Dead Creek in the Adirondacks is full of life

It has been a few weeks since I have added to my musings. We spent a week in the Adirondacks, camping at Rollins Pond Campground and hiking, canoeing and botanizing from that base of operations. It never fails: as a vacation approaches, I do frantic research to eke out the best of the best places to see so we can make the most of the limited time we’ll have.

After all the studying and note-taking, it often turns out that you don’t know what’s best till you get there. After seeking out a birding area I had read of, we discovered it was closed, not to open until the day after we left the Adirondacks. After turning back and heading the way we had come, we whipped over into a parking area that caught my eye along Rt. 3. It was an access to Dead Creek (one of several “Dead Creeks” in the Adirondacks!), a quiet meander through a swampland. We put on and started upstream.

Around the first bend I found our first cardinal flowers in bloom. I snagged a few shots of them, then headed toward the groan I heard from Charlie. As I rounded the next bend, he sat forlornly looking at a downed hemlock tree blocking the stream in front of his canoe. We mulled it over for a moment, then pouring on the paddle power, I rammed onto the spit of land beside it. The momentum carried me far enough that I could step out, pull my little 12-pound Sairy Gamp over, and step back in to continue upstream.

But around a few more bends and it was Charlie’s turn to respond to my groan. A beaver dam. Not being the sort to destroy something so intricate and complex, we discussed it briefly before turning back the way we’d just come. Ram back up on the spit, pull the canoes over, step back in and paddle back toward the put-in.

I had our waterproof map of the region and after poring over it, we continued downstream under the Rt. 3 bridge and headed to the Raquette River. Although the sound of the highway traffic stayed with us for awhile, the chirps and whistles in the swamp soon caught all of our attention. Along here we saw Great Blue Herons, Waxwings, Swamp Sparrows and signs of beavers and muskrats. I explored several side channels that were cut by beavers en route to the stream. On the bank of one channel I found a muskrat scent mound, and two large beaver lodges were cleverly placed behind shrubs so that they were very well camouflaged. Several dead snags provided hunting grounds for woodpeckers.

We paddled along for 50 minutes, crossing a few shoddy beaver dams built as if the beavers were of a lazy tribe. They yielded to the canoes and sprang back into shape afterward as if we hadn’t been there at all. Eventually we floated out onto the Raquette River itself and paddled a few hundred yards upstream. But signs of human occupation—cottages, campsites—urged us to turn back the way we’d just come. Although it felt like we’d paddled a few miles, in reality it was only 9/10 of a mile from the Rt. 3 access to the Raquette. The return trip, minus the side channels and long looks at birdlife, only took about 15 minutes.

As we relaxed that evening at our campsite on Rollins Pond, a grand sunset lit the sky and led us into twilight. The perfect end to a perfect day.

Lazy August Saturday on French Creek

Seven of us (Sawyer George, Laura, Ed, Rick, Tom, Charlie and I, plus Maggie ) gathered yesterday to paddle from Cochranton to Utica on French Creek. Six of us put in on private property (with permission) a few hundred yards upstream of the access area. That allowed us to run the chute and standing waves before we picked up our new kayaker, Tom, at the access.

Immediately below the bridge in Cochranton, we saw an Osprey flying upstream. We speculated on how few of these birds we've seen this summer, and our expert birder Tom suggested that it might be because of all the rain and the muddiness of the water, which makes sighting the fish difficult.

The water level was as close to perfect as possible: high enough to move along at a good current but not so high as to be too pushy and dangerous in a strainer situation. Many of us love to paddle the back channels, which is where the strainers might be encountered on this section of the creek. At one point, several of our group took a rather shallow back channel and the rest of us went past it because we saw them out of their boats in the shallows. When we arrived at the bottom of the channel, there was no sign of the others. We paddled up the channel till we found them on the other side of a snag, loafing. Suddenly we heard a loud splash: Sawyer George took a swim! I knew he would stand up in his canoe one time too many! Once he was back in his boat, they headed down the other back channel and avoided the snag, meeting us at the convergence.

Among the birds we saw in addition to the Osprey were Rough-winged and Tree Swallows, Red-tail Hawks, Green (juvenile) and Great Blue Herons, many Cedar Waxwings, geese and others. Ed lives near the take-out and gave us an update on all the eagle nests in the area, including one that came down this year after the young fledged.

August wildflowers were in full bloom and included ironweed, Joe-pye weed, wild dodder, boneset, goldenrod, various milkweeds, phlox, jewelweed--both orange(Spotted) and yellow (Pale), sunflowers and coneflowers, virgin's bower clematis, stinging nettle, enchanter's nightshade and many more.

We stopped for lunch at Deer Creek at the scout camp. Ed led us on a short walk to see Guyasutha's grave, and I snapped a few photos of the wildflowers.

As we paddled along after lunch, listening to the silence....kersplash! Yes, Sawyer George was back in the water. I think this time it was on purpose because he mumbled something about its being so hot.

All too soon the take-out appeared. Laura voiced what we were all thinking: Will someone pick me up in Franklin so I don't have to take out yet?

postscript: Ed told us that the access area in Utica is no longer owned by the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy. They turned it over to the PA Fish and Boat Commission. So now you need a boat sticker to use this access area. Yet another good access falls victim to the sticker people.

Anders Run Trail and Natural Area

My friends Bob & Jean from Florida came over today and we hiked the Anders Run Trail near Warren, PA. This is a beautiful wooded area with white pines and hemlocks that are 200 years old. The trail was a little tricky in places, but we took it slowly and didn't push too hard. We paused at one point to listen to the Wood Thrush singing in springlike rapture. It was a mushroomer's delight with at least 30 different mushrooms and fungi poking up through the duff. One area sported a bright golden coral fungus type, and we had numerous shelf fungi and varying sizes of cap mushrooms, some so tiny we almost needed a hand lens to see them.

It wasn't a long hike, just 1 1/2 leisurely hours and about 2 miles. But the vividly blue sky and filtered sunlight presented a mosaic of azure and amber amid the dark green of the pines. Several bridges cross the streams, and a few short but steep climbs challenge your stamina a bit.

Anders Run Natural Area is part of Cornplanter State Forest. It is 96 acres and was logged 200 years ago. The old growth trees are there now are the result of no further logging in the narrow Anders Run valley. Some of them are 200-225 years old. Wildflowers and other plants include trilliums, pink lady's slippers, several species of violets, Canada Mayflower, foamflower, partridgeberry, Mayapple, maidenhair ferns, many mushrooms and other plantlife. Big Trees of Pennsylvania lists a Nordmann fir found there as the largest of its kind in the state. It is 96 feet tall and 84 inches in circumference as of 2006. Click on the title of this article for a photo of this tree.

When you go to Anders Run, don't make the same mistake that I did by leaving the camera in the car. I am going to hike it again tomorrow, this time WITH the camera along, as well as the mushroom field guide.