The Lila Traverse

Salmon Lake outlet. Photo by Phil Brown

The latest issue of National Geographic Adventure features an Adirondack canoe trip as one of its “50 Best American Adventures.” The trip in question is a forty-five-mile loop, beginning and ending at Little Tupper Lake. In between you visit Lake Lila, Lows Lake, the Bog River, Round Lake, and several smaller ponds and streams.

“So new is this route that it has no official name and several of the portages, or ‘carries,’  are merely flagged with tape,” the magazine says in its one-paragraph description.

It so happens that I did part of this route in late May, going from Little Tupper Lake to Lake Lila. I can attest that the carry trails are “merely flagged.” Yet the truth is that this part of the route, at least, is not so new. The state bought the Little Tupper tract in 1998, more than a decade ago.

Frankly, it’s a shame that the state has yet to properly mark the carry trails after all these years. This is one of the premier wilderness canoe routes in the Northeast. The lack of trail markers and signs makes it seem as though the state is neglecting this wonderful resource (for which it paid $17 million). Is that the impression we want to leave with people who drive hundreds of miles to do this route?

David Winchell, a spokesman for the state Department of Environmental Conservation, says the trails cannot be signed and marked until the agency writes a management plan for the Whitney Wilderness. He can’t say when the plan will be finished.

DEC is years and sometimes decades behind in writing management plans for Forest Preserve tracts around the Adirondack Park. The agency lacks the staff and money to get them done.

Something has to give. The public shouldn’t have to wait more than a decade for DEC to mark canoe-carry trails that are already in use. There must be a way to undertake small projects such as this, in a responsible manner, before a management plan is written.

Crazy about coyotes

Jon Waylong dreamed of becoming a wildlife biologist. While still in high school, he began tracking coyotes around his hometown of Barnstable on Cape Cod. He went on to earn bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees, all related to coyote research. Now 34, he has written a book, Suburban Howls, and a number of professional articles on the coyote. Way has come to believe that the eastern coyote (the canid of the Adirondacks and elsewhere) is a distinct species, separate from the western coyote and from wolves. We contacted him by e-mail and asked him the following questions.

 Incidentally, Jon will be speaking this Saturday, May 30, at the Adirondack Wildlife Refuge and Rehabilitation Center near Whiteface Mountain. For more information, contact Wendy Hall at wendy@adirondackwildlife.org.

 What fascinates you about coyotes?

I love predators, and I am especially fascinated by eastern coyotes because (1) they are so successful in a variety of ecosystems; (2) they live in my hometown on Cape Cod; (3) relatively little is known about them; (4) they are a hybrid with red/eastern wolves.

Why do you think the eastern coyote is a separate species?

Because when analyzed genetically they form a distinct group from their parent species: western coyotes and red/eastern wolves (not gray wolves).

 If it is a separate species, what is the biological significance of this?

Nothing much. The eastern coyote does what you would expect of a thirty-to-forty-pound wild dog. It is bigger than western coyotes but smaller than all wolves, including red/eastern wolves.

 What does it mean for the regulation of the coyote?

Whenever I hear the word regulation or management, all I can think of, unfortunately, is killing them. State fish-and-game agencies, to my amazement, are still run just about exclusively for hunters and maximal utilization/exploitation.

 Is the eastern coyote part wolf? If so, which wolf?

As mentioned above, it is a hybrid with the red or eastern wolf-formerly Canis rufus (red wolf), now called Canis lycaon. This is the wolf found in Algonquin Provincial Park in Ontario. Historically, it probably lived from the southeastern U.S. to southeastern Canada.

 How did our coyote come to hybridize with the eastern wolf?

 They hybridized with the wolf in northern New England and New York and in southern Canada, most likely as wolves were getting exterminated at the end of the nineteenth century and as coyotes started colonizing the east. Habitat change due to agriculture and cutting down forests and the lack of competition (few wolves) made the east more attractive to coyotes. Eastern wolves are actually more closely related to coyotes than they are to gray wolves. It is logical that the eastern wolves would have mated with the coyotes if the wolves’ numbers were low. At some point, the hybrids started breeding with other hybrids to form the distinct group we know of as eastern coyotes. They then subsequently colonized all of the Northeast.

Can coyotes and wolves co-exist in the Northeast?

It depends. I think red/eastern wolves would hybridize with eastern coyotes if state fish-and-game agencies allow them to return. I think that if gray wolves were restored in numbers (i.e., reintroduced), they would exclude eastern coyotes from the wolf’s core areas.

 Do you think wolves are already living in the Adirondacks and/or New England?

No. Any “wolves” are likely hybrids just as all eastern coyotes are and could be called coywolves. Any eastern wolves that make it to the Adirondacks or New England are probably killed or mate with coyotes (adding a little more wolf to the already existing hybrid gene pool). By the way, the geneticists say the eastern coyote is relatively pure-i.e., they match with each other genetically, but not with western coyotes or red/eastern wolves.

What is your book Suburban Howls about?

 It’s a 300-page account of the experiences and findings of a biologist (me) who has studied this predator in urbanized environments.

