Roosevelt Truck Trail, A Hidden Gem

The Roosevelt Truck Trail (RTT) is a hidden gem. That's what I told Elle as we drove out of Long Lake headed towards Newcomb. I was confident that the 'hidden' half of that statement was true. As for the 'gem' part, we would soon find out.

I use that route when driving from Long Lake to our home in Saratoga Springs and I've wondered about a narrow paved road that disappears into the forest on the north side of Route 28N, five miles east of Newcomb. The road is easy to miss, but the railroad track that once connected the mines at Tahawus with North Creek provides a good reference point. The road enters the forest a quarter mile east of the tracks. The road looks like it could be a driveway, but there is little sign of use and no electricity or phone lines reach out this far. Recently, I read about a unique trail that leaves 28N somewhere in that vicinity. Putting two and two together, this intriguing little road had to be the Roosevelt Truck Trail.

Good parking is found at the southern end of the RTT. The trail runs for 2.5 miles from Rte. 28N to the Blue Ridge Road. 

For much of the way the route follows a well maintained woods road. The northern end, however, is blocked by blowdown and is heavily grown in.

Ironically, there actually is a house on the access road. A short distance in a gravel driveway leads off of the paved road but, continuing on, you soon reach a small parking area with signs indicating that you are on forest preserve land. A wide woods road with a heavy gate leads north out of the parking area. This is the truck trail.

The RTT runs for two and half miles between Rte. 28n and the Blue Ridge Road. From the south, the first half of the route is well maintained and about a mile in you reach two well manicured camp sites. These sites are designated as handicap accessible. With a permit, and the combination for the locked gate, a four wheel drive vehicle could be driven to these sites. Located in a stand of mature white pines this would be a very nice place to camp. You'd need to bring water however, there does not appear to a nearby source.

Done as an out and back hike the entire route covers five miles over gently rolling hills. The only complication comes at the northern end. There is considerable blowdown north of Vanderwacker Brook and the road is more grown in.

The RTT is popular with bird watchers and it was a write up describing a guided hike taken by a bird watching group that led us there. We saw plenty of birds but nothing uncommon. However, as the day warmed, we saw plenty of the most common forms of flying Adirondack wildlife. It being July the mosquitoes and deer flies kept us moving along at a brisk pace the entire way.

The route is noted for its' passage through boreal forests and that is part of its' appeal. A snowshoe hare in brown summer time garb crossed the path in front of us and it's easy to imagine Bobcats stalking prey in these woods. But, as is the case for many parts of the Adirondacks, past human activity has directly shaped what we see today. The southern end of the trail passes through homogeneous stands of non-native Norway Spruce. This forest was planted with the fast growing European spruce to replace the harvested native trees. Judging by the size this was probably done in the 1920s or 1930s.

Is the RTT a gem? Sure, it's a quiet walk through maturing forests with great bird and wildlife watching opportunities. Like many Adirondack trails it would probably be best walked in the fall, but those who appreciate solitude it's worth a visit at any time of year.

Late July along the RTT. The trail is mostly open and easy to walk. The half mile south of the Blue Ridge Road is grown in.  

Light passing through the web creates a moire pattern.

Early morning light. We got out early on an unusually cool morning in late July (48 degrees in Long Lake). This was to reduce our encounters with the air wing of the Adirondack Protection Force.

It was a cool morning but Elle was bundled up against the bugs, not the cold. By Adirondack standards they actually weren't bad. The northern part of the route is grown in with lots of blueberries. Also lots of poison ivy so watch out for that. 

Two camp sites with good access and new, accessible, privies are available for back country camping with a degree of handicapped access.

Burnt Bridge Pond and the Dog Pond East Leg

Burnt Bridge Pond is reached from a prominent trail head on Route 3 a few miles east of Cranberry Lake. It's 6.6 miles to the lean-to situated on a small bluff on the west shore of the pond. It's a nice spot.

The extensive marsh on the west end of Burnt Bridge Pond. From near the lean-to.

The trail to Burnt Bridge Pond is not especially compelling but the pond itself is very attractive. Looking across the pond from near the lean-to.

A portion of the route to Burnt Bridge Pond also serves as the northern leg of the 13 mile "Dog Pond Loop". That route connects several remote ponds and the western segment passes close to Cranberry Lake in several places. The trail also passes through stretches of forest that are notable for having been lightly logged if they were logged at all. In addition to visiting Burnt Bridge Pond I added a 2.5 miles side trip south on the eastern leg of the Loop (and back). This was to visit one of those old growth stands.

At three miles from the road, you reach the northwest corner of the Dog Pond Loop trail at a place known as the potato patch. Meadows at that location were once used to grow potatoes for the logging camps that dotted the region. The forest is now reclaiming the potato patch which is filling in with trees and brush. 

