John, Bonnie, Jack, Jan, and Tom camped at Rollins Pond in late July. Guilford met Holliston, sans Jack, the Sunday before the camping trip started in North Creek at the Alpine Lodge. They had planned to meet in the Lake Placid area, but the annual Iron Man triathlon kept them from finding any hotel rooms there. The Alpine Lodge is a refurbished modern hotel right across from the famous North Creek Mosaic Project, a big mural of colored tiles on a wall depicting a beautiful day on the Hudson River, in the woods, and on the Gore Mountain ski slopes. They ate dinner at Trappers in what is now called the Phoenix hotel and where they have often stopped en route to Old Forge and the start of the 90-Miler. On Monday, they traveled leisurely to Rollins Pond. They stopped at several of the exhibits along the Hudson River in North River. The river at this point is about 40 miles from the source of the Hudson at Lake Tear of the Clouds. They also stopped in Blue Mountain Lake. Long Lake, and Tuoper Lake, as well as at the headquarters of the Little Tupper Lake-Lake Lila complex, where the North Country Men’s Club has made a number of wilderness canoe trips.
Arriving at Rollins pond in the early afternoon, they began to set up camp at site A30. Is a great site at the end of a camp road. Jack arrived shortly after the others. There was a chance of rain, so they hung the tarp as well as putting up the tents. It did rain pretty good in the afternoon and early evening, and Jack grilled the ribeye steaks he brought on the little Weber filled with hardwood charcoal under the tarp. It stopped raining in the evening and they glimpsed a sunset and Bonnie and John took a short paddle in their 17-foot Jensen with the third seat. The next morning was calm and dry and they paddled, with Bonnie in the spanking-new Advantage, to some rocks that they had swam off of in their 2010 trip to Rollins. The topography has changed somehow, and there is no longer the beach there that shows in the photos from the earlier trip. It rained again on Monday afternoon and, unfortunately, the local mosquitoes gathered under the tarp where the NCMCers sough refuge. Dinner was grass-fed burgers. Holliston checked on going to a hotel for the evening, but ended up staying in camp.
On Wednesday morning, the sun came out and it was good weather as Holliston packed up for the trip home. Jan and Tom stayed for another day and did the loop paddle in the 17-foot Sundowner. They padded down Rollins, went down the outlet to Floodwood and Tom took a swim. They then paddled the outlet of of Floodwood, which is a nice, meandering, slow, shady stream, toward Fish Creek Campground. Before getting to Fish Creek, they turned into Copperas Pond. At the end of that pond they portaged over to Whey Pond, and then carried the canoe a short distance back into Rollins, where they took a swim before paddling back to their quiet camp. Thursday morning was clear, but the forecast promised more rain, so they ditched their plan of moving to another campsite for another night and packed and went home.
Less rain would have made a better trip, but the North Creek stop was pleasant and they had plenty of laughs about the rain and other things. On the gear front, they used a new Coleman two-burner propane stove, which worked well and makes sense for car camping. Next, we supposed, will be a big car camping tent that one can stand up in!
LINK TO GALLERY: