Thanksgiving and the Cranberry Lake 50

Paul and I found out about the Cranberry Lake 50 sometime last year and have been takling about doing it ever since. It's a 50 mile loop hike around Cranberry Lake in the Adirondacks. We figured we'd need more than a typical 2 day weekend to complete it, so as Thanksgiving approached, we decided we'd take a shot at it.
Thanksgiving morning we drove up to Paul's parents house where we celebrated the holiday with his folks and his sister Karen's family. Unfortunately, the rest of the family couldn't make it, so the gathering was smaller than usual this year. We still had way too much food though! : )
We enjoyed our visit there and hit the road to head north aiming to cover some miles that night to help ease the mileage for the next three days. I have to admit I was a little hesitant to go because of the lousy forecast.
We made it to Cranberry Lake sooner than we thought and were able to get ourselves ready to go quickly. The three of us (me, Paul, Moab the dog) set off on the road at just after 8pm on Thursday. Part of the loop has hikers walk section of road (Hwy 3) and we wanted to get that out of the way first. It was just shy of 6 miles in total and we wondered what the passing cars must have thought as we walked with our packs and headlamps down the road!
Luna peeked in and out from behind the clouds and she helped light our way for much of the walk. As we passed one house, I was able to see a television through the window and could see the Denver Broncos on the screen. We were missing the NY Giants game--Paul's team. We found out later that the Giants lost, so I guess we didn't miss much! We made very good time on the road and turned off to begin our journey into the wildnerness.
We planned on hiking 3-4 miles to a lean-to where we could sleep for the night. That way, we wouldn't have to set up the tent and could have dry gear when we started on Friday. The terrain wasn't too bad and we made good time, but we were tired by the time we got to the lean-to. And, we were excited that it was empty!
The rain had let up, so we walked the short walk down to the pond to let Moab have a drink and some stars shone through holes in the clouds. Their light was reflected on the water in front of us. Neat image! We unloaded our packs and set up our sleeping bags and were in bed by 1am. Not too bad for covering almost 10 miles!
For whatever reason my feet were cold and would not warm up so I couldn't sleep. I may have cat napped a little, but by and large I was awake the majority of the night. Moab seemed uneasy and restless too so that didn't help. It rained most of the night but it tapered off a little when the alarm went off at 6am. We lazed around a bit before we got up and packed up camp. Things looked a lot different in the morning light. The view of the pond from the lean-to was beautiful.
We headed back to the main trail for the beginning of what was to be a very long day! We knew we had to cover a lot of miles to make a dent in overall mileage. It was going to be a long day. Did I mention that?
We had some light rain to start off with and soon it turned to snow. We had fairly straightforward terrain once again, definitely not what we're used to in the High Peaks. We had another road walk as we made our way toward the town of Wanakena, NY We passed the SUNY (State University of New York) Ranger School which teaches courses in forest technology and other forest related studies. We made good time on the road and made it to Wanakena, which used to be a booming little town in its day. We saw a general store that had its open sign lit, but decided we didn't have a reason to stop in. Once we left Wanakena, we were back in the wild with no hints of civilization except the sound of commercial airliners overhead every once in a while.
We took a quick side trail to High Rock. From there you have a wonderful view of the many bends and turns of the Oswegatchie River. Oswegatchie is an Indian name for going or coming around a hill. Paul and his family and friends have paddled this river in the past and it looks like it would be a nice trip to make.
We didn't stay at High Rock for too long because we still had a lot of distance to cover.
Onward and another side trip opportunity that took us to High Falls. We're big fans of waterfalls. Paul has seen this one before, but I hadn't so there was no question of whether we'd go or not. It added about another mile roundtrip, but it was worth it. Unlike the name, it's not a terribly high waterfall, but it's unique nonetheless. It was a little chilly and we didn't stay there long either. We found one of the two lean-tos and saw someone's stuff placed inside. It was the first evidence of other humans on the trail that we'd seen all day. We made a quick stop at the outhouse (yay for outdoor potties)and Paul asked me what I wanted to do. Do I want to find the other lean-to at High Falls and try to stay there? Do we want to set up a tent? Share this lean-to? Or, do we want to move along? To that point we'd only covered 12 or 13 miles. We were already feeling the weight of our packs and our feet were in rough shape. We couldn't figure out why we were struggling so much. I told Paul I felt we should continue to push at least as far as the next lean-to. While neither of us felt like going 6+ more miles, we knew we had to.