Starting on Rte. 3, it's three miles to reach the northwest corner of  the Dog Pond Loop trail at a place known as the Potato Patch. So that's three miles to the loop, thirteen miles around, and three miles back out. On dry summer day that might be doable, but nineteen miles seemed a bit ambitious for late October. Which makes it ironic that the route I took ended up covering 19.2 miles. That meant getting back to the car at 7:00 pm having walked the last mile or so using a flashlight.

My route (blue line) to Burnt Bridge Pond with the side trip south on the Dog Pond Loop. I followed the loop trail to the point where it passes a beaver meadow that provides the first trickle of what will become East Creek. That's also the point where the climb up to the notch between Dog and Bear mountains begins. The yellow lines are trails as delineated on Department of Conservation maps. The disconnect in the trail is where an old route encountered private land. The new trail bypasses that section. The difference in the image (brown on the upper half, green below) is because the imagery available in Google Earth is from two different times of year.

Even though continuing around the loop would have covered the same distance, it would have required a lot more effort. The Dog Pond Loop is a wilderness trail that passes through rugged country. The route to Burnt Bridge Pond is a snowmobile trail that follows an abandoned logging road so long stretches are relatively easy walking. The full dog pond loop will have to wait for another day.

Along the east side of the Dog Pond Loop

Along the east side of the Dog Pond Loop

After leaving the potato patch the trail to Burnt Bridge Pond passes through youngish second-growth hardwoods and, to be honest, this section of trail is fairly dull. The route passes a number of old logging clearings and the most interesting stretch is through a section of forest where the ground is littered with old disintegrating logs. Many of the larger trees (18-24 inch diameter) in that stretch are broken off well above the ground leaving the trees damaged but still living. Most the rotting logs are oriented on an east to northeast axis. This area clearly experienced a blow down event and given the log's state of decay it seems likely that it was the 1995 storm.

The Dog Pond loop section, south from the Burnt Brook Pond trail, is much more interesting. Less than a half mile from the junction you reach a crossing of a brook that feeds Burnt Bridge Pond from the west. That crossing exhibits what is sometimes referred to in trail guides as "extensive beaver activity." In this case meaning that the bridge over the brook is sitting in the middle of a beaver flooded area (Oct 2016). It's probably possible to find a way around the flooded area on the downstream side or you can cross one of the beaver dams. The one just above the bridge is reasonably easy to cross but doing so while keeping your feet dry will pose a significant challenge.

Flooded bridge on the Dog Pond Loop eastern leg

Upstream from the bridge the beaver flooded area is quite large.

South of the crossing the trail quickly enters mature forests that were lightly cut or, perhaps in places, not cut at all. The trail passes over a series of gentle ridges with a number of spots where the work of the glaciers is readily visible. There are old growth trees present in this section and in particular I noted the presence of old growth Hemlock. I was not really expecting to see Hemlock and the composition of this forest is different from higher elevation areas to the south and east. It appears that this would have been primarily a Beech-Maple forest with Hemlock in the wetter more sheltered places. Very few spruce are present. Maybe because conditions were not favorable or maybe becasue those were the trees cut from this area of forest.

An old growth hemlock. The ski pole is over four feet tall.

Lost trails; Little Squaw Brook and Colvin Brook

In my previous post I wrote that I don't often return to trails I've walked before because there are so many new and interesting places left to see. Particularly because I like to pick out old trails to see if I can find and follow them. Routes that the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) lists as "unmaintained" are my favorites. So the trail to Carry Pond and then up the valley of Little Squaw Brook would be just perfect. Plan A was to ford the Cedar River (near the Carry Lean-to), visit Carry Pond, and then follow the trail up the valley for a couple of miles. For reasons I'll get to in a minute, plan A did not happen.

South along the Northville Lake Placid Trail from Cedar River Flow. The yellow lines are trails from the DEC trail reference (KML file you can download). The blue line is my route covering about 12 miles out and back.  

Cedar River Flow. A warm, cloudy and very still mid-October day. So warm in fact that a few misquitos joined in the fun.

Heading south on the Northville Lake Placid Trail from the Moose River Recreation Area main road (Trailhead and small parking pullout located a mile south of the Cedar River Flow entrance) the route passes along the south west side of Cedar River Flow and then through an area logged in the not too distant past. The trail follows what was originally a well-built logging road and the forest is primarily second growth with several bogs and swamps thrown in to keep things interesting.

Looking west across one of several bogs crossed by the Northville Lake Placid trail south of Cedar River Flow; Manbury Mountain in the distance. 

A sphagnum moss bog passed between Cedar River Flow and the Carry Lean-to. This was taken on my return trip when a brief glimmer of sun gave hope that the heavy cloud cover might break. Five minutes later it was raining.

A little over three miles from the trailhead an abandoned woods road enters from the west and you pass iron posts that would have supported a gate. A bit further on I noticed an indistinct and unmarked trail leaving the NLPT towards the east and a minute later I reached the spur trail leading to the Carry Lean-to. Which meant that the indistinct trail just passed was the trail to the ford that would start the route to Carry Pond and Little Squaw Brook. Going back, I followed what is best described as a trace of a hint of a path down to the Cedar River. As places where you might try to ford a river go this was as unappealing a crossing as I have come to in the Adirondacks. The river at that point is slow moving and muddy providing no glimpse of the bottom so you could gauge the depth and footing. Worst of all the banks on both sides are steep and lined with thick brush. Crossing there? Not gonna happen.

Cedar River at the place where the abandoned trail to Carry Pond and the Little Squaw Brook valley crosses.

Trail signs at the junction where the short spur trail leads to the Carry Lean-to (which, based on signs on the trail has been renamed the Cedar River Lean-to).

Returning to the main trail I retraced my steps to the junction and followed the short spur to the lean-to to see if it might be possible to cross there. Though there is a landing on the near side of the river below the lean-to the basic conditions of the crossing reamined the same. Also not gonna happen. So, on to plan B. Which was to follow the main trail south to the Colvin Brook trail and follow it to the Colvin Brook lean-to.

The Colvin Brook trail is an eight mile spur that connects the NLPT with Route 30 at the Lewey Lake Campground. The route crosses a 3000 foot height of land between Lewey and Cellar Moutains. On the east side (coming from Lewey Lake) the trail is called the Sucker Brook Trail and it is an interesting and easy to follow route through stands of never logged or selectively logged hardwoods (I hiked it in 2013). On the west side, however, trail guides going back to the 90s have warned that the three mile stretch between the Cedar River and the height of land is obscure and difficult to follow. In keeping with this the DEC recently closed the trail citing extensive blowdown and beaver flooding. This is the trail that David Boomhower took in 1990 attempting to bail out on his NLPT through hike. A huge search effort failed to find him and his body was eventually discoverd a few months later by a hunter. He had made it over the height of land and was just a quarter mile from the trail. He had apparently lost his way and succumed to physical and mental exhaustion.

You'd need crampons to cross this partially collapsed bridge. It was steeply pitched and very slippery. Luckily, the water was low making it easy to bypass the bridge and rock hop across the stream.

Junction of the side trail to the Colvin Brook Lean-to and the NLPT.

From behind the Colvin Brook lean-to. This is a really attractive spot and this lean-to looks like it gets very little use.

But the mile long section of trail between the NLPT and the Colvin Brook lean-to is well marked and as attractive a forest walk as any in the Adirondacks. The route passes through maturing second growth stands of both hardwoods and softwoods including stands where large spruce and fir are present. The lean-to is on the east side of the Cedar River --so you have to cross to get to it-- but it's easy to rock hop across at times of low water. 

The river provides a really attractive setting for a lean-to which appears to be infrequently used. The Colvin Brook trail proceeds past the lean-to where it immediately enters a stand of what I took to be old growth spruce and fir. That stand contains Red Spruce with diameters over 30 inches; uncommon in a region where spruce were relentlessly pursued by loggers. I followed the trail past the lean-to for quarter mile and it is intriguing, but I had six miles to cover to return to my car and the steady drizzle was threatening to become a full-on rain. So I headed back.

Old growth spruce near the Colvin Brook lean-to.

The Colvin Brook lean-to

Cedar River looking north from the crossing at the Colvin Brook lean-to

Back at Cedar River Flow on the return trip. Lewey Mountain in the distance.

Cold River via the Ward Brook Truck Trail

I had forgotten about the circus that emerges spontaneously in the High Peaks on a holiday weekend. I've done plenty of hiking in the high peaks but in recent years I've avoided the region almost entirely. Somehow it never occurred to me that my plan, a long walk to the Cold River along the northern edge of the Seward Range would pass straight through the melee.

The High Peaks Wilderness region is rugged and strikingly beautiful but not particularly wild. However, this intersection, near the place where I turned around, is about as far away from civilization as you can get in the Adirondacks.Several trail systems come together in this vacinity but no trailhead is less than nine miles away. 

It used to be the that the "Sewards" were remote and untrailed. And these four remote mountains represented one of the stiffer tests to be overcome by a potential '46er'. But these days the access trails are much improved and what were once herd paths up the mountains are now well worn trails. Even so, I was caught off guard at finding 50 or so cars already present in the parking area at 8:00 am on a Saturday morning. I really should have known; labor day weekend with a darn near perfect weather forcast; cloudless sky, 70 degrees, low humity - Jackpot! Seeing all the cars I considered heading for a different trailhead but if I did no one would know where I had gone so I stuck with the plan and headed out. And despite the overflowing parking lot I didn't encounter a single person on the first leg of the trip; the 4.5 mile walk to the Blueberry lean-to. The scene at the lean-to, however, brought a chuckle. I counted 11 tents in the vacinity of the lean-to and a half dozen packs inside. But it was quiet and there was no one around. The tents and gear belonged to what I imagined must have been a parade of hikers setting off a couple of hours earlier to bag the peaks.

Beyond the Blueberry lean-to this route passes  --in succession-- the intersection with the Ward Brook Truck Trail, the Ward Brook Lean-to, and the two "Number Four" lean-tos. The Number Four location is 6.5 miles from the parking lot and it also features a horse coral though I saw no evidence that any horses had recently come along to enjoy the spot. The "number four" that gives this place its' name is seen on old topograpic maps. The spot is marked simply as "Camp" on the 1923 edition of the 1:62500 scale USGS map but that was changed to Camp No. 4 on the 1930 edition. To distinguish it from other camps shown on the maps one might suppose.

The 1930 edition of the 1:62500 USGS topographic map of the area. Camp No. 4 is a little right of and below the center of the image. This image was taken from a map available from the USGS Topoview map repository.

Also seen on the map is something called the "Government Trail". That "trail" at some point became the Ward Brook Truck Trail connecting roads in the Ampersand Lake area with Duck Hole and probably the mines and iron works at Tawhaus further to the southeast. The trail from the Number Four lean-tos to the Cold River follows this truck trail and the abandoned gravel roadway provides an excellent base for walking. These "truck trails", found throughout the Adirondacks, were mostly built in the 1930s as Civilian Conservation Corp projects or in the years immediately following World War Two. Most have deteriorated badly in the 50 years since maintenance ended but this one has held up very well. In particular, the bridges that span the many brooks and streams were well built and only a couple are starting to sag. The story of the truck trails can be found on-line and it represents an early battle over how the forest preserve was to be managed.

Intersection where the Sewards trail joins the Ward Brook Truck Trail.

The Ward Brook Truck Trail follows a well build gravel road all the way to Duck Hole. This photo was taken from the same location as the one above (looking in the opposite direction). From this point it's .7 miles to the Ward Brook Lean-to and an additional .7 miles to the two "Number Four" lean-tos. The trail is smooth and well traveled to that point. Past the last lean-to the forest is closing in and the trail narrows to a footpath.

Past the last lean-to the road narrows to a path and it takes on a distinctly wilder feel. But this was a well built road as evidenced by this bridge nearly eight miles distant from the trailhead. When this road was in use it reached all the way to Duck Hole and every brook and stream was spanned by a sturdy bridge.

The hike to the Cold River and back covered a bit over 19 miles. That's a long way to walk by any standard but the relatively smooth made it a bit easier than it sounds. Much of the day passed in the solitude that I enjoy on these long outings but at the very end of the day a lost dog brought me back to earth. Over the last few miles of my return trip I had passed two backpackers, a man first and then a ways further on a woman, both looking for their lost dog. The dog had run off and not returned and while the man looked worried the young woman --forlornly calling her dog's name into the woods-- was clearly stressed. They were asking every hiker to be on the lookout for the black dog with the yellow kerchief.

Continuing out to the road I found that the dog had returned to the trail head parking area where it was crouching next to the couple's car; peeking out to see if one of its' humans had returned. The dog also was stressed and, despite assurances from the woman that the dog was super friendly, any approach closer than a few feet brought a growl. Luckily a second hiker, who had also heard the story and, most importantly, was much younger than I am, volunteered to go back up the trail to fetch the woman. Not wanting to chance the dog doing something even crazier I sat on a log and waited; trying all the while to coax the dog over to me with some carrot sticks (that being the only edible item left in my pack after a ten hour hike). But the dog was having none of this. So we waited. After a while we heard voices and the dog went to full alert. When moments later the woman and the second hiker appeared in view there was a most joyous reunion. The dog sprinting to greet her and then coming back to me as if to say, "I wanted to be friends with you but I wasn't sure". With carrot sticks laying about on the ground I explained that I was trying to lure the dog over, to which the woman replied that the dog was "not vegetarian". This slightly ridiculous exchange flowed out of the overwhelming sense of relief and joy that everyone was feeling at that moment. We didn't know what to say. In thanking us the the woman made the point of saying that she if had a million dollars she would have handed it to us on the spot. Failing that she added that she would find a way to thank us by "paying it forward". Ah, joy.

What a wonderfully odd but happy way to end the day.

A water strider enjoying a stroll on one of the numerous streams that flow down out of the Sewards.

Now walking with a friend.

One of the numerous streams that are the primary appeal of this route.

 

The three mile stretch from the last lean-to to the NLPT trail junction is remote and wild.

Sturdy bridge over Moose Creek. Just above the confluence with Cold River.

Moose Creek looking towards the Cold River Confluence.

The flora of the Adirondack forest is a big part of what makes it feel like home for me.

There's no substitute for late afternoon light.