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August 30th 2013 marked my 33rd year since being forced into this world. I am not much of a party guy; I can't recall the last time I had an actual party on my birthday.
Despite my party-pooper attitude, I had planned to make the best of it this year and wanted do something I haven't done before. I have been longing to take a trip up the Oswegatchie River in the Five Ponds Wilderness for the past year or so and with permission from my wife I planned a trip starting on my birthday. She was not as excited as I was and was having all sorts of anxiety about heading up some dark and gloomy river into the middle of nowhere. I have to say she wasn't far off on the second part. It wasn't what I'd call the most cheery part of the Adirondacks.
At any rate, it was just something I've wanted to do and she obliged. I knew that I'd have to be flexible on my plans and keep her happy and not push too hard if the bugs were hungry or the weather was foul. This I know from experience and I always plan accordingly.
My grand scheme had me paddling out to High Falls and hiking to the Five Ponds, hopefully to spot an otter but my real goal was just to get a taste of paddling an Adirondack river and some sense of the northern portion of Five Ponds Wilderness, an area I've never been in.
Well I must say I certainly learned many things. Paddling a wild river is much different than paddling the ponds and lakes we usually like to go to. It held many more unexpected surprises than I had anticipated. The first of which were rapids. This is something I've never dealt with before. Luckily the ones on the Oz are pretty tame. I quickly found out that a fully loaded tandem is not going to make it up the smallest of them though. We typically wound up beaching on some rocks or running out of water to actually paddle. I'm glad we took our glass Eagle canoe because we really gave it the boots on the way up. I hit more rocks than I ever even imagined. Next time I go I will just stop and line through these 'rapids' because that is what I wound up doing anyway.
A couple of them were more challenging though. This was partly due to the water getting very deep after the shallow, rapid portion and partly due to the rocky shoreline. I wound up having to line the boat while scrambling over boulders near the shore in a couple sections. My main goal here was not to slip and break my ankle or rip my flesh on sharp rocks... it wouldn't be an easy trip back with an injury! I now see why some serious goers of this area are pretty persnickety about their foot gear.
My next experience was with beaver dams. I have more experience with these than rapids but they were very frequently encountered on the Oz and most of them required getting out and dragging across. A couple we were able to ramrod up but that was rare. Again, I am thankful for my very tough fiberglass hull.
As far as the actual trip logistics, we arrived at Inlet around 12:30pm on Friday the 30th and got on the water by about 1pm. It took us nearly 5-1/2 hours to make it to site #27, where we spent the night. I'm not sure what our goal was but we just kept going, I guess to see how far we could make it. I was jazzed and full of energy. My wife not so much. By the time we passed the second lean-to she was pretty shot and starting to get cranky. If you have been on the Oz you will know we went much farther than that... #27 is a ways up from the second lean-to. I had hoped the lean-to would be empty but both the first and second were occupied. Every other site we passed was empty though... so it was pretty lonely out there.
Thinking back my idea was to camp near where the Five Ponds trail crossed the river so we could hike out there in the morning. We were pretty close actually but there is no way to tell from the map. The Oz is so twisty and variable that some sections that looked short on the map took up to an hour, other sections that looked long, went by quick. It is something that only experience can tell you I guess.
Site #27 was pretty nice. It was very, very, very quiet. Other than a rather annoying bird who continued to sing right up to my bedtime we didn't hear or see anything. We watched the sunset through some enormous white pines and devoured our dinner. Soon the woods sank into a deep, sad darkness only brightened by our small fire and our spirits.
Speaking of spirits my wife's were quiet low. I don't think she much cared for the river. It was a bit spooky out there and without a doubt the most remote place she has been. Her mind was getting the better of her.
She was tired though. And I knew that would trump everything. Her anxiety would be overcome by exhaustion, and soon after dark our fire burned out and we retired to the tent.
In the tent my mind began to wander, and the anxieties began to filter through my brain... my thoughts were if something happened to me and she had to find her way out. I wasn't so confident she could. I often control the map, but show her where we are and where we are going, and how to get back. My fear is she would panic and hurt herself or get lost in trying to get out. I always tell people where we are going, but sometimes I really wonder if they pay attention...
Then it started to rain, and my anxieties were calmed by the tap, tap, tapping of drops of water on the rain fly... and soon I had drifted off into a deep slumber.
It rained quite a bit through the night. It woke me up a few times and apparently the Oz had not stopped playing mind games with my wife. She had dreamed the rain had raised the river and washed our boat away, and that we were stranded out in the middle of Five Ponds Wilderness. I showed her the High Falls trail on the map in the morning and assured her we'd get out if we lost the boat. Maybe my anxieties about her getting along without me were justified?
In my usual fashion, I slept in quite late on Saturday morning. The damp, dank air kept me in the tent and the lack of bright light did nothing to motivate me to get moving.
