something about this call that’s somehow primal, almost religious. Long ago, I was an Eagle Scout and spent a ton of time in the outdoors, but for the last two or three decades I’ve spent my life mostly in front of a computer, concentrating on my career and family and things that mostly don’t involve standing up much-less canoe tripping. The loon calls here seem to say “Welcome Back, ReluctantFarmer.”
I’m not a very good photographer, but here’s two loons on Little Clear. Let’s check objective 6 off the list.
I tried to take my time on Little Clear but at some point I had to do a carry. I’d decided I’d head to Little Green or St. Regis, depending on which I happened to come to, first.
So the carry to St. Regis it was.
As it turns out, I’ve never done a substantial carry before, and I had no idea what I was in for. I’d made sure that I could carry around my 40# portage pack, so by itself that wasn’t too horrible. And I’m paddling a composite boat… but it’s a whitewater layup, and weighs another 42#.
I threw on the pack and put the boat on my shoulders and after 10 steps I knew I was in trouble. I considered doing multiple trips but this early on, was feeling pretty stubborn and just got to it. I think it took me 2 hours, but the timestamps on my photos say it was like 20 minutes. It was a very very long 20 minutes.
Along the way I saw not one, but two broken carts. So I presume that’s how most people are doing this carry. I don’t care that the paddler’s map says this was only 0.6 miles, this was super hard. Checking Objective 2 off the list.
Finally arrived at the boardwalk into St. Regis, which I’d seen in other people’s trip reports. This felt super nice. First thing I did was jump into the muck to cool down, because, well, I’m still wearing the dry suit. I think really hard about taking it off at this point but my only other pants are at the bottom of the pack.
An eternity later I pull out my map and paddle out into St. Regis. The view of St. Regis mountain over the pond is just amazing the weather couldn’t be better (except I’d like it to be colder, because dry suit).
I have no reference, but for a wilderness area, St. Regis was moderately busy. As I took my time heading north, turning west towards the fish dam, maybe half the sites were occupied. I made note of #1 and #4 free, deciding one of those would be my fallback plan if Ochre was busy.
There was plenty of water at the fish dam. Plenty.
Enough that someone with a whitewater layup and a dry suit might be tempted to simply run the dam. Hypothetically.
After draining the swamped canoe I paddled on towards Ochre. I think it’s interesting that this waterway is barely visible on the Paddler’s map and felt privileged to be able to paddle this instead of doing another carry. Google Maps says this is technically a river but even with the high water that seems ambitious.
Along the way were two downed trees someone had helpfully chainsawed, and 4-5 small beaver dams. I had to get out and drag 3 of them but nothing too intimidating.
As I was dragging the last one, I dug out my phone to get this picture:
And then promptly dropped my phone in the river.
Like a lot of people, I have a huge portion of my life on my phone, not the least the driving directions I need to get home. So, I didn’t have a choice. I shoved the canoe back onto the dam and began to comb the bottom for anything that felt like plastic, or looked square. Would the current be enough to move the phone downstream? I didn’t know.
All in all, I spent about an hour systematically searching the water and… I found it. Still on, still working.
An hour wading with my legs and torso in the water was awfully cold, but not unmanageable and I wasn’t wet, because dry suit. I would probably have given up much faster otherwise. I’m calling that thing justified solely by getting my phone back.
Putting the phone away (and the incident behind me) I paddled out only Ochre and could immediately see it was empty. I scouted both camp sites and decided to take the hilly site to the north. It was earlier than I’d expected but honestly I was hungry and decided to call it a day, setting up camp overlooking the pond. Everything went up nicely.
It was clear that someone had been here a couple of days earlier (and considerately left some firewood) but I didn’t see even a single other person after I left St. Regis Pond.
A surprising amount of solitude considering it was only a few hours paddling.
I did some exploring around the camp site, and I discovered that it looks like people like to hike through here; there was clearly paths headed back to the tiny ponds that show up on my map. I didn't see anyone, however. Also, I found a brook that wasn't on my map:
Ochre was also patrolled by 1 duck who kept swimming around the pond in circles as I settled in. I’m not sure why, but am tempted to attribute complex motives to that behavior.
I watched the sunset and took some cheesy photos to “impress” my wife back home (she rolls her eyes but I think it’s funny).
You can see a lot more stars up here than down in Boston. I hadn’t forgotten what that was like, but I’d missed it.
The next morning, I set out to try paddling to Fish Pond as a morning trip. I left the boat mostly empty, and headed over to the log jam that marks the continuation of the “river”. It was very obvious that it wasn’t going to be any fun.
The bottom line is that the water was high enough but there were so many downed trees and other strainers and I’d have to drag most of this section. I pulled the canoe into the woods on the south bank, and bushwhacked a little beyond here. It looked like it opened up after maybe 100 yards but my heart wasn’t in signing up for another carry on the way back.
'I would say this is possible at the moment if you’re willing to line and drag or are willing to use a saw. I declined.
I headed back to camp to have a nap. I’d been up pretty late taking milky-way photos, and I never get to take naps back in the world.
The patrol duck was still keeping an eye on me. Google says this is a Common Merganser, but I’m not really a duck guy.
After a very early lunch rolled around it was time to pack up and head back “up river” and back to civilization. I don’t have much to say about camping stuff except hammock was plenty warm for the 30ish degree night. I’d had this expectation of surprise storms and cold winds but all in all the weather was perfect.
I’d considered spending another night on St. Regis but the idea of doing the carry in the dark (which I’d need to do to make it home in time) sounded horrible.
I took my time getting back over the beaver dams on the way back, and the phone stayed in my bag this time. I finally met a nice fisherman at the fish dam, who mentioned he’d never seen anyone in a dry suit before. I didn’t explain that I’d found my phone or that I’d not packed any other pants. I thought it'd make me sound like a lunatic (loon pun?) so I just said I thought it'd be colder.
Back on St. Regis the winds started to pick up, but not bad. I explored around the islands a bit, aimlessly. I took some bad pictures here after not noticing I’d left it on the wrong mode.
After a bit, though, the wind picked up a little more. I was fairly surprised to see whitecaps as the wind blew out of the northwest. It was largely at my back as I started to head towards the carry again, but when I had to turn east around camp site #1 a couple of them were high enough to go over the bow. Remember 1500 words ago when I mentioned not really being able to trim the canoe? With my pack in the front of the boat, it really wasn’t how I’d like it if I knew I was going to get whitecaps over the side and wind at my back.
But honestly, other than needing to keep my camera bagged it was fine. This does mean there really are no more pictures.
I got back to the carry and this time I made two trips. I was just too sore for a #80 portage this time.
As I was leaving a tandem was just starting to head north into the whitecaps. I wonder how they did. Little Clear was uneventful but another loon said goodbye as I was taking out at the parking lot.
Bottom line:
Do a hard thing.
Test my equipment for longer trips.
Justify buying a dry suit last year.
Try paddling from Ochre to Fish ponds. -
I wish I’d had more time on the water and less time carrying, and I think I learned a valuable lesson about how much I like portaging (not at all). I'd been planning to do the Moose River Bow trip with this setup and the 1.25 mile carry. No, I don't think I'm going to be doing that.
The paddle between St. Regis and Ochre was really a great recommendation, and really appreciate everyone who gave me advice. No bugs. I’ll be back for sure.
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