First Camping Trip of the Season: Piseco Lake; T Lake Trail

Little Sand Point State Campground, Piseco Lake, Adirondacks 5/15 & 5/16/09
Hike: T Lake Trail 3.5 miles (7 mi. round trip)

Highlights: fishing; Common Mergansers (ducks); hike to T Lake lean-to; red-spotted newts; toads; Purple Trillium (a.k.a. “Stinking Benjamin”)

Not-exactly-highlights: black flies; rain; packing up wet camping gear; leaving early

Pictures-only version: click here

In spite of what we’ve heard about the black flies in the Adirondacks from May through mid-July, we decided to go camp there anyway. We prefer to camp away from the crowds. See, we’re not drinkers like most campers seem to be, and as a result their drunken antics and loud behavior tend to be annoying. The whole reason we enjoy camping is because it’s relaxing, and if you’re quiet enough, you’ll see some pretty cool wildlife. Loud drunks tend to interfere with all of that. So we thought we’d enjoy some solitude and take our chances with the black flies. We did our homework, bought 100% Deet, and got bug nets for our heads. I was hoping we wouldn’t really need the nets; they do look silly.

We arrived at the site and it wasn’t two minutes before we were putting on the bug spray… and the bug nets in five, after spraying them as well. Those flies were all over us, and they concentrate around your head – go figure. We set up camp, ate lunch, and took off in the car to tour the area. We located the trailhead for the next day’s hike, and scoped out another campground at Lake Durant, which was beautiful.

After buying some firewood, we made our way back to camp, relaxed a bit, and ate dinner. Afterwards, we took our fishing poles over to the beach on the other end of the campground. We fished for maybe 45 minutes, and I caught one. I was excited, as it was my first time using my pole, and I’ve only fished a few times in my life. I plan to do more! It was a largemouth bass, maybe 12 inches long, who we took pictures of and released. I had another bite, and Ken had a couple bites as well. Keeping us company was a pair of Common Mergansers, who were fishing in the grassy areas just off the shore. I had never seen them before, and they were interesting to watch, as they dove under in one spot and came up about 30 feet away. I couldn’t resist taking dozens of pictures, and took a short video of them as well. After all of that, we went back to our site, roasted some marshmallows, and went to sleep early. We would need our rest for the hike the next day.

We got up, had a high protein breakfast, which is supposed to be good for stamina, and proceeded to the trailhead. The first leg of the hike was over a fairly long and steep incline, and from there it was a lot of up and down. It was cool that morning, probably around 60 degrees. Before too long, we shed layers, and I was down to a t-shirt and jeans for the rest of the way in. Once we reached the lean-to at our stopping point, we cooled off quickly in the breeze, and added our layers back on. By the way, the lean-to was pretty neat; there was a notebook to sign and leave comments if you wanted to, and it looks like they collect the notebook at the end of the hiking season to review it. Others had written in it before us, and spoke of snow in mid to late April! There were supplies there as well; people had left a couple of lighters, a coffee pot, a couple of frying pans, some cooking & eating utensils, instant coffee, and a few other such items one might appreciate finding. Also available was an outhouse, as well as a fire pit. Someone had even left behind a short story to read around the campfire for anyone who might spend the night there. It was a nice little spot.

We ate peanut butter & jelly sandwiches and started back, again shedding layers quickly. It did sprinkle a few times on our return trip, but our ponchos kept us and our packs dry. Unfortunately, the ponchos were bright yellow, and had Mickey Mouse on the back! We had yet to buy proper ponchos. We kept our eyes and ears open the whole way for bears or signs of them, and didn’t come across anything other than one tree that had suspicious scratches. We did see a lot of red-spotted newts… 66 of them that I counted! I hadn’t seen these since I was a teenager, and was delighted to see them again. They were everywhere; you didn’t even have to be looking for them. We also saw a few toads, one of which was particularly large… actually he couldn’t get out of his own way, much less ours. There were many flowers along the way; the one which caught my attention was Purple Trillium, as I’ve only ever seen the white variety. It’s also called “Stinking Benjamin.” Apparently it smells like decaying flesh, and is pollinated by flies. I cannot verify this, as I did not sniff it.

Travel time on the trail was 3 hours 8 minutes up; 2 hours 37 minutes down. We started at 8 am and finished around 2:20 pm.

When we got back to the campsite, it was time to eat. Then it was naptime! We slept for an hour or two, and upon waking, found that it was raining. It was actually starting to leak into our tent, which hasn’t happened to us before. It wasn’t too bad at that point, but we thought we’d pack up before it got worse. All our wet gear got packed loosely into the car, and we left that afternoon instead of the next morning. Even so, it was a great trip. We did what we went to do – camp and hike – and we had a great time doing it. We went home (where, of course, it was sunny), dried out our gear, and got it ready for our next trip.