When I did emerge, I was greeted by the worst bout of mosquitoes I've encountered all year. My thought was the rain had driven them into a breeding frenzy so the females were eager to feed and find some nice standing water to lay eggs in... but what heck do I really know about mosquitoes? Nothing really other than that they bite.
The rain had stopped but the sky looked gloomy. There was still a threat of rain and by my thought, some thundershowers. It was hot and humid, but on the bright side, our boat was still sitting down by the river, safe and sound.
I had ambitions of going to High Falls and hiking to the Five Ponds on Saturday as I mentioned before but the big 3 got us. What is that you ask?
Well my wife has what she calls the big 3 for the Adirondacks:
1) Bugs
2) Heat/Humidity
3) Rain/Wet/Mud
Her moodiness is proportional to the number of the three present. At the moment we were looking at all 3 for the day. That means her tolerance for anything goes to zero and moving her through the woods becomes like pulling on the reins of a stubborn old mule.
I may not look too bright, but I'd like to think I'm smarter than the average bear and I know my wife pretty well. So I devised a plan...
I suggested we break camp and head towards High Falls. We'd see how it looks up there and possibly spend the night. I would forgo the Five Ponds hike due to possible mud/bugs and reconsider the next day on the way back.
She agreed to this plan and looked less somber. We packed up our wet tarp and tent, tossed it in the boat and were on our way up river again. Little did I know we wouldn't make it very far.
We soon encountered some other riffles that required getting out of the boat and lining. I should also mention another Oz pitfall I encountered: Sand Bars. It isn't always best to go straight down the middle as I found out. A couple times we beached the boat on a shallow sand bar only to see there was deep water on both edges... lesson learned.
The next set of riffles we came up to were a bit stronger. These rapids probably have a name but I have no reference for that. They were the ones at the Five Ponds trail bridge. Lining looked a bit hairy due to the deep water directly after, and getting in the boat right away is recipe for being swept right back down. It looked as though the best way was to portage around. Because I hadn't anticipated portaging, we packed our gear quite differently and had a ton of loose dry bags instead of large packs containing them. This seemed like a lot of work, and I didn't know how many more times we'd have to do this until High Falls. I looked at my wife's grimace and gently asked he what she'd like to do. Her reply had been as it had been the whole time: "It is your B-day weekend; we can do whatever you want." A very nice response you might think but it was utter BS. Her face was saying let’s go back, I hate wild rivers!
Despite my party-pooper attitude, I had planned to make the best of it this year and wanted do something I haven't done before. I have been longing to take a trip up the Oswegatchie River in the Five Ponds Wilderness for the past year or so and with permission from my wife I planned a trip starting on my birthday. She was not as excited as I was and was having all sorts of anxiety about heading up some dark and gloomy river into the middle of nowhere. I have to say she wasn't far off on the second part. It wasn't what I'd call the most cheery part of the Adirondacks.
At any rate, it was just something I've wanted to do and she obliged. I knew that I'd have to be flexible on my plans and keep her happy and not push too hard if the bugs were hungry or the weather was foul. This I know from experience and I always plan accordingly.
My grand scheme had me paddling out to High Falls and hiking to the Five Ponds, hopefully to spot an otter but my real goal was just to get a taste of paddling an Adirondack river and some sense of the northern portion of Five Ponds Wilderness, an area I've never been in.
Well I must say I certainly learned many things. Paddling a wild river is much different than paddling the ponds and lakes we usually like to go to. It held many more unexpected surprises than I had anticipated. The first of which were rapids. This is something I've never dealt with before. Luckily the ones on the Oz are pretty tame. I quickly found out that a fully loaded tandem is not going to make it up the smallest of them though. We typically wound up beaching on some rocks or running out of water to actually paddle. I'm glad we took our glass Eagle canoe because we really gave it the boots on the way up. I hit more rocks than I ever even imagined. Next time I go I will just stop and line through these 'rapids' because that is what I wound up doing anyway.
A couple of them were more challenging though. This was partly due to the water getting very deep after the shallow, rapid portion and partly due to the rocky shoreline. I wound up having to line the boat while scrambling over boulders near the shore in a couple sections. My main goal here was not to slip and break my ankle or rip my flesh on sharp rocks... it wouldn't be an easy trip back with an injury! I now see why some serious goers of this area are pretty persnickety about their foot gear.
My next experience was with beaver dams. I have more experience with these than rapids but they were very frequently encountered on the Oz and most of them required getting out and dragging across. A couple we were able to ramrod up but that was rare. Again, I am thankful for my very tough fiberglass hull.
