G
Guest
Guest
Not really a trip per se, just a few beautiful days out with my wife on an amazing lake in the central Adirondacks.
I hear a lot of people say Lake Lila is too busy for them. Well, if that is the case then I am sorry to report my finding again being plentiful campsites and few encounters with homo sapiens. If you want none, then definitely don't go here, you will see people. I have every time I've been, but most are as elusive as the wildlife in this area and don't bother you much.
Out of fear of being murdered by it's proponents, I won't say what site I stayed at for two nights but I will say IMO it is the best on the lake. I'll let any further passer-byers or campers decide for themselves. We came in Thursday right after noon and we weren't expecting to have a pick of sites based on the parking lot but it turned out that we had our pick from many - this is where my opinion keeps differing from what I hear people saying. Even on Saturday when we left, anyone would have had their pick from many sites.
We packed pretty light compared to most people out on the lake. No coolers or beer. Just a couple packs, our sleeping pads, and our boots. The portage is only 3/10 mile so if one desired they could carry a multitude of things out to camp. We were able to carry our boat and gear down in one shot, as we usually do. It didn't much matter because that was our only carry. My wife did splurge and brought a ground cloth and an extra foam pad for her pad.
The site we ended up staying at had this private, sandy beach for us. The closest site near us was about 1000' around the bay. The point we were on was also home to some monster white pines which provided us shade from the sun and places to hang our food and garbage.
We spent most of our afternoon sitting on the beach, sipping tea, enjoying the weather and taking turns going out solo in the boat.
After some time of laziness we decided to actually set up our tent, eat lunch and then go for a paddle together. We were on a mission to find some of the elusive bird-life around the lake. We did manage to see many geese, and a couple loons, but other than that it was pretty uneventful.
After our two-hour or so paddle it was getting a bit late so we decided to get a fire going and enjoy the sunset from the beach.
Later that night we made dinner, tea and waited for the fire to burn down.
The next morning the lake was covered in a dense fog. It even rained a little bit but I'm not sure where it fell from?? The cloud we were in or above...
I was tired and wanted to sleep in but my wife was up and about taking pictures.
After a while the sun came up, woke me up, and burned off the fog.
After waking up to this I decided that we must go up Mt Fredrica, a small 'mountain' on the opposite side of the lake to us.
It is an easy 1 mile or so paddle across the lake, and an easy 1.5 mile hike up to the cliffs at the top. I packed the stove and some lunch and we set off for our hike.
Fredrica rewarded us with great views of the lake and the mountains to the east, south and west. It was no surprise on a day like the one we had that it would be a spectacular picnic spot. We climbed down from the summit to the first open ledge and sat there and the shade of some bushes and enjoyed the views and our food.
We took our time up top and on the way back, paddling the long way around the shore of the lake looking at rock formations and scanning for birds. Again we only saw geese (who were quite shy) and loons (who were also, not surprisingly, shy).
Back at camp I went on a quest to collect a small widow-maker spruce that I had knocked down the night before. I cut it into manageable chunks and hauled it back to camp. It made for a quick fire which we enjoyed well into the night. I frequently suffer from migraines and my usual remedy is Excedrin (or aspirin, Tylenol and caffeine) - as a sometimes unwelcome side effect I am up for a long time. Such was the case as I found myself taking a couple on the top Fredrica to ward off the start of a pounder. All that wood came in handy at keeping me company as the caffeine kept me wide-eyed late into the night. I heard a critter out in the woods around the camp and worried that it might try to thieve my food. Being paranoid I had brought my bear container and stashed everything in there for the night. No signs of robbers were seen the next morning. My wife and I speculate it was a fox or coyote by it's movements although we were just guessing.
The next morning we leisurely paddled our way back to the carry and wound up talking to the assistant to the Assistant Ranger who was a nice young kid. We ran into him at Snell Island and talked as the wind carried us almost all the way back to the launch.
He did get one idea in our head, and that was a burger at the Adirondack Hotel in Long Lake. That was not a disappointment nor were the molasses bourbon wings! Highly recommend!
It was a fairly lazy trip but we just couldn't be bothered to do anything but enjoy the weather and the area. My wife said it was one the best, if not the best outing we have done... EVER! I consider that a success.
