I've paddled the St. Regis Canoe Area's Seven Carries canoe route more times than I can count off-hand. As a student trip leader at Paul Smith's College, it was a route that I would take freshman students on every September. It's a perfect route for such a purpose- it can easily be done in a single day at a somewhat casual pace, and it's a great introduction to the broader Paul Smiths/Lake Clear region, including time spent on some backcountry waters in the vicinity.
Despite being on my "to do" list for years, the more remote and more challenging Nine Caries route was something that I did not get the chance to undertake until the past summer. A friend and I decided to tackle the route over two consecutive days, paddling west to east, with a single night spent camped in the backcountry.
As with the Seven Carries, the name "Nine Carries" is a bit of a misnomer. Both routes traditionally started or ended on Little Green Pond, but as one can drive past Little Green and on to Little Clear, it's possible to shorten the number of carries by one. Beavers have also added a short paddling stretch to the Nine Carries route, which splits what was once a single portage into two. And there's a bit of "choose your own adventure" inherent in exactly what route you take in the more remote stretches of the route.
And so a late Saturday morning saw us making the couple-tenths-of-a-mile portage from Floodwood Road down to the southwest end of Long Pond, and setting out across that body of water.
Long Pond is pretty well named- it's a long and somewhat twisting stretch of water, and on most parts of the pond it's impossible to see more than a small section of the overall water body. The pond has almost a secretive nature to it- while traversing Long Pond, it always feels as though there's something fun and interesting hiding just out of sight around the next bend.
As we paddled up the pond, at times we caught glimpses of the fire tower on the summit of St. Regis Mountain to the north.
As we paddled, I also took the time to glance into some of the designated campsites along the shore as we slid past. Long Pond is clearly popular at times, and the sites were visibly well used- even when viewed from afar.
In spite of the appropriateness of the name, we over estimated a bit just how far along the twisting and winding bends of the pond we needed to traverse. The start of the first portage is not quite at the furthest end of the pond- and suddenly, with a flash of recognition from a previous winter visit across the ice to climb Long Pond Mountain, I'd realized we'd paddled too far. A quick bit of backtracking brought us back on route, and soon we were at the portage.
This first portage originally went all the way to Nellie Pond. In recent years, however, beavers had flooded a short stretch of the portage near the south end of the carry. The flooded stretch isn't very far across, but the water is deep enough that it necessitates getting back into the canoe for the few seconds it takes to cross the pond.
Beyond the beaver pond, the portage to Nellie Pond begins in earnest. This is a long portage- the sort that makes you want to grin and bear it and try to get everything through in one trip no matter how much you'll pay for it later in back soreness. We started with everything and made it about halfway through before we elected to drop my friends heavier canoe for round 2.
The portage trail was generally in good shape but there was a stretch of mud about halfway through that was a bit difficult to deal with. One could see that this area had once been traversed by bog bridging the but the bridging was old and rotten and pretty much useless.
I missed the turn-off for Bessie Pond during my first trip through (I blame having my canoe over my shoulders). On our return trip with the heaver of our two boats it looked like a nice and quiet body of water from what we could see through the trees. According to the DEC map for the St. Regis Canoe Area, there is a designated tent site at Bessie Pond also, although we did not get a chance to look for it.
Nellie Pond was also nice, although quickly traversed. My friend had some difficulty launching- she managed to set out behind a half-sunken log before realize there was no way around it onto the main body of water.
After Nellie Pond came a short portage to Kit Fox Pond, which was similar quiet and serene albeit quickly crossed.
Ever since leaving Long Pond, we'd been chasing the tail end of a summer camp group. We caught up to (and passed) them at the far end of Kit Fox Pond. It was a group from Keewaydin Dunmore- a summer camp for boys based in Vermont. I've been known among my friends to carry a lot of extra less-than-necessary camp comforts with me, but holy cow was this group loaded down with gear. Most impressive were the heavy wooden chests they carried on their backs, with straps around the forehead for extra support. I hope at least one of those chests had ibuprofen in it.
Beyond Kit Fox Pond, those tackling the Nine Carries route have a choice- they can make a short portage to Little Long Pond, followed by a short paddle, and then another short portage to Fish Pond. Alternatively, a longer portage trail exists that circumnavigates Little Long Pond entirely and provides a direct route to Fish Pond. With her larger canoe, my friend elected to take the portage-paddle-portage route. My setup was a bit lighter so I chose to carry across the longer portage trail straight to Fish Pond. We both arrived at Fish Pond at the same time, so neither route is really any quicker.
In contrast with the relatively small bodies of water we'd traversed thus far (or in the case of Long Pond, narrow if not small), Fish Pond is fairly open and broad.
Fish Pond has two lean-tos- one on the north shore, and one on the south shore. Our intended destination for the evening was the lean-to on the north shore- the Blagden Lean-to. We made a beeline straight across Fish Pond for the lean-to, and were quite happy to find it unoccupied. The lean-to is set back off the water a fair bit and in a beautiful clearing in the forest. We quickly began unpacking and moving in.
It was early yet in the afternoon so we spent the next several hours relaxing and enjoying the surroundings. As near as I could tell, there were only two other groups camped on the lake- both summer camps, and both occupying tent sites. The lean-to on the south shore appeared unoccupied. With it being a Saturday afternoon, I kept expecting other groups to show up and figured we'd have a decent chance of sharing the lean-to with others, but the pond remained quiet. Clearly the added portage distance to reach Fish Pond from other water bodies (which themselves also necessitate portaging) keeps the use levels relatively low in this remote part of the Saint Regis Canoe Area.
As the afternoon waned, the winds started to die down... and the mosquitoes started to pop up. They never got very bad but they were still obnoxious enough that we chose to get a small smudge fire going.
And soon enough, afternoon turned into evening. With the arrival of dusk, our smudge fire turned into a small proper fire for light warmth against the evening chill as we cooked and dinner. Before long, we'd turned in for the evening.
The next morning dawned chilly, and we were up with sunrise to get an early start as one of us had an afternoon deadline to meet. With the arrival of daylight, we were greeted by morning mist on the pond as we set out on our journey back to civilization.
At the east end of Fish Pond began our first portage of the day- a relatively short and easy one to Mud Pond. We arrived and set out across that body of water just as the last bits of mist were dissipating from the surface. The day was quickly turning warm and humid.
The Mud Pond to Ochre Pond carry is also a fairly lengthy one, and it would take us a couple of trips to get all of our gear through. When I hiked back to help my friend with her canoe, I was greeted with a look that said, "how the heck did I let you talk me into this?!?"
Still, the portage to Ochre Pond was beautiful. Along the way it passes first the outlet of Monday Pond, and then Monday itself. The DEC shows a designated tent site on Monday Pond but it's across the pond and I unfortunately didn't get a chance to look for it.
Ochre Pond was accessed via a bog bridge out into some swampy terrain. It too was a beautiful body of water that felt remote. There are a couple of campsites on Ochre Pond- we saw the site on the north shore as we paddled by. The fire pit area did not look particularly flat but it also appeared as though there was better tent space in the woods a bit further uphill.
Continued in next post...
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