Rollins and Floodwood Ponds, part 3

To continue with my description of Rollins and Floodwood Ponds...

After our picnic lunch and about a half hour of relaxing, we headed back out on the water.  We had close to a few hours of paddling to do in order to return to the boat launch at the campground, so we cut short our exploration of Floodwood Pond.  When we return, we plan to check out the eastern part of Floodwood.


Below is  Brody, guiding my way on the water, keeping his "daddy" in view.

 

As we came around the east side of the island on Floodwood, Brody was checking out signs of campers-- towels hanging on a line, kids' voices.

Here is a pretty view looking northwest from the east side of the island on Floodwood.

Hmmm... I was hoping to show you the abandoned railroad tracks in this photo, but it's more difficult to see than I thought.  If you can see a raised bed about 1/3 of the way up the photo, that's where the tracks are.  This is on the west side of Floodwood.

My husband took the camera long enough to get a shot of Brody with his Doggles on.  They are a bit crooked, but he doesn't seem to mind.  He kept them on long enough to get some fans who were also paddling.  He's becoming a star-- we had 2 different groups of people say hello and ask if they could take Brody's photo.  I'm sure the Doggles had something to do with it!

When we had almost reached the creek to paddle back into Rollins Pond, I thought I saw a dead baby turtle in the water far from shore.  It was floating, not swimming.  (But what do I know about baby turtles??)  I felt bad for it, and wanted to see if he was really dead or just resting.... Sure enough, when I picked him up, he poked his head out all the way as well as his feet, and started scrambling around in my hand.  He was very quick for such a little guy.  I was just happy he wasn't dead!  Apparently he was resting.  I got a few photos of this painted turtle before we gently returned him to the water where he could continue his adventures.

At the entrance to the creek, I took more photos of the beautiful wild irises:

 Along the creek, paddling upstream, I did not take any photos.  The current was strong in some spots, making stopping for a photo impossible.  It took some muscles to get back up the creek due to the rocks and tree stumps creating hazards that required lots of steering and paddling.  But it was fun, not dangerous, and we felt a sense of accomplishment when we once more reached Rollins Pond.


In the northwestern corner of Rollins Pond, a creek flows in from Rock Pond.  Here is the culvert which the creek flows through into the pond.  NOW you can see the abandoned railroad tracks I spoke of earlier in this post.

I took a few more close-ups of the culvert with the creek's water flowing.  This one is my favorite of the 4 or 5 I shot that day:

Below is a photo of Rollins Pond looking south from the area where the culvert is:

Brody was happy we were greeted by a family of black ducks once we got closer to the boat launch.
We were happy too, since the only other wildlife we saw were the loons.  But, that is to be expected in an area where there are lots of campers and lots of paddlers on the water.  I'm sure very early morning would yield better wildlife viewing.

We thoroughly enjoyed our paddle on Rollins and Floodwood Ponds and plan to go back in the future and hopefully reach a few of the other ponds as well.

I'll leave you with another photo of Brody-- this pose and shot are almost becoming an icon, I think!

 Happy Kayaking!

Rollins Pond and Floodwood Pond, 2013 part two

To continue my description of our paddle through Rollins and Floodwood Ponds...

As I mentioned in part one, we loved this section of our paddle.  The creek is high right now and flowing well through the rocks, making it easy to paddle through, except for a few spots where the current threw us toward downed branches or boulders.  This was not anything dangerous or scary-- we just had to steer to avoid a collision.  If you have paddled in fast moving streams, you understand what I mean.  It was fun, not stressful.  (The creek being only a few feet deep in most spots with an average of 3 feet wide helped!)  Here is the creek shortly after we began paddling downstream:

And another shot along the way:

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We have heard that this part of Fish Creek between Rollins and Floodwood Ponds is often shallow, forcing you to either walk your boat through it or use the carry which is to the left of the creek, coming out onto Floodwood Pond.  From the maps we saw, it looks to be less than a 1/4 mile of a carry, but I can't be certain.

Near the end of the creek as it flows into Floodwood pond, many wild irises were in bloom:

I took a lot of photos of these gorgeous flowers.


Here is Brody as we enter the widened area of the creek before reaching Floodwood Pond.

