CJ In The Woods The Blog: A Weekend At Lake Durant

My wife called me last Wednesday and asked if I wanted to go camping this weekend. I'm not one to turn down getting out in the woods so I was on definitely on board. I was in the ER a short time ago with come chest issues and she has a bad knee currently. But those things be damned, we went camping. We mostly sat reading and staring at the lake on this trip, but it was still better then sitting in the house moping.

I want to say, I don't think we'll ever go back to that state campground. It was beautiful and the view from the camp site was awesome. The staff were good and the sites were cared for as well as the rest rooms being clean. It's also one of my favorite areas of the Adirondacks. Some of the people were just flat out rude. Not all, as upon arrival the people on our left were packing up and gave us their left over firewood. But...The site to our right was closed and I guess that closed sign means free for all to use as a hang out instead of your own site to some people. Other campers would go sit at that picnic table and talk at the top of their lungs, yell, and just be obnoxious. It was even harder to handle when some groups would wait util 9PM for to this. Last night the campers on the other side of the closed site waiting until almost 1AM to start playing kick the cooler around. Not kidding here! At first I thought it was a bear slamming a cooler the people forgot to put away. But, when I looked out of our tent there was no bear over there, only two people doing who knows what. They were dragging and banging that cooler around or something. It sounded like the cooler had been left in the back of a moving truck while the truck was speeding around Baha and the cooler was bouncing and slamming around the back.

Anyway......

Over all we have a nice trip. Odd that during the entire trip I didn't see or hear a single fish jump. I know there's fish in there. but it was very strange they didn't seem active. Especially when I was trying to catch a few (one would have been nice).

Friday:

The drive up wasn't bad. Once we got off The Northway traffic on the secondary roads was fine. The drive up 28 from Warrensburg to the campgrounds is beautiful. We make that drive at least once a year into Indian Lake and it never gets old.

We got everything set up and took some time to relax. I actually used my small pack axe and one of my full size axes to process wood. I generally baton wood down into kindling with a knife, which I did a little of anyway, and used the knife to make a good pile of shavings for use as tinder. Then I broke out the ferro rod and got the fire going. Friday night was ham sandwiches for supper. Something nice and easy after making the drive and setting up camp. Then we sat talking and watching the fire and a beautiful sunset.

There was also an incident on Friday involving my FAK. No one was hurt. After supper I was getting ready to get up from the table and a bird in the tree over head took a shit on my hand. It hit my hand and exploded all over my other hand which had my phone in it. Nasty stuff man! I used an alcohol prep pad to clean my hands and phone.

Saturday:

Woke up to a nice layer of fog sliding across the lake. I'm not sure what it is, but I enjoy watching fog or mist roll around a lake. It's just really cool watching it swirl and move. I thought it was around 57* or out. It was pretty chilly but very tolerable. I got out the little backpacker stove to make coffee and heat water for an oatmeal breakfast. Using a stove is pretty rare for me these days. It's usually a twig stove if I'm not making an actual camp fire. French press for me and some instant for my wife. Speaking of, she has decided she wants a French press for next year herself. So after some hot coffee and oatmeal we headed out to pick up more firewood and a sweatshirt for the dog. He was shivering pretty bad so yes, be bought him a a sweatshirt as we had forgot his. Upon getting into the SUV my initial guess at the temperature was wrong. It was only 43*.

Back at camp my wife went about modifying a person shirt to fit the pup while I grabbed my fishing gear and heading down to the lake. After an hour of not even a bite I went back up to the site and made sandwiched for lunch. Then split up some wood into smaller pieces that burn a little better. The wood bundles at the camp grounds and little store up the road were $11 and $14 for small bags. Even driving down into Indian Lake was a better price. I got about 5 times the amount for $15. It's usually a but damp but the once you get a good fire going it dried fast enough. For the savings in money I'll fiddle with it a little.

I also took a little time to harvest some pine pitch.

Got the fire going so I had some nice coals to cook a couple of steaks. So a couple hours was spent tending the fire and reading. Once the fire was ready and I had a nice bed of coals and not a lot of flame I got supper on to cook. Steak and some pasta salad I made on Thursday. Stoked the fire back up and a little more fishing.

Then I settled in to just sitting by the fire and staring at the lake as another beautiful sunset over the mountains and lake.