Northeast Wild

  Aug 24 - Car camped at MASON LAKE for 2 nights - sites 1-4 were occupied so had to take #5 near the outlet which had a picnic table & firepit but no privy - close enough to the lake to hear loon calls. Broke camp Thursday morning then paddled this small lake with an irregular shoreline. 1 loon, gb herons, ducks; road noise from NY 30. The best part was the outlet where I found cranberries, pitcher plants, pickerelweed, & jewelweed & smartweed on a beaver dam at the end of navigation. 1.6 hours. July 18, 2005 - MASON LAKE. Camped at drive-in site on Perkins Clearing Rd (dirt) near the outlet of the lake. Hazy morning paddle - nice setting marred only by the proximity of Rt.30. 2 adult loons dove & rose to feed 2 growing but still fuzzy-looking chicks. Boggy shores along the outlet offered much interest - pitcher plants, sundews, bladderwort's yellow flowers; white fragrant & yellow pond lilies in the shallows. Visit us on Facebook Welcome to the Adirondacks NYS...

  The inspiration for this article came from a question recently asked on a Facebook paddling group. A family, new to kayaking, wanted ideas for places to paddle in the Adirondack Park that would be an easy drive from the Capital Region. There was a wide range of responses, some of them good, and some of them not so good. Since there was not a lot of background and details offered by the original poster – like ages of the children, type of kayaks being put to use, and how much time they had spent using them locally – it made it more difficult to suggest appropriate paddling locations. I could only assume that they had little experience, so a smaller lake or pond with minimal motorboat use seemed like the best choice, since they would be less likely to have issues with the wind and boat wakes. A stream or river with little current could also fit the bill. Here are some of the responses that folks made and my thoughts on each.   THE GOOD Take a lesson. It’s never a bad idea...