Here is Floodwood Pond at its southern end:

And here is another iris shot, this time with butterfly!  Ahh.... just found out they are tiger swallowtails! (Canadian or eastern)

Near the shore in 8 inches or so of water, I spotted these 2 circular disturbances (lighter areas in middle of photo) in the sandy bottom.  I have no idea what they are.  Did a turtle or fish go around in circles creating these?  Anyone have any idea?

Brody has his eye on something ahead of us.  Want to hazard a guess?

People in a kayak?  Fisherman?  A leaf floating on the water?  ...........

Ducks seem to be his favorite.  Not sure why he likes them better than loons, but he does.  This duck is a black duck, very common to the Adirondacks.

This is a pretty view looking toward the northeastern corner of Floodwood Pond.  We thought Floodwood was just beautiful.  There are a few camps/houses on the eastern shore in this area, but that's it.   At the end of this stretch of water is another place to put-in.  We may try that next time.  There is also an outfitter in that area if you don't have a canoe or kayak and want to give it a try.  (Or you're on vacation and don't have your own boats with you!)

Floodwood has a number of primitive campsites that are first-come, first-serve.  There are a few on the large island in the middle of Floodwood and others along the northern bank and even more as you paddle east on the pond.  We love paddling places with these bare campsites because on week days, even in summer, they are often empty and provide us a great resting and picnicking spot!

After our picnic lunch, we rested with a pine needle mattress.  Brody is at his most attentive when food is involved!

As I reclined, I found this angle of Brody and the trees worth a shot:

And I really liked the shapes made by the trunk of this paper birch against the sky:

Here are some scenes of the water from the campsite where we stopped for lunch:

And here is the area where we beached our kayaks at the campsite:

The island is just across the water in the photo above.  The campsite was such a beautiful spot, on the mainland, north of the island, that we plan to stop here again the next time we paddle on Floodwood.

Well, it looks like I have enough descriptions and photos for one more part to this set of blogs on Rollins and Floodwood Ponds.  I will meet you back here for part three very soon!

And I'll leave you with this shot:

Happy Kayaking!

Rollins Pond and Floodwood Pond, 2013 part one

How is everyone enjoying the paddling season so far?  It has been very wet in the northeast (and other places) this year.  We have had rain here for almost every day in the last 6 weeks.  I can only remember one day out of those that was completely dry for the whole day. 

So!  We haven't done as much kayaking as we would have liked.  We have also had some other commitments on the weekends that have kept us off the water.  But we did take a Friday off several weeks ago and made it up to Rollins and Floodwood Ponds.

This beautiful area includes many ponds that can be visited in the same day by way of a creek that connects some of them and others that are a short carry away.  It is a great area because there are loops you can do to return to your starting point.  I am only writing about Rollins and Floodwood because we did not do a loop on this paddle and only explored those 2 ponds.

There are a number of campgrounds in this area which is north of Tupper Lake.  The point of access to Rollins Pond is at the Rollins Pond Campground (which you reach by driving through Fish Creek Campground-- both of these are NY State campgrounds) and their boat launch as shown in the photo below: 

There is also a dock:

Once on the water and headed north, this was our view:

Brody already has an eye on a loon. But I didn't get any good shots of it.

Rollins Pond is very pretty.  And so is the campground from what we saw, and from talking to others who camp there every year.  It can kick up some waves if the wind is more than very mild so keep that in mind.  The campground covers almost every bit of shoreline on the eastern side and some of the southern bank, but the western side has only a few homes/camps.  There are a number of nooks and crannies to check out as well on your way north from the boat launch toward Floodwood Pond.

I took 3 or 4 shots of Brody when we had just started the paddle and this is the best of those.  He looks so serious (but handsome) doesn't he?

Here is my best shot of a loon later in our paddle:

And here are Brody and I still near the beginning of the paddle.  As you can see, it was still chilly that morning.  I have my hoodie on.  But the sun was very warm so in less than an hour, I was warm enough to remove it.

It was a gorgeous day for a paddle!  It takes us quite a while to get to this destination, so we did not get an early morning start, but we did manage to be on the water by 9:30.  Most of the campers were up but not making too much noise as we paddled by.  We saw only 2 paddlers on Rollins Pond that morning, but plenty more in the afternoon when we returned.

Here is my husband with mountains in the background.  There was pretty scenery like this during the whole trip.

And here is Brody as we got closer to the end of Rollins Pond.  Looks like he needs the Doggles on-- the ones he had just pawed off a few mins. before this photo!

