Moose Pond

Christy and I had a day off together this summer. Just one. So we decided to do something different; instead of hiking a high peak, we chose a lovely little flat hike to Moose Pond. The description to find the trailhead was quite specific: There is a footbridge that is clearly visible from the road. An old road descends for about 200 yards between fences.

We found a nice bridge clearly visible from the road, pulled off in the designated area and our adventure began. Christy commented, "That's odd that there's a gate barring the path," as we climbed over. We also saw no fences and the trailhead began about 10 feet from the road rather than 200 yards, but how accurate are those guide books really? A few feet in, Christy noticed a small sign mostly covered by tall grass: No Trespassing. So we pressed on.

Not too far into our hike, we were thronged by a vast host of famished mosquitoes, and our trail quickly opened up into a small cleared field that looked like a somewhat abandoned garden. And there was an old tractor. We went a little further on the trail that we found on the other side of the clearing and finally decided that this couldn't be the trail to Moose Pond and if it was, then it wasn't worth hiking.

We ran back to escape the plague of mosquitoes, got in the car and decided to try to look for the trailhead again. Out came the guide book for a consultation. This yielded the result of finding another pull off, but no footbridge in sight. We decided to explore anyway. As we walked down the old dirt road between two fences, we finally caught a glimpse of our footbridge.

Somewhere amidst those trees is our footbridge that is "clearly visible from the road"

The footbridge

After that the hike itself was rather uneventful except for Christy slapping my back every three seconds to kill the vampire mosquitoes on my neck. Our trail ended at Moose Pond where we spent some time relaxing on the rocks and enjoying the pond. We saw a loon land on the pond, and then we saw an elderly couple come by in their fishing boat. They told us about a beaver that had been following them, so we watched for it to come by.

The Loch Ness Mons-- umm beaver

And that was the end of our hiking adventure. After hiking, we went into Saranac Lake to visit some of the little shops. We ended up talking to a photographer in his studio (see Christy's Blog) and a painter in her studio. Great fun was had by all.

Random truck we were following

Oh, and I almost forgot. The night before our hike, we went out on the lake and Christy and Joel wakeboarded, which I only wanted to mention so I could have an excuse to post some pictures.