Buckhorn Lake Snowshoe Hike

I signed Randy and myself up for a snowshoe hike to Buckhorn Lake for this morning. We went with a NYS Registered Guide, Mary Ellen Blakey. She organized a group, counting herself, of 6 for the hike. She brought along another guide, Chuck, who is part of thePiseco Guide Service. Also on the trip was Bob an older man, very experienced in the woods and a nice older lady, Gloria?, who runs the Family Tree Gift Shop and Cafe in Speculator. The temp was 8 degrees when we started with some wind. It probably made it up to 15 degrees by noon but the wind had picked up so the hike was a little cold but not too bad as long as you could keep the wind off. We had 7 - 8 inches of snow yesterday so we had some dry powder to hike through, easy tho as someone had snowshoed the trail yesterday. We went south on the Northville - Lake Placid trail to Buckhorn Lake. Very pretty and we spotted 4 osprey nests and some blue heron nests. the guides brought hot tea for our rest stop, which I thought quite nice. Randy did very well considering how easily he gets cold and that today was his 1st winter hike. We got back to the trailhead without incident about 1:15pm or so. Then went to the Family Tree for a lunch. Very nice food and the family running the place was very friendly.