I hear a lot of people say Lake Lila is too busy for them. Well, if that is the case then I am sorry to report my finding again being plentiful campsites and few encounters with homo sapiens. If you want none, then definitely don't go here, you will see people. I have every time I've been, but most are as elusive as the wildlife in this area and don't bother you much.
Out of fear of being murdered by it's proponents, I won't say what site I stayed at for two nights but I will say IMO it is the best on the lake. I'll let any further passer-byers or campers decide for themselves. We came in Thursday right after noon and we weren't expecting to have a pick of sites based on the parking lot but it turned out that we had our pick from many - this is where my opinion keeps differing from what I hear people saying. Even on Saturday when we left, anyone would have had their pick from many sites.
We packed pretty light compared to most people out on the lake. No coolers or beer. Just a couple packs, our sleeping pads, and our boots. The portage is only 3/10 mile so if one desired they could carry a multitude of things out to camp. We were able to carry our boat and gear down in one shot, as we usually do. It didn't much matter because that was our only carry. My wife did splurge and brought a ground cloth and an extra foam pad for her pad.
The site we ended up staying at had this private, sandy beach for us. The closest site near us was about 1000' around the bay. The point we were on was also home to some monster white pines which provided us shade from the sun and places to hang our food and garbage.
We spent most of our afternoon sitting on the beach, sipping tea, enjoying the weather and taking turns going out solo in the boat.
After some time of laziness we decided to actually set up our tent, eat lunch and then go for a paddle together. We were on a mission to find some of the elusive bird-life around the lake. We did manage to see many geese, and a couple loons, but other than that it was pretty uneventful.
After our two-hour or so paddle it was getting a bit late so we decided to get a fire going and enjoy the sunset from the beach.
Later that night we made dinner, tea and waited for the fire to burn down.
The next morning the lake was covered in a dense fog. It even rained a little bit but I'm not sure where it fell from?? The cloud we were in or above...
I was tired and wanted to sleep in but my wife was up and about taking pictures.
After a while the sun came up, woke me up, and burned off the fog.
After waking up to this I decided that we must go up Mt Fredrica, a small 'mountain' on the opposite side of the lake to us.
It is an easy 1 mile or so paddle across the lake, and an easy 1.5 mile hike up to the cliffs at the top. I packed the stove and some lunch and we set off for our hike.
Fredrica rewarded us with great views of the lake and the mountains to the east, south and west. It was no surprise on a day like the one we had that it would be a spectacular picnic spot. We climbed down from the summit to the first open ledge and sat there and the shade of some bushes and enjoyed the views and our food.
We took our time up top and on the way back, paddling the long way around the shore of the lake looking at rock formations and scanning for birds. Again we only saw geese (who were quite shy) and loons (who were also, not surprisingly, shy).
Back at camp I went on a quest to collect a small widow-maker spruce that I had knocked down the night before. I cut it into manageable chunks and hauled it back to camp. It made for a quick fire which we enjoyed well into the night. I frequently suffer from migraines and my usual remedy is Excedrin (or aspirin, Tylenol and caffeine) - as a sometimes unwelcome side effect I am up for a long time. Such was the case as I found myself taking a couple on the top Fredrica to ward off the start of a pounder. All that wood came in handy at keeping me company as the caffeine kept me wide-eyed late into the night. I heard a critter out in the woods around the camp and worried that it might try to thieve my food. Being paranoid I had brought my bear container and stashed everything in there for the night. No signs of robbers were seen the next morning. My wife and I speculate it was a fox or coyote by it's movements although we were just guessing.
The next morning we leisurely paddled our way back to the carry and wound up talking to the assistant to the Assistant Ranger who was a nice young kid. We ran into him at Snell Island and talked as the wind carried us almost all the way back to the launch.
He did get one idea in our head, and that was a burger at the Adirondack Hotel in Long Lake. That was not a disappointment nor were the molasses bourbon wings! Highly recommend!
It was a fairly lazy trip but we just couldn't be bothered to do anything but enjoy the weather and the area. My wife said it was one the best, if not the best outing we have done... EVER! I consider that a success.
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). We had planned on doing the traverse to Lows but decided against it the week before. We haven't spent enough time at Lila let alone Lows to warrant speeding through both of them. There are still many areas of around Lila I haven't explored.