Eastern coyote. Photo by Larry Master.

Fun in the Champlain Valley

The map sells for $4.95

Many tourists heading for the High Peaks may not realize that much of the Champlain Valley lies within the Adirondack Park and that it offers plenty of outdoor recreation. The next issue of the Explorer will carry an article on hiking trails near Elizabethtown. Kayakers and bicyclists might be interested in a recreational map of northern Lake Champlain published this spring by Huntington Graphics of Vermont.

 ”Bike and Kayak Map for Northern Lake Champlain,” which is in color, sells for $4.95. It describes seventeen paddling routes (six starting in New York) and thirteen road-bike routes (five in New York).

The map shows only the put-ins for kayak trips. The destinations on the New York side are Point Au Roche, Long Point, Valcour Island, Ausable Point (and the Ausable River delta), Schuyler Island, and Willsboro Bay. My main criticism is that it omits the paddle around Split Rock and past the stunning Palisades, which can be done from Westport or Whallon Bay. However, the Palisades can be seen on one of the Vermont trips.

The bike routes are highlighted in yellow. Those on the New York side range from 12.4 to 38.3 miles. The longest actually is a two-state trip, requiring ferry rides between Port Kent and Burlington and between Essex and Charlotte. I’ve done this, and while it is a great trip, you should be prepared for traffic south of Burlington. The trip I would find most appealing is a 29.5-mile ride through the hills of Essex and Lewis. An easier trip follows the Ausable River west of Keeseville (12.4 miles). The other two New York rides explore the rural countryside near Plattsburgh (23.5 miles) and Peru (19.2 miles).

Lake Lila road update

A few hours after my last post, I returned to the Lake Lila road. It was still gated, so I began the long walk in to pick up our gear and two canoes. On the way I met a DEC truck that was raking the road. When they finished, they opened the gate, so I was able to drive in. That saved me five to six hours of pulling a canoe buggy on a dusty road swarming with black flies. I was grateful. In the hour or so that it took me to retrieve my stuff (including two carries from the lake) and drive back up the access road, three vehicles with paddlers arrived, including one from Ithaca and one from Vermont. Imagine the disappointment if these people had shown up on the Friday evening of Memorial Day weekend and found the road closed.

By the way, should you ever drive to Lake Lila and find the road gated, turn around and drive down the road a piece to the put-in to Little Tupper Lake or Round Lake. If you choose Little Tupper, I recommend canoeing to the west and and taking the Rock Pond outlet to Rock Pond, a beautiful lake with several nice campsites and a big island. You also could head north on Route 30, take the turn for Horseshoe Lake, and look for the access road to the Bog River. You can canoe up the Bog to Hitchins Pond, where there are campsites. If you want to go farther, portage around the Upper Dam to access Lows Lake.

Of course, the black flies were still out in force Friday evening at Lake Lila.

Lake Lila road closed

If you’re planning to paddle Lake Lila this Memorial Day weekend, be forewarned: The road leading to the lake is gated. I found this out the hard way after spending two days this week paddling from Little Tupper Lake to Lila. To make a long story short, I had to walk about six miles from the lake to the Sabattis Road to get my ride–this on top of two tough days of canoeing and portaging. DEC posts road closings on its Web site, but before my trip, I called up the wrong Web page. I also sort of assumed the road would be open before the holiday weekend. Bad assumption.

By the way, the black flies were horrible.

Art and nature

A Coming Storm in the Adirondacks. Painting by Homer Ransford Watson.

Anybody have another guess?

Spring again

The pipe before its removal.

I drove by King Phillip’s Spring last weekend. Yes, it really is closed. Strange to see the absence of the pipe that used to attract so many people carrying water bottles and jugs.

 In my original post on this subject, I reported that the state Department of Environmental Conservation removed the pipe after conducting a general test for coliform bacteria. Since not all coliform indicate the presence of harmful pathogens, some people wondered why the agency did not perform a more specific test, so I did a little more digging.

 DEC had said that it was following protocol set forth by the state Department of Health (DOH). But couldn’t it have gone beyond the protocol?

 ”Nothing prevented us from doing a more specific test,” DEC spokesman David Winchell  told me. “However, it would not have altered the decision because we are following DOH regulation. They are the authorities and the regulatory agency when it comes to drinking water.”

 I also contacted DOH to ask why the agency does not recommend performing the more specific coliform tests for roadside springs. I wondered if it had to with cost. Here’s the e-mailed reply from Juan Merino, an agency spokesman:

 “The DOH does not regulate roadside springs. Since the springs have no long-term periodic testing [and] they have no protection and no treatment, the DOH recommends that people do not use that water.

 ”It has nothing to do with expenses, the tests are not expensive. It would simply be impractical, since the quality of the water could fluctuate from one day to another. Even if a sample shows that the water is fine one day, the next day it could make you sick.

“A coliform test could be a good indicator of contamination, while the E. coli test [which is more specific] could also indicate fecal contamination.

