The folks in the western part of the state escaped the big run off from all the snow that dropped there a couple weeks ago, but there was plenty of water running in this area as the rain washed away most of our snow.
We’re back to bare ground for a while. It was six degrees this morning (12/2) which might put some frost in the ground.
Some of the smaller bodies of water have a coating of ice but it’s not safe enough to walk on. Warn the kids to stay off.
All that running water made for some good waterfall pictures. I went into Death Brook Falls with Tom Beckingham and took a few shots.
He was telling me that when he was a kid they used to drive almost all the way to the falls and watch the bears at the dump.
He got a picture of me setting up a shot on his cell phone.
This is the last week of big game season in this area and so far my little buck has escaped the hunters.
Another nice buck was dragged down the trail out back last Saturday. I saw the guys going in the next morning and they said it was an eight point that weighed 160 pounds.
The snow conditions have been great for those who track big bucks but I haven’t heard of any monsters being taken.
There are quite a few recorded in the Raquette Lake contest that were mostly taken along the Sagamore Road.
The new snowmobile trail gives access to hunters all the way to Eighth Lake from the reservoir.
I took a stroll in the woods the other day to Whites Pond off the Rockdam Road. It’s almost two miles wet in a couple places. It follows an old log road nearly to the pond and I didn’s see one deer track.
Many years ago I took a snowmobile trip to the island on the pond to get an old cast iron stove from a long-gone lease hunting camp of Ike Blair’s.
A couple weeks prior, Don Bird and I walked up from Limekiln Lake to look at the gas tanks from the Super Cub his dad Buster had put down in the woods near the pond in the early 60’s.
The porcupines had eaten holes in the tanks so they were toast, but we did find that old stove on the island while we were there.
My trapping partner and I went up on the crust early one morning and strapped all the parts to our snowmobiles and brought it out.
That stove was still in the garage when I left the Limekiln Headquarters 15 years ago.
Another happening there was the first sighting of a moose in the area, which was in the marsh pond that you see on your left just before you get to the pond.
In the early 80’s, a hunter saw a young bull moose walking around that pond.
He was so excited that he left his binoculars hanging in a tree. He stopped at the house on his way out to report the sighting.
I went up the next day to see the moose tracks and to retrieve his binocs.
This trail followed an old trail that most people used going into the Rockdam area of the Plains.
They would row across Limekiln and walk that trail out to what is now the Rockdam Road and then go down to Rockdam.
There were several camps along the way: the island camp, one on the outlet that was used by the loggers, one on Lost Brook, and Meneilly’s Camp.
About another half-mile down was a two-story Forbes Camp.
Traveling another mile and a half you were at Rockdam where boats were stored.
Across the river above the natural rockdam on the south branch of the moose was Pop Lucus’s Camp.
The last was Al Carpenter’s Camp over near the outlet of Little Indian Lake.
In my travels I have never found that last camp. Al, known as Carp, told me he once found some of French Louie’s rusted marten traps in a small cave on the outlet of Little Indian Lake.
When I first cut out this trail in 1966 I found several original markers nailed on trees. The markers were made of drilled out washers and equipment gears.
Most of them are now grown over and have become part of the tree.
We did not have nice traveling conditions to Rochester for Thanksgiving dinner. We hit snow before we got to Syracuse.
Just enough snow had fallen so the salt trucks had to get out and keep the roads clear because no one was slowing down.
The east bound traffic was solid in both lanes so I was glad we were going west.
Thanks to all those public employees who were out there keeping everyone safe.
We had a great dinner and a quick visit before heading back east.
Coming this way we didn’t hit snow until Rome and it was pretty slippery from there to home.
Inky was glad to see us and get her fake milk.
That will make a good story for next week… See ya.