Upstate oasis

Many paddlers continue upstream to High Falls, a small but pretty cascade that often marks the end of paddling. Canoes lifted above the falls can travel several more miles (4-7), depending on water level, where there is a series of designated campsites. The campsites at High Falls are popular with hikers and paddlers alike, so if you want to stay there, arrive early and plan on sharing space.

Another attractive site is High Rock (it sits about four miles from Inlet), so named because it rises high above the river. It too offers several places to tent and a view from above of the stream’s wandering path, but its popularity makes it a difficult campsite to reliably plan on. We were fortunate, for on our return trip downstream we raced from a thick black line of clouds booming ominously at our stern. We had barely enough time to secure our boats and set our tents before the deluge came.

My tent was, perhaps unwisely, pitched at the highest point on High Rock, and I watched in awed terror from my lookout as lightning poured from the clouds above to illuminate the wide swath of alder that stretched below. I felt a bit like John Muir in his tree during a windstorm in the Sierras, but chose to come down from my pinnacle as the storm passed directly overhead, bringing a bolt that appeared to strike but 30 feet from my comrade’s suddenly well-lit tent, where he lay hunkered. He swears it struck closer than that.

Our trip returned to Inlet, offering us a chance to run the series of beaver dams while heading downstream, and we could often build up enough speed to pass over the low dams in this manner. To avoid doubling back to Inlet as we did, begin your trip by paddling the Bog River, which dumps into Lows Lake, the western shores of which border the wilderness area. From the eastern end of Lows it is about a three-mile portage (broken up by Big Deer Pond) to the Oswegatchie a few miles upstream from High Falls.

Alan Belford / Canoe & Kayak Cardinal flowers give a hint of fall's brilliant color.

Below Inlet, the Oswegatchie is all but impassable for the two-mile stretch to the town of Wanakena. Paddlers can, however, put in at Wanakena and negotiate the growing expanse of Cranberry Lake, the southern shore of which forms the northern boundary of the wilderness area. Cranberry Lake does allow for some exploration of the long arms of its almost spiderlike shape, but paddlers should be wary of both strong winds and the noise and wake of motorboats. The folks I met while paddling the lake were gracious with their speed, but the lake is not optimal for quiet or seclusion.

The Oswegatchie reforms as the northbound outflow of Cranberry Lake and winds its way out of Adirondack Park in pursuit of the St. Lawrence River. This stretch of the Oswegatchie is dammed in many places—not by the alder sticks of beaver architects but by concrete—retarding its flow to lakelike stillness. You will not find the wilderness solitude of the Five Ponds, but they are good places to see loons and bald eagles attracted to the wider bodies of water. One such location is the Chaumont Swamp region, just west of the town of Newton Falls, where tamaracks border a relatively secluded swamp.

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