At the top/northern end of Rollins Pond is Fish Creek which connects it to Floodwood Pond.  It is in the northeastern corner of the pond.  The entrance to the creek is about in the middle of this photo.  It seems difficult to discern from the photo and as you approach it on the water, but once you're in that northeastern corner, you will see the creek without a problem.  The current is flowing north, into Floodwood Pond, so you will have an easier time getting to Floodwood than returning to Rollins as we did.  (But if you do a loop, you won't have to paddle back upstream on this creek.)

Here is a better photo showing the entrance to the creek, right in the middle of the photo.
We really enjoyed this next stretch of the paddle, as the creek was closed in with rocks along the way and many close-up details to look at.  Brody enjoyed it as well.

I'll leave this part of the description with one more photo of Brody enjoying our paddle.  Meet me back here for the next part of the description and photos of Rollins and Floodwood Ponds.

Happy Kayaking!

West Branch of the Fish Creek & Gifford Lake, part two

Continuing with my description of our paddle up Fish Creek:

As we paddled upstream, we saw Canada geese just past an area where people were fishing.  Here is a photo of them.

And here is another shot of the creek as we paddled further upstream:

 The creek has many twists and turns.  It allowed us to see some Red winged blackbirds before they flew off.
Here is the only one I managed to photograph that day:

We stopped talking and paddled quietly as we rounded a curve in the creek, hoping a great blue heron or some other water bird might be waiting.  Nope.  But at the next turn in the creek, I was ahead and spotted something orange with it's head bent, looking in the grass.  A red fox! By the time I signaled my husband, the fox had picked up his head and decided there wasn't enough room for all of us on the creek.  It was too late for a photo.  The whole encounter took less than 5 seconds.  But that was definitely the highlight of our first kayaking trip of 2010!  We've seen many red fox as they hurry across the road in the evening, but this is the first time we've seen one while paddling.

There is a channel off the creek which leads to a very small lake, Gifford Lake.  The entrance to the channel is marked by a fishing camp on the right as you paddle upstream.  There is one house on Gifford Lake, and the highway is behind it.  For these reasons, we chose to turn around instead of paddling the lake.  Here is Gifford Lake:

After reversing direction and heading back to the creek, I consulted my guide book for the way upstream.  We headed along the channel and turned right, continuing upstream, but there wasn't much current to guide our way.  When we reached what seemed like an impassable area, we poked around, looking for a way upstream.  I am able to float in very little water in my kayak, but the closer I got to the overgrowth-- last year's dried reeds and cattails-- the more the water smelled stagnant, and the bottom looked full of silt, which isn't much better than mud when it comes to paddling a kayak!  So, I advised my husband, who sits lower in the water in his kayak, to turn around before he got stuck.  I was able to back out of the area, but was disappointed since this meant the end to our upstream paddle, and we had expected to go for at least a few more miles.   While on the water, we were concerned that we somehow missed the channel, but now that I've thought about it, I don't think so.  The West Branch of Fish Creek had water going over the dam where we put in, but I think the low level of the creek upstream is an indication of what is, so far, a dry spring.  We did not get nearly the amount of snow we usually do in Northern NY, and this creek looks like it's feeling the effects.  I did not check the water levels of area waterways before we went on this paddle, but I have now.
There is website with water level info on some rivers, lakes and streams in NY.  It is part of the US Geological Survey site and is called WaterWatch.  This is the link: http://waterwatch.usgs.gov/?m=real&r=ny

We headed slowly back downstream and saw a number of turtles sunning themselves.  They are very creative when there's no log or rock to get out on for a soak in the sun.  We found them "dry docked" on the dead, brittle reeds and cattails, such as the ones in this photo:

We saw more Canada geese in a side channel as we headed back.  They made a racket when we paddled in their general direction.  Who knew 2 geese could honk so loud?  We decided they might have already been tending eggs, so we turned around with the noise of their warning in our ears.

Back at the bridge, our exit from the creek went better than expected.  We were a bit disappointed in the length of the trip, but it was such a beautiful day, we were happy to have had the chance to paddle, no matter that it was only a few hours.

We're looking forward to the coming weekend and hoping the forecast of rain won't be for the entire time.  For now, I'll leave you with a photo that is more typical of our kayaking trips in terms of greenery.  This is the Raquette River: