Hitler is alive and well.
October 18, 2020
Keith did not want to go, so off I went, by myself, in my sea kayak for a long weekend, with plans to meet Keith’s cousin Mike, and Mike’s then girlfriend Ro at a campsite. There is a registration book to sign to show you’ve entered an area. In case there are issues, they will know where you last signed in. Lots of black bears, and hanging food away from camp is critical.
I paddled by myself. It’s one of my favorite places to camp and spend time. You put in at the lower dam of the Bog River. There is such a pretty waterfall at that put in. It’s quiet, and full of wildlife surprises. Mark Kurtz took a haunting picture of the river just above the dam. You paddle under a set of railroad tracks.. After awhile you have to get out and carry around the second, upper dam. You used to be able to edge down a bank and shower under the waterfall there. It was so refreshing. There was also the remains of a huge dwelling there. I remember hustling to have lunch there paddling home in a thunderstorm.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lows_Lake_(New_York)
There is something magical about Low’s Lake. The loons, the cliffs, the loons calling out, and their echoes off the cliff gave the loons the impression there was competition and they started arguing with themselves. They made a racket, a haunting, grab your soul call at night that reminds you that it’s just not you in the universe.
Bog River above the upper dam had been used to move logs in logging operations. It can be startling to find a log where one end was jammed into the riverbed and the top is just below the surface. It’s probably one reason they don’t allow motorized vehicles in the whole area, besides the fact that it is a designated primitive area. It takes a good hour to paddle from the upper dam to the beginning of the Lake, then to a chosen campsite at the put in.
Low’s lake is accessible by hand-propelled boats only. The west side is still a boy scout camp. There started to be issues of float planes landing, and dropping off paddlers (to what? Save time? The paddle is the whole experience!) It just seemed like an opportunity to make a buck and the noise they make just wasn’t worth the trouble.
Without a ton of details of a beautiful trip, come Sunday morning, I decided paddle back myself. I always go slower on the way back because I just don’t want the trip to end. The portage around the upper damn is a slog. Seems like I sometimes take everything with me on the trip and bring everything back. It should be a lighter load on the way home.
So here’s where it gets weird. As I get to the take out at the Lower Dam, there is a group of four rednecks at the dam. I ignored them. They are wearing their wife beater t-shirts, drunk out of their minds and are tossing all their empty bud bottles over the walkway at the lower dam, down the waterfall. It made me nauseous. The bottles make crashing sounds as they shattered on the rocks below. So this illusion of a beautiful waterfall below the lower dam is an illusion with shards of brown glass below the surface of the water. There are times to say something and times to just keep moving. With ten miles of remote driving before a main road, I chose to keep moving. They got bored with themselves and tired of their own self indulgence and got back into their old jeep Cherokee. I was glad to have the peace back, and saddened to have witnessed such disregard for such a beautiful remote place in nature.
After packing, I took my time driving the dirt road the miles to the main road. After a while of driving dirt, it turns into a paved road before it meets the main two lane north and south artery. I come around a corner and lo and behold, there is the old model jeep, on its side, flipped over, with these same drunks in a daze, beers still in their hands, trying to flag me down to… what the frigg? Catch a ride? What I didn’t notice until now were the homemade nazi tape symbols (glow in the dark no less) on all their doors, their engine and the back hatch of their vehicles. WTF?? Who does that? I stepped on the gas and sped past them as they threw their beer bottles at me. I got to the main road and called the police to report the flipped vehicle.
What an incredibly sad way to end a beautiful weekend.
There have been trips with better endings than that.
37 Ravens 