Caroga Lake

Unlike at Texas A&M, at SUNY Albany Labor day is a holiday. Despite the not so good forecast we decided to go get some fresh air seeing as I didn't need to work on Monday. After much debating (it's nice to be able to have so many choices), we decided on Caroga Lake in the Southern Adirondacks, just inside Adirondack Park.

After a short (only an hour) drive up to the lake, we set up camp and headed out on hike number 1 up to Nine Corner Lake. It was an easy hike up to the lake and the skies stayed blue. The lake was crystal clear, as promised, so despite not bring our swimming gear, we went in for a swim anyway. It felt so good in there! It really would be a great place for a long open water swim. Matt jumped off the large rock close to shore a few times but I couldn't quite manage to drag myself to the top.

The hike back down was smooth and we headed back to camp to try some fishing in the lake. No sign of any fish.  Not even any minnows. But it was still nice to just lay in the sun and enjoy the view. Grilled shrimp and vegetables were for dinner and some grilled bananas with m&ms inside were the perfect end to the day!

We slept pretty horribly. Partly due to having inadequate pillows, and partly due to the loudest snorer on earth being in one of the nearby campsites. The ranger came round early and warned us of thunderstorms headed our way. So we went out for hike number 2 to try and beat the rain up to Kane Mountain. It was pretty steep on the way up and unfortunately the view from the observation at the top consisted of the inside of the cloud. We did see some pretty cool nature on the way up though. Does anyone know what type of fungus this is?

We took the long way home and checked out Amsterdam (nothing to report) and enjoyed a late lunch of five guys. They have real Heinz malt vinegar for chips (fries) - hence being my favourite burger place! The cat was very happy to see us when we got home. All in all, a short but successful first camping trip in NY.