Girls' Hike

Those of you who follow this blog may recall that last year Randy and I took our niece Emily and my 4H'er, Haleigh, on a 2 day hike. See: Friday, July 11, 2008
2 day Overnight with niece. Well, after that hike, the girls said they'd like to do a 2 night, 3 day hike. So early this spring, we got together and planned out this year's hike.

On Aug 11, we started our hike, minus Randy. He had his fill of long distance, multi-day hikes with last year's adventure. Anyway, Emily and Haleigh got to our house before 8am and we said good-bye's to moms and piled in the car and headed the 10 miles to the Benson trail head of the Northville - Lake Placid trail. The plan: to hike from Benson to Silver Lake on day 1, Silver Lake to Whitehouse on day 2, then out to Rt 8 at Piseco on day 3.

Randy took the traditional, start of hike picture and we were on our way by 0850.


Emily started the hike recovering from a bout of cold and fever so her pack (a Gossamer Gear ultralite) weighed 7.2 pounds. Haleigh, using a conventional pack, was carrying about 16 (?) pounds. My pack, another Gossamer Gear, weighed 32 pounds as I was carrying both my tent and the girls tent plus all my gear, safety and emergency and 1st aid gear. Ugh.

The day seemed to go by pretty quickly. We saw 5 people on the trail; one family of 3and 2 male hikers. We got to Silver Lake by about 2pm. We took a short break at the lean to, then explored around it. We were sort of hoping for a campsite near the water, looking for a breeze to help keep the mosquitoes at bay. No such luck. Therefore - we set up camp in the lean to. We spent the next hour relaxing; Emily and Haleigh played a few games of cards. We finaly went down to the lake where we filled water bottles for supper time. Then spent some time gathering wood for a camp fire. At about 5pm, we made dinner. Wash up was only a cup and 3 spoons as we mostly ate out of the back packer meal bags.

A little after 6pm, we experimented with the little flint on the bottom of the Walmart orange emergency match holder. With the back side of my pocket knife, we tried to strike the flint hard enough to spark. We couldn't do it. Th flint wasn't high enough above the plastic and striking the flint hard caused the blade to fold in. Overall the experiment in emergency fire starting was a bust. However, it is good to find out that the emergency flint is useless and not to be relied upon. I'm hoping to try a fire bow experiment tomorrow.

We spent some more time just lazing about after starting the campfire in the conventional way. It was too early of course, as the sun was still up but it was a nice little fire given the wet wood. We all enjoyed it. The girls were fast asleep by 8:30pm (just dark). I enjoyed the last embers of the fire and turned in myself about 9pm.

On Wednesday August 12th, we were all up by 7am. Even taking our time with breakfast and packing up, we were on the trail by 0830.

The girls started a game, counting salamanders they spotted as they passed by on the trail. The count was 21 by lunch time. I also overheard them keeping track of how often each of them had fallen. I'm not totally sure if the winner was the one with the most or the least number of falls.

This day's hike was quite the slog. Lots of mud holes, swamps, boggy areas, beaver ponds to go around, etc. It made for a somewhat slow hike. Nevertheless, we lunched about 1145 and started up again at 1215. By 1345 we were at Mud Lake lean to. We stopped there for about 15 minutes for a breather and a water break. When I started hearing thunder, despite the clear blue sky, we decided to hurry up.

It was 2.5 miles to Whitehouse, and thankfully, this section is mostly downhill. It was here we met a couple doing a short day hike, probably to Mud Lake as they missed their turn off for a waterfall. I now suspect they originally wanted the Big Eddy and waterfalls trail but they turned toward Mud Lake instead of Piseco. At any rate, I gave them what help I could and we pressed on. We got to the Whitehouse parking lot and walked down the road a short way, taking the 1st campsite we came to.

We set the girls tent up and then I set mine up. It was getting much darker and windy so Haleigh and I went to the river bank (Sacandaga River) to get water bottles filled. About the time we were filling the last bottle, it started sprinkling. We all got in the tents but after an hour it never did more than sprinkle and the storm passed us by.

By 5pm we were all hungry so we found a relatively dry spot to sit and cooked our dinners. The girls shared a Mountain House spaghetti and meatballs. They declared it better than the Mac and Cheese they had the night before. I had a home made dehydrated meal called Moraccan Stew. Pretty good for me. Since I had done the washing up the night before, the girls did the washing up this night. They did a good job too.

The girls took a walk down the road and I'm finishing this entry and about to find a spot to hang the food bags. I hear and see a lot of chipmunks so I want to at least try and protect our food. Seems like we won't get to the firebow experiment. Too tired I guess. Tomorrow is our last day.

Again, up at 0700. I made some tea and hot cereal. The girls ate cold food; cereal and cereal bars. We packed up and again were on the trail by 0840. It's 6 miles to Rt 8 and the 1st 2.5 miles to Hamilton Stream Bridge go by really fast. The girls have lead each day, taking turns being point. I haven't had to watch the trail hardly at all. Today, they stopped short with a little scream. Turns out a medium sized garter? snake had chosen the trail as the spot to catch and begin to eat a toad. Both girls were quite skittish about going around the snake, especially after they saw the toad was still alive and thrashing it's little legs. So I took the lead for a few feet till we got by the drama. We made Hamilton Stream Bridge in 65 minutes, whoo, cooking! So we took a long morning break, enjoying the sunshine on the bridge and watching the water flow by.

By 1015, we got on our way. Out hiking friends Kathy and Gail were going to meet us somewhere on the trail, coming from Rt 8. Not too far up the trail, maybe about 3/4 mile, we came across a new beaver pond. There was a big dead pine tree going across so Haleigh went first. She got over without a lot of trouble, and Emily followed too. However, my foot slipped off the bank while one foot was on the tree trunk. Into the water my right leg went, about 1/2 way to my knee and causing me to get some small cuts from the tree snag, on my hand. OK, big breath, take a lot of time, I finally inch my way across the tree trunk, balancing around the snags on the tree the girls seemed to just dance around. After making it to the other side and while I'm wringing out my sock, the girls spotted the trail going around the end of the pond. Big sigh.

We get going again and shortly after, we meet Kathy and Gail and their dog friend Mokie. Greeting were had all around and Gail gave each girl a dog treat to give to Mokie so they were all friends. This section of trail is all up hill so I had to go pretty slow as the pack, despite the food reduction of two days, is still about 30 pounds. Additionally, I haven't felt well all morning. So I slog along and at the few fairly level places, manage to have a chat with Kathy and Gail. We lunched about 1130, Mokie taking extreme interest in Haleigh's SPAM sandwich. Pushing on again, we got to the bridge near Buckhorn Lake about 1215. Here Kathy and Gail and Mokie turned off to go to the lake. They wanted to see if the osprey and heron nests could be seen. So we said our goodbyes and moved on.

About 1/3 of a mile from the trail head, the girls started getting excited when they could hear the road traffic. They had big hoots of joy when we got to the trail register. They hooted and cheered the whole way across the blueberry bog as we approached Rt 8. Big dance when they emerged onto the road and my hubby, Randy, appeared in the nearby driveway/parking lot. We all had a good time but it was good to "get back to civilization" as the girls put it.

It has been a real treat to see how much experience they have gotten over the last 3 years of our hiking project. They now carry just enough gear and food. They had the right equipment with them and were confident about following the marked trail. They're well on their way to being life long hikers. What a joy to be out with them.