Paddling & Hiking

An Adirondack Double Feature in the St. Regis Canoe Area

by Bill Ingersoll

Living just outside of the southwestern Adirondacks, I rarely get a chance to enjoy the far northern reaches of the Park as much as I would like. When I do go to that region, I try to combine as much as I can into a single visit. This was the case one May weekend, when I set up a “base camp” at Hoel Pond just outside of the St. Regis Canoe Area near Paul Smiths and spent two days making my explorations by both paddle and trail.

The St. Regis Canoe Area is an 18,231-acre tract of Forest Preserve encompassing 58 bodies of water and several mountains, including Long Pond Mountain and St. Regis Mountain. The close proximity of all these ponds — most linked with reasonable carry trails — has long made this a mecca for fans of motorless waters. Places like Long Pond are very popular, with unfortunately a few trampled shoreline campsites to prove it. (A new draft unit management plan for the area issued this summer contains a number of measures intended to help people who visit this unique place have a higher quality wilderness experience.)

Of the various excursions I made from Hoel Pond that weekend, the one I was looking forward to the most was the trip by water to Long Pond and by trail up Long Pond Mountain. Like many other summits in the northern Adirondacks, Long Pond Mountain would not have any views at all were it not partially burned in the fires of the last century. In this case, however, the mountain is close to fully recovering from those fires. The NYS Department of Environmental Conservation is proposing to discreetly trim back some of this brush to preserve the main vistas.

How To Get There
Hoel Pond is located near NY Route 30 at Saranac Inn, just north of the Fish Creek Ponds Campground. Bear west onto Floodwood Road, and then take the first right turn. This road cuts across a golf course, at the far side of which a long dirt driveway turns left to follow the very edge of the woods. It veers away from the golf course and ends at an undeveloped boat launching area on the south side of Hoel Pond. Not only is there room to park, but there are several good car-camping sites nearby.

The Route
I claimed one of the campsites and launched my canoe from there at 7:25 am. I paddle a 13-foot solo canoe, which has plenty of room for me, my pack and most importantly my dog Lexie, who rides quite comfortably up in the bow. A gentle breeze kept the bugs away as we set off. We followed the rugged southern and western shoreline, where hemlocks, pines, and yellow birches came down to the water. We landed at a railroad causeway at the northwest corner of the lake, where a quick carry up and over brought us to Turtle Pond, just inside the canoe area boundary.

We followed the north shore of Turtle, finding it to be a place of pines and blueberries. The pond narrowed and then widened again, and then narrowed into a shallow channel with a gravelly bottom. When we emerged from this, we were in Slang Pond. Black spruce — a true boreal tree species — dominated a swamp on the south side, and Norway spruce, a naturalized immigrant from Europe, marked the woods to the north. We passed a prominent campsite perched atop a ledge near the pond’s outlet.

Lexie led the way across the 0.2-mile carry to Long Pond, where a light, misty rain was dampening the air. It was hardly enough precipitation to make my clothing wet, however, but enough to ensure that there would be no view from the mountain. While I waited for the weather to improve, I paddled to the northernmost bay on Long Pond so that we could walk the carry trail to Nellie and Bessie ponds as a short diversion.

When we returned to Long Pond, we continued to tour along the northern shore into the northwestern arm. It narrowed into a bottleneck before revealing its westernmost bay, where a white sign marked the carry to Mountain Pond. This was also the start of the hike to Long Pond Mountain.
The carry trail led through the Norway spruce plantation to tiny Mountain Pond in 20 minutes. The red markers skirted around the right side of the pond and quickly approached the foot of Long Pond Mountain. The Norway spruce gave way to aspen on the lower slopes. The trail led steeply up to a false summit, across a fern-filled swale, and then through small clefts in the rocks to the summit proper.

There were two openings on the summit with views, although when we arrived the mountain was still enshrouded with fog. We settled down on one of the rocks to see what would happen as the clouds lifted. East Pond was the first to appear, with a scattering of smaller ponds nearby. Off to the north, I could see Azure Mountain and its surprisingly rugged neighbors. In the other direction, our morning canoe route across Hoel, Turtle, and Slang was coming into view, with Upper Saranac Lake in the distance. I was also able to identify Ledge Pond, Pink Pond and Spring Pond Bog. Had the weather been clearer, I also would have been able to see Tupper Lake and the High Peaks.

On the return paddle, as I negotiated the channel between Slang and Turtle, a large bird took flight in a rush overhead, disturbed by our presence. I looked up and quickly realized that a bald eagle had been perched right above us. It re-alighted on an exposed snag further down the shore, where I got a better look before it flew off for good. Eagle sightings are quite common in the northern Adirondacks, but this was only my second time encountering one myself.

Given that in addition to climbing the mountain we had also poked our canoe up an inviting inlet or two and stopped to investigate a number of campsites, it was no wonder that we did not return to our starting point until 4:10 pm — a full day. You do lose track of the time when you are exploring a beautiful place with a good companion.

Bill Ingersoll lives in Barneveld. He has joined Barbara McMartin in revising the Discover series and is co-author of several books. For more information about this region consult Discover the Northern Adirondacks (Lake View Press).

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