Trifter

I live in the northeast, and I ‘m really not suited to it.  I don’t like the snow, I don’t enjoy any winter sports, and I hate being cold.  Right now it’s about mid March and I’m so sick of snow and cold that I could just hop in my car and drive south until the thermometer on my dashboard hits 60 degrees.  I’ve been up here for 13 years now, and I’m always thinking about moving back to the south, but I haven’t done it yet. 

I’ve been making myself feel better by looking through the photos from my family’s vacation last summer.  We took an awesome vacation right here in northern New York.  We went to Tupper Lake. 

Once a bustling logging town, Tupper Lake is known as the “crossroads” of the Adirondacks.  The main attraction in Tupper Lake, for me, was The WILD Center.  I planned to visit the museum, do a little hiking and hopefully find an interesting place to kayak.  First I had to find a place to stay.

Like most people, I do my trip planning online.  I searched for hotels in the Tupper Lake area, looked at the pictures, looked for ratings, checked out the rates and tried to find a nice, clean, reasonably priced hotel or motel with a pool.  That place turned out to be Shaheen’s Motel on Park Street. 

Shaheen’s is a family owned motel.  It’s clean and very reasonably priced.  There’s a pool, and a small miniature golf course.  It’s also conveniently located to all of the things that I wanted to do.  I would highly recommend it to anyone planning to stay in the Tupper Lake area.

Now that I had a place to stay, it was time to plan our agenda for the week.

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The WILD Center

The WILD Center: Natural History Museum of the Adirondacks just opened its doors in the summer of 2006.  It was the primary site that I wanted to see and share with my daughter.  It was well worth the trip. 

The WILD Center is an indoor/outdoor museum with walking trails, live exhibits, movies and a whole lot more.  You could easily spend an entire day there.  My daughter could spend the entire day just watching the otters.  Feeding time for the otters is a popular attraction.  They feed the otters live fish in order to develop and strengthen the skills that they would have in the wild.  If the fish manage to escape the otters, their lives are spared. 

The WILD Center is not only a great new draw to Tupper Lake, it is also a nice recreational area for people who live in the town.  The trails are open for hiking, bird watching and cross country skiing.

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Hiking:  Mount Arab

Of course hiking is a popular activity for people visiting the Adirondacks, and Tupper Lake has plenty to offer.  However, if you’re traveling with a child, a fairly easy hike with a great view is what you’re looking for—a lot of reward for very little effort.  For us, that hike was up Mount Arab.  I believe it was suggested to us by the motel owner.  The great thing about Mt. Arab is that it has a fire tower at the top, so the views are spectacular even though you didn’t have to climb that high.  Hopefully you’re not afraid of heights.  I took the photo below, but you can find more information and  photos at http://tupperlake.net/MtArab.htm.

Kayaking:  Bog River, Lows Lake

Kayaking is something I’d like to do more of.  I’m not ready to buy a kayak, but I do really enjoy it.  It’s such a great way to see things that you don’t see on the trail.  With the help of the nice people at Raquette River Outfitters, we selected the perfect route.  Up Bog River to Lows Lake and into Low’s Lake should we choose to cross the short portage.  Our “outfitters” promised loads of wild life, and they were so right. 

They had suggested to us that we might see eagles near the end of the section of Bog River that we were kayaking.  I really didn’t believe it would happen, so I didn’t get my hopes up.  Imagine my happy surprise when I spotted one at the top of a tall, bare tree.  I have told this story again and again to family and friends, but no words seem to accurately describe what it felt like.  I don’t know why.  Maybe it was the rarest animal that I’d ever seen in the wild.  Maybe I felt a little patriotic seeing one of our nation’s symbols.  We all just sat quietly in our kayaks and absorbed the moment, and then it swooped down and soared across the river.  Wow!

That was the highlight of our trip, but we saw lots of other animals.  Of course we saw loons.  We also saw the sweetest baby rabbit sitting terrified next to the path we were taking across the portage.  (Yes, we portaged over to Lows Lake.  I really liked the Bog River better.  The lake was too much for beginners.)  I walked right by the little furball, but my daughter whispered me back.  She was so excited to have sighted the little guy.  The rabbit was so terrified that I was able to walk right up to it, but it eventually scampered away.  I’m assuming that it was trying to remain as still as possible and hoping that we didn’t see it.

Then on the way back, we had another exciting sighting.  My daughter and I were in the same kayak.  She was in the front, and I was in the back.  We both had paddles, but I was doing most of the work.  It was actually easier that way.  My daughter just never seemed to get a rhythm that I could match.   She was only 9 at the time though.  Anyway, we both heard this splash and quickly froze.  Watching for wildlife is something my daughter and I both enjoy.  Every little scurry through the leaves, every little splash into a puddle requires cautious investigation to see if there’s something to be seen.  This time I said to her, “Some critter just jumped into the water—a really big critter.”  No sooner had I said this than that “critter” popped its head up, slapped its tail on the water and crawled up the opposite bank.  A beaver!  Wow, again!  On the way back to our hotel we also saw several deer on the sides of the road.

Whiteface Mountain

Of course all good things must end, and so we headed home relaxed and ready to go back to our everyday lives—sort of.  Before we did that, we wanted to squeeze one more drop of fun out of our family vacation.  Whiteface Mountain, the fifth highest mountain in the Adirondacks, offers wonderful views all the way up the Veterans’ Memorial Highway to the top.  It’s an eight mile drive, but there are several places to pull over and enjoy a variety of different perspectives on the Adirondacks. There’s parking near the top, and you can either hike up to the summit or take the elevator.  From the top, you get a 360 degree view of the Adirondack Park.

For those who are exploring the Adirondacks with a small child or are just not that into hiking, White Face Mountain allows you to get the experience of reaching the top of the mountain without all of the work.

All in all, this was one of the best vacations that I’ve been on.  It wasn’t all that exotic, and there weren’t any beaches, but it was still thrilling in its own way.  Tupper Lake is a great place to visit whether it’s only a two hour drive from your house or a two hour flight.  There are plenty of treasures to be found in this small Adirondack village.