As far as the actual trip logistics, we arrived at Inlet around 12:30pm on Friday the 30th and got on the water by about 1pm. It took us nearly 5-1/2 hours to make it to site #27, where we spent the night. I'm not sure what our goal was but we just kept going, I guess to see how far we could make it. I was jazzed and full of energy. My wife not so much. By the time we passed the second lean-to she was pretty shot and starting to get cranky. If you have been on the Oz you will know we went much farther than that... #27 is a ways up from the second lean-to. I had hoped the lean-to would be empty but both the first and second were occupied. Every other site we passed was empty though... so it was pretty lonely out there.
Thinking back my idea was to camp near where the Five Ponds trail crossed the river so we could hike out there in the morning. We were pretty close actually but there is no way to tell from the map. The Oz is so twisty and variable that some sections that looked short on the map took up to an hour, other sections that looked long, went by quick. It is something that only experience can tell you I guess.
Site #27 was pretty nice. It was very, very, very quiet. Other than a rather annoying bird who continued to sing right up to my bedtime we didn't hear or see anything. We watched the sunset through some enormous white pines and devoured our dinner. Soon the woods sank into a deep, sad darkness only brightened by our small fire and our spirits.
Speaking of spirits my wife's were quiet low. I don't think she much cared for the river. It was a bit spooky out there and without a doubt the most remote place she has been. Her mind was getting the better of her.
She was tired though. And I knew that would trump everything. Her anxiety would be overcome by exhaustion, and soon after dark our fire burned out and we retired to the tent.
In the tent my mind began to wander, and the anxieties began to filter through my brain... my thoughts were if something happened to me and she had to find her way out. I wasn't so confident she could. I often control the map, but show her where we are and where we are going, and how to get back. My fear is she would panic and hurt herself or get lost in trying to get out. I always tell people where we are going, but sometimes I really wonder if they pay attention...
Then it started to rain, and my anxieties were calmed by the tap, tap, tapping of drops of water on the rain fly... and soon I had drifted off into a deep slumber.
It rained quite a bit through the night. It woke me up a few times and apparently the Oz had not stopped playing mind games with my wife. She had dreamed the rain had raised the river and washed our boat away, and that we were stranded out in the middle of Five Ponds Wilderness. I showed her the High Falls trail on the map in the morning and assured her we'd get out if we lost the boat. Maybe my anxieties about her getting along without me were justified?
In my usual fashion, I slept in quite late on Saturday morning. The damp, dank air kept me in the tent and the lack of bright light did nothing to motivate me to get moving.
When I did emerge, I was greeted by the worst bout of mosquitoes I've encountered all year. My thought was the rain had driven them into a breeding frenzy so the females were eager to feed and find some nice standing water to lay eggs in... but what heck do I really know about mosquitoes? Nothing really other than that they bite.
The rain had stopped but the sky looked gloomy. There was still a threat of rain and by my thought, some thundershowers. It was hot and humid, but on the bright side, our boat was still sitting down by the river, safe and sound.
I had ambitions of going to High Falls and hiking to the Five Ponds on Saturday as I mentioned before but the big 3 got us. What is that you ask?
Well my wife has what she calls the big 3 for the Adirondacks:
1) Bugs
2) Heat/Humidity
3) Rain/Wet/Mud
Her moodiness is proportional to the number of the three present. At the moment we were looking at all 3 for the day. That means her tolerance for anything goes to zero and moving her through the woods becomes like pulling on the reins of a stubborn old mule.
I may not look too bright, but I'd like to think I'm smarter than the average bear and I know my wife pretty well. So I devised a plan...
I suggested we break camp and head towards High Falls. We'd see how it looks up there and possibly spend the night. I would forgo the Five Ponds hike due to possible mud/bugs and reconsider the next day on the way back.
She agreed to this plan and looked less somber. We packed up our wet tarp and tent, tossed it in the boat and were on our way up river again. Little did I know we wouldn't make it very far.
We soon encountered some other riffles that required getting out of the boat and lining. I should also mention another Oz pitfall I encountered: Sand Bars. It isn't always best to go straight down the middle as I found out. A couple times we beached the boat on a shallow sand bar only to see there was deep water on both edges... lesson learned.
The next set of riffles we came up to were a bit stronger. These rapids probably have a name but I have no reference for that. They were the ones at the Five Ponds trail bridge. Lining looked a bit hairy due to the deep water directly after, and getting in the boat right away is recipe for being swept right back down. It looked as though the best way was to portage around. Because I hadn't anticipated portaging, we packed our gear quite differently and had a ton of loose dry bags instead of large packs containing them. This seemed like a lot of work, and I didn't know how many more times we'd have to do this until High Falls. I looked at my wife's grimace and gently asked he what she'd like to do. Her reply had been as it had been the whole time: "It is your B-day weekend; we can do whatever you want." A very nice response you might think but it was utter BS. Her face was saying let’s go back, I hate wild rivers!
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