Before we even started out a rain storm came through. Dad and I were shuttling vehicles, but Justin and Evan rushed to flip the kayaks to avoid getting to much water in them from the rain.
The opening of the Chain lakes and the beginning of the NFCT.
As quickly as the rain came, it left.....we stripped off the rain gear and were on our way.
There is a lot of history for puddle jumper in the the Adirondacks and they are still as much of a part of every day life up there.
That loon was pretty surprised to see me when he woke up. I felt bad, but it made for a pretty good picture.
The shores of the lakes on trip 1 were littered with houses, some pretty extravagant as you can see here.
Our first night we stayed on an island which I thought had public camping. Turns out we had to paddle bad about a half mile to register and they didn't have any Shelters left....good thing I brought a tent.
A little Captain can go a long way.
Who says you can't have class while camping.....turns out Nalgene bottles are the perfect size for a bottle of wine.
Our shelter the second night was pretty nice, a lot of mosquitoes though.
Our initial design for kayak carts wasn't very good. We designed around the weight of the kayak, we should have added about 50 lbs for the weight of our gear as well.
The end of our final portage had a walk way that extended out into a marsh built by beavers (the marsh, not the walkway or course). Parts of the walkway were a good six inches under water.
As we paddled through this winding marsh we had about four beaver spillways that we had to paddle over. Very fun.
Finally the winding marsh is done with. I swear we must have paddled about 2 miles through a section that was only .5 mi as the crow flies.
Across Raquette laek was a pretty long trip, and with it being the end we were all pretty tired. Justin's plan to conquer this involve one shirt and two halves of a kayak paddle....apply wind and presto....
Local business owners apparently have a sense of humor.
Of course we didn't see much for wild life until we got back in the car.
Back through Old Forge for the trip home.