“The Department strongly discourages drinking water from roadside springs. The main concern is that since that water is not protected it can have all kinds of pathogens that make people sick, caused among other things by human and animal waste. There’s a number of water-borne illnesses, due to different pathogenic bacteria, among them giardia, escherichia coli, and cryptosporidium.

“In the event that we get an illness outbreak and in the history of the people affected we find out that many of them drank water from a particular roadside spring, we would ask the property owner to put [up] a sign advising people not to consume water from that source.

“Other than that, there are no regulations in place and the Department doesn’t routinely sample those springs.”

 I didn’t think this quite answered the question. If a test shows a high level of coliform bacteria, that doesn’t necessarily mean the spring is contaminated. Whether or not the results might be different on a different day, why not order the more specific test?

 I gave DOH another chance to answer the question, but Juan Merino’s reply again failed to satisfy: “Neither DOH nor DEC regulates roadside springs. DOH makes every effort when possible to discourage the public from using them as a source of drinking water.”

 I tried one last time to get a direct answer to the question, but Merino wrote back that DOH officials “feel they have made their position clear on the matter.”

Is Lows Lake Wilderness?

The Adirondack Park Agency voted Thursday (May 14) to hold public hearings on classifying Lows Lake and adjacent state lands as Wilderness. The APA did so in part to placate environmentalists upset by the agency’s recent decision to allow floatplanes to continue landing on Lows for the next three years.

The APA has yet to set dates for the hearings, but there will be at least one inside the Park and at least one outside it. We’ll let you know when we get the dates.

The proposal is unusual in that it seeks to classify waters as well as land. There are three private landowners on Lows Lake, and in the past the APA has shied away from classifying waterways that were not fully surrounded by state land.

Neil Woodworth, executive director of the Adirondack Mountain Club, said the proposal, if adopted, could set a precedent for other waterways, such as the stretch of the Raquette River that borders the High Peaks Wilderness Area.

 Altogether, about 3,070 acres of water (Lows Lake, Hitchins Pond, part of the Bog River, and Bog Lake) and 9,600 acres of land would be designated as Wilderness. Most of the acreage would be added to the Five Ponds Wilderness. The rest would go into the Round Lake Wilderness. (Click on map below.)

Wilderness is the most protective of the APA’s five classifications for state land. Among other things, such a designation forbids motorized use. After 2011, floatplanes will not be allowed to land on Lows Lake. Motorboats are already prohibited on the lake, though the inholders are exempt from the ban.

The Wilderness designation is bound to run into opposition from local-government leaders. Fred Monroe of the Local Government Review Board, which monitors the APA, noted that the Lows Lake region contains five roads and two concrete dams–which he described as “good reasons not to classify it as Wilderness.”

The Park’s State Land Master Plan describes Lows Lake as part of a wilderness canoe route. From the western end of Lows, paddlers can portage to the Oswegatchie River and then travel down the river for about sixteen miles. Critics like to point out that the lake itself is the creation of a man-made dam.

After the meeting, Woodworth acknowledged that the canoe route would not be the same without the dams, but he said the lake nonetheless provides a wilderness experience.

Do you think Lows Lake should be designated Wilderness?

lows-lake-map-pdf

The awakening woods

Red trillium. Photo by Phil Brown.

Last weekend (May 9) I hiked to Owl Head Lookout in the Giant Mountain Wilderness with my friend Lynda. The early wildflowers were out in force. When we stopped to admire a red trillium, Lynda referred to it as a “wake-robin.”

I didn’t know that this was a name for red trillium. When I got home, I looked up the term in the Oxford English Dictionary, which says it’s a common name for a variety of plants in England and the United States, including other trilliums.

The OED says what may seem obvious: the name derives from the verb wake and the noun robin. The trillium blooms when the robin returns in spring, and so the conceit, apparently, is that the flower wakes the bird. Or is it vice versa?

In Trailside Notes, Ruth Schottman writes that red trillium (Trillium erectum) often can be found as high as 3,500 feet in the Adirondacks and occasionally as high as 4,000 feet. Red trillium favors hardwood forests. She says the painted trillium (Trillium undulatum), which is mostly white, is more often found under conifers in moist woods.

We saw a number of other flowers on the trail to Owl Head, including violets, spring beauty, columbine, Dutchman’s-breeches, and trout lily. It’s a good time to be out in the woods.

Columbine. Photo by Phil Brown.

Gunning for moose

The state Department of Environmental Conservation estimates that five hundred moose live in the North Country. Since moose tend to avoid census takers, the figure involves some guesswork, but it seems clear that the population is growing.

 Do we have enough moose to start shooting them? Apparently, some hunters think so.

Dennis Aprill, the outdoors writer for the Plattsburgh Press-Republican, reports that the Onondaga County Federation of Sportsman’s Clubs is proposing that the state initiate a lottery in which the winners would be given a permit to kill a moose.

Aprill is not against hunting, but he writes in his outdoors column that this is an idea whose time has not come.

Moose are hunted in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine, and the time may come when DEC will seek to establish a moose season in the Adirondacks. I’m guessing this will be controversial no matter how many of the animals we have.