Northville-Lake Placid Hike

Well, Elizabeth and I started out Saturday morning at the trailhead in Benson at 8am. Randy and Spot went with us for about 1/2 an hour. Randy snapped a pic of us before he and Spot went back to the car. Elizabeth and I went on. Started off at about 2 miles per hour. The hiking was pretty easy the 1st 4 hours. Saw some beautiful country, a very pretty little waterfall, etd. Stopped for lunch about 12pm. Hit Silver Lake at about 2pm. By then, Elizabeth was experiencing some pain from blisters. My ankles were starting to hurt. After Silver Lake, the hiking got much harder. At several places trees had blown down over the trail and were impossible to go around so we either had to crawl under or climb over them. Some of the climb overs were about 5 feet high. We had to take off packs, toss over the tree trunks then clamber over. After about the 4th time, I was just a little tired. As feet got worse we moved slower. By 4:30 pm, I figured we still had 4 -5 miles to go to get to Mud Lake. This location has a lean-to and if we could pick up the pace, may get there before dark. Well, the trail got no better, many "mud holes" to get around, and 3 vlei's to navigate. Naturally, due to the quantity of rain this year, at least some of the board walks across the vlei's (many thanks by the way to those brave souls who actually built them!) were under water. Makes for a slippery crossing as it was getting darker. Naturally, as dusk descended, it began to shower. At any rate, feet killing us, we finally made it to the last vlei we had to cross before coming to the lean-to at Mud Lake. We got our water there and made it to the lean-to in full dark. There was a family there, grandfather, son, brother-in-law and two boys, already in the lean-to. We set up our tents in the very nice space behind the lean-to. Ate dinner at about 9pm but I was so tired I only ate half of mine. Buried the rest. We sat for a short while with our site mates and enjoyed the camp fire they made then we went to bed. Up on Sunday at 7AM. The family offered us a ride out as our feet were in bad shape. We took them up on the offer. They were going to hike out after lunch. We took our time breaking camp and at a little after 10am started out for Whitehouse. Stopped at a very nice little stream to replenish our water. We took 2 hours to go 2.5 miles to the west branch of the Sacandaga. We crossed on the suspension bridge there and ate lunch. We were relaxing on the bridge, watching the water flow by when the local ranger came by on his periodic check. We chatted about this and that and eventually got around to our story. He offered to take us to the local village, Wells, and we accepted. We left notes on the trucks of the nice family we met at Mud Lake. When we got to Wells, I gave Randy a call and he came and got us. We were home at about 3pm. This morning I confirmed a sprain in my left foot, just above the arch and just in front of my ankle. Oh well. So ends our trip. Perhaps I can break the trail into smaller sections and do it as section hikes?