Our pace was not that slow, but for some reason the miles seemed to take forever.
At one point, Paul had Moab off leash and I barely had time to look up to see him run toward something and start barking. It was a person! A hunter, in fact. We talked with him briefly. He told us he'd seen deer, rabbits, and grouse. I hadn't seen as much as a bird all day! He didn't have much in the way of gear with him. He may have only had his gun, actually. He asked where we were heading and told us about how far it was. We bid him farewell and moved on toward our destination of Chateau Lean-to. : ) We wondered where he was heading though. We knew we'd be pushing our luck to make the lean-to by dark and we were right. We had to dig our headlamps out before we made it. I was crossing my fingers that the lean-to was empty and it was! Relief! We climbed into the lean-to and began to unpack. I put on extra layers and climbed into my sleeping bag to conserve warmth. We got Moab situated and Paul boiled some water for dinner and we had a warm meal. He went and got some water and treated it and we called it an early night.
I still didn't sleep very well even though I was quite warm. At one point we got up to have a drink of water and to let Moab out and we found the Sham-wow we brought (to dry Moab with) was chewed up. Yes, there was as mouse in the lean-to. Yuck! I didn't want to think about a mouse crawling over me while I slept! And I think it was windy that night. A few reasons I probably couldn't sleep!
Packed up camp and headed on our way knowing we weren't even half-way finished with the hike yet! That wasn't the best feeling. Saturday was another very long day. We seemed wiped out earlier than we would have expected. The miles were slow even though our pace was not. There were some areas, both Friday and Saturday, that did slow us down some. There is a lot of beaver activity in the area. Some of the beaver dams are quite impressive. The problem is that it makes it difficult to get around--especially without getting wet! Our gear is good, but even good gear will leak a little bit if you step in too much water. At least one of Paul's feet got wet and wet feet on a long day's hike is no fun.
On and on and on the miles went. At one point I asked Paul how far we'd gone (he carried the GPS) and it was only about 12 miles. I couldn't understand why I was as tired as I was. I know I hadn't been out hiking very much, but I felt more tired than usual and so did Paul. Paul had a heavy pack on though--at least he could justify his tiredness. My pack didn't weigh that much. Still, I was dragging!
We discussed options of where to stay for the night. We opted to go to Dog Pond and see how we felt when we got there. In my mind though, I knew we had to push to Curtis Pond to get further ahead. Neither of us wanted a long hike out on Sunday since we had to make the drive home as well.
Once at Dog Pond we stood at the intersection and "hmmmmed" and "wellllled". We would have been content to stop right there, but we had daylight to burn and knew we'd appreciate the fewer miles on Sunday. The sign said it was 2.6 to Curtis Pond so I asked Paul if he had another 2.6 in him and he said he did, so on we went. At some point we made it to a pond and I was certain it MUST be Curtis Pond, but Paul kept moving. Since he had the GPS I knew he knew it must not be it. Boo! Step, step, step. One foot in front of the other. It felt as if Curtis Pond was as far away as the moon at that point. Walked. No pond. Kept walking. No pond. No sight of a pond. Not even a tiny glimpse of what MIGHT be a pond. And then...Paul said, "I see a pond." I was thanking my lucky stars!
We found the campsite and set to work getting things set up before it got dark. We set up the tent and emptied our packs. I hopped in the tent and began setting up our sleeping pads/bags. I dried Moab off the best I could and Paul gave me a tarp to put at the bottom the tent. I hopped in the tent and Paul brought Moab in. He was so tired he pretty much collapsed right on top of my legs. We warmed each other up while Paul finished up outside. Again, Paul was kind enough to boil water for dinner. We enjoyed a warm meal and called it an early night.
We woke up earlier on Sunday morning since we had to hike out and drive home. We were on the trail before 7am and had about 8 miles to cover. Paul set a blazing fast pace to get out. While it still seemed like it took a long time, we made it back to the car before 11am.
We were happy to see the car! We changed clothes and started on our drive home. We stopped for food in Watertown and made our way south. All 3 of us were tired and sore and we took it easy all night. In fact, it took us several days to fully "recover".
Overall, we were quite proud of our accomplishment. Total miles hiked: ~54. Our names are on the Cranberry 50 website too! Check it out: http://cranberrylake50.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=19&Itemid=41



Cranberry Lake 50