Had a great but rainy trip last weekend (6/7-6/10) in the Adirondacks. This trip was by canoe and sleep by DIY hammocks that I put together for the friends and family.
Friday morning we drove up in the rain, unloaded the van and loaded the canoe and kayaks, in the rain.
A 9+ mile paddle brought us to campsite #26. Still raining, we set up camp and split up some down pine to start drying under the tarp. In about 30 minutes we finally had a very smoky fire.
Set up the hammocks and one tent (one isn't fully converted yet but by the end of the trip and a night of the best sleep he's had in the woods, I think I have another hammock to make)
We boiled up some water and made some Hamburger Helper dinners (dehydrated beef and a coozie work well.) Then we polished off our night caps and hit the hammocks. The rain slacked off as the sun went down and was only misting on and off by this point, hopefully we will have better weather for fishing tomorrow!
As we crawled out of our hammocks in the morning to the sound of the "tree rain", we cooked eggs and bacon and watched the mist lift off the water. No longer raining but looked like it could at any moment. Dad slipped up at the "thunder box" and put his back out so paddling into Bog Lake and trout fishing went out the window. The rest of us paddled around locally and got our lines and worms wet. We caught a few bass, my brother had a nice brookie in the kayak but as he held it up, WHOOPS!, in the lake he returned. That would be our only trout of the weekend. We cooked some hotdogs over the fire for lunch, fished some more in between passing light showers in the afternoon and had some of Babelfish5's BBQ spaghetti for dinner. (THANK YOU BF5 for the great recipes) Drank too much and went to bed... Still hoping for better weather.
Sunday we awoke to SUNSHINE!!
Dad was still laid up and sleeping off his muscle relaxers so the rest of us decided that after breakfast we would hike the trail to Grass Mountain. Hard, wet, slippery, and steep. We had a great view from the top, saw a spider that had caught his dinner (dragon fly) on a rock face. (hundreds of dragon flies flying around), ate a snack and returned to camp to fish and paddle some more. Another round of hotdogs on the fire followed and then more Hamburger Helper for dinner. More brews and bed again.
Monday we woke up to intermittent sunshine as we ate a lazy breakfast by 1030 and packed up and started paddling by 1130. I paddled out solo with dad in the bow of my tandem Bell Northwind (royalex) Of course, in good Adirondack fashion, our good weather breeze turned against us as we paddled into the wind all the way out. Made it to the lower dam by 1500 after stopping to talk to the assistant ranger Dawn for 20 minutes at the portage around the upper dam. As we were driving away, MORE RAIN. Talk about perfect timing, nothing worse that packing up rain soaked gear for 5 into a mini van. (other than not going at all)
All in all, we had a great trip. Dad says he would rather be laid up in the woods listening to the loons call over his couch at home any day. (as long as I was there to cater to him and paddle him out anyways)
(All bass were released as its not season here in NY)
Jason
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