St Regis quickie

[stripperguy]

With a terrible weather forecast and sunny dispositions, we packed up and headed to St Regis Pond.

Arrived at the put in and started to paddle in...promptly needed to stop to put on our rain gear.

Rain held off while we carried, but started up again in earnest as we paddled St Regis picking a campsite.

 

[stripperguy]

Set up camp (site 9) in a steady rain, and we noticed an odd glow from the west. With a low ceiling and full overcast with rain, this is what we saw!!

Quite a treat...
Had a nice campfire after dinner and called it a night.

Next morning, woke to dry skies and ground!! Even caught a fleeting glimpse of the sun.

Packed the boats with snacks, and headed out for the day.

Dawdled our way to Bear Pond, stopping at Little Long for a lunch break.

During the lunch break, my anonymous nephew had to perform a field repair on his stripped out center thwart holes.

Eventually, we ended up back at the campsite, settling in for a quiet dinner and fire.
Brawnyman's six year old son, on his first wilderness canoe trip, had too much fun. Salamanders, frogs, crayfish to be caught and inspected, logs to climb, wood to be cut...

As a ritual, we walked to the waters edge, to watch the nightly crayfish show. We then noticed some stars peeking out, ever so softly. After a bit, the sky was clearing more and more, and we even saw a minor aurora, completed with cloud muted bursts!! The aurora lasted but 20 minutes, we retreated to the campfire...

 

[stripperguy]

We slept through most of the deluge, but the rains caused us to do a quick teardown on Sunday morning.

Luckily, the rain stopped by the time we had the boats packed. Had a nice, relaxing paddle back out...

Even saw a small bald eagle on Little Clear Pond on the way out. It was perched on a white pine, and apparently didn't like the look of our boat as we paddled ever closer...

And then it was over! Nice to get out, even with a poor forecast and less than ideal weather, all had a good time...and a little boy (hopefully)has memories to last a lifetime.

Footnote: Anonymous nephew's boat looks great with its fresh coat of varnish, and it performs fantastic!!
Thanks for joining me hickoryskier, brawnyman and son, and anonymous.
Let's see if we can squeeze in another twenty years of these trips!

 

[Jim Dodd]

Awesome trip report ! Yes the little guy will cherish those memories !

Funny how the weather can make the memory ! I remember every thunderstorm I ever camped in !

Thanks for sharing such great pics !

Jim

 

[Adk Keith]

Nice Mike. What a great way to introduce the young man to camping!

 

[stripperguy]

I had been bringing my nephew with me on wilderness trips since he was 6 years old...he's now 36 and still remembers those early trips. Oh, and it's his turn to carry some of my gear!
The little guy in the photos has been wilderness camping with his mom and dad since he was two, but this was different.
It was a guy only trip, and his first canoe wilderness trip as well.

 

[Muskrat]

Great trip and great pictures. This is from last fall? What's a crawdad show? Also, is it rare to see bald eagles in your neck of the woods?

 

[Alan Gage]

What's a crawdad show?

I'm guessing it's similar to Sadie's favorite evening activity. After the sun has gone down you walk to the waters edge with a flashlight and look at all the frogs, fish, and crawdads that are in the shallow water along shore.

Nice little trip report. I have some toddler friends that I hope I can take on short canoe trips in the next couple years.

Alan

 

[stripperguy]

Great trip and great pictures. This is from last fall? What's a crawdad show? Also, is it rare to see bald eagles in your neck of the woods?

Alan is dead on...at night the crayfish crawl out from their daytime hiding spots...dozens of them. The bigger ones might be worth eating.
Bald eagles rare? Not anymore. They were decimated by use of DDT in the '60's. A breeding pair was brought to the ADK's in the '70's (Follensby Pond, soon to be acquired by NYS) and eventually flourished throughout NYS. I regularly seem them on the Mohawk and Hudson rivers here in the capital district.

 

[deerfly]

that was great, beautiful area too, looked like fall, but what, no fishing?

When I was kid my dad would make little chicken wire traps for the crayfish, now you can buy them on the internet. Put a piece of chicken neck or some gizzards in there. Usually we'd put a few traps out to have a better chance of catching enough for at least some appetizers. Check them in a few hours or in the morning. Some places we did pretty good on them. Great entertainment for kids along with the fishing and/or hunting that was going on too. Gigging bull frogs was also a big part of our nightly entertainment out there as well as setting some lines for turtles too. Needless to say we ate everything...