Adirondack scenery

In my last post, where I described the highlight and main impetus for our trip east, I said that Cooperstown, New York, is in the middle of nowhere. Which is sort of true, in terms of urban areas.

But there's plenty of neat stuff nearby: scenery, history, and charming small towns. So I'll tell you about the brief glimpses we had of these various attractions now and in upcoming posts.

The Adirondacks are very different kinds of mountains than the Rockies, with which we are much more familiar. But they are scenic in their own way, with the added advantage of not being so danged high, making hiking around on them a lot easier for flatlanders.

The photo above was taken at a scenic pull-out somewhere between Speculator (who came up with

that name for a really nice little town?!) and Saranac Lake. I think the high points on the horizon are Bullhead and Puffer Mountains.

The road we took from the Albany area to Saranac Lake, which was to be our Adirondack base of operations for 3 days, followed the Sacandaga River for a while. We stopped at a picnic pullout along the road and I took the picture on the right. It shows the river through some of the dense forest that is a defining attribute of this area.

We took time during our drive to spend a very pleasant few hours at the Adirondack Museum. I'll tell you lots more about its fascinating exhibits when I get to my history blog posts, but its scenic setting was a standout, too. It's near Blue Mountain Lake, and you get good views of this photogenic and typically island-studded lake from the Museum's cafe, where we had a nice lunch:

The next day, fortified by a hearty and delicious dinner at Nonna Fina's in Saranac Lake the night before, we tackled our first real hike. Touted in the guidebooks and by the cheerful staff at the visitor center as a "family-friendly" trail, we struck out to climb Mt. Baker. It's right in town, the roundtrip isn't even 2 miles and the elevation at the top isn't even 2500 feet. How hard could it be?

Well, our final assessment was that Adirondack families must be pretty tough! Not only was it very rocky (see the photo at the left), which wasn't too much of a concern, except when the rocks were slippery when covered by wet leaves. But it was really, really steep!

Joan remarked that in Colorado they would have made the trail with a lot more switchbacks. Apparently, though, switchbacks are a new-fangled western invention.

However, the view from the top (or almost the top; except for Joan, who of course was 'way ahead of Steve and myself, we decided to blow off the final yardage) was pretty nice and going down wasn't quite as scary as I'd thought it would be.

A local we met at our stopping and lunching spot said she thought we were looking at Lower Saranac Lake, which is the closest one to town. That's it in the distance in the photo below. The mid-range lake is Lake Flower, which was right at the doorstep of our old-school motel. The bit of water that's closest is the "pond" at the foot of the climb. I knew that rivers were lots bigger in the east than in our neck of the woods, but apparently lakes are, too. This "pond" would be a good-sized lake in south Texas.

Badly in need of more sustenance after this short but strenuous outing, we found it at the Blue Moon Cafe in downtown Saranac Lake (more about this charming little town in a future post). Fortunately I was now able to continue on to another excursion. 

A bit northwest of Saranac Lake is the Paul Smith College Visitor Interpretive Center (the VIC, to those in the know) and it sounded intriguing. As it turned out, we were fortunate that some sort of special program was in progress, since that meant the nature center was open later than usual and it was getting on toward dusk. 

So we had time for a brief but fulfilling walk on a couple of their nature trails. Here are some scenic shots:

reflections in a pond along the Barnum Brook trail

Heron Marsh and Adirondacks in the distance

perhaps Barnum Brook

Fortunately, we were at a high enough latitude that we got back in time for sunset on the lawn of our motel back in Saranac Lake, even after taking a wrong turn on state highway 30 and getting a little closer to Canada than we intended. We even had time for some yummy treats from Mountain Mist Custard that were almost at the level of Classics Custard in Roswell, NM (worth going out of your way for!)

We weren't through with Adirondack scenery, though. The next day we took a different route back to Albany, bypassing Lake Placid (advised because a large Iron Man competition was going on that day) but still catching some of the area's fine scenery.

We let some cyclists out for their pre-race warmups pass us and stopped at a scenic pulloff to enjoy the reflections of hillside and cliffs in this mirror-like water....just another pond/lake in the Adirondacks.

To show you how little of this vast, beautiful area we were able to see, here are some stats on the Adirondacks from the eponymous museum:

yes, that's 2,759 lakes and ponds!

Next up: see more from this great museum and learn why this part of the world is a true historical treasure-house!