I received an invite to join BogHollow (Tom) on an adventure to Boreas Ponds today and I accepted without second thoughts. I had seen reports of this area and I didn't want to waste any more time in seeing it for myself.
We got started a little later than planned after we had to backtrack to my house to get my rain jacket. With a 10 AM start, we still had to start out on Gulf Brook Road with moderately heavy rain coming down. Gulf Brook Road is a rather dull walk of 5.8 miles to the bridge crossing the Boreas River. The view looking up the river piqued my interest though. Another mile to the Boreas Pond outlet (First Pond) continued the dullness of the road. Road walking is never my cup of tea.
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| The 1st viewpoint at the Boreas River. |
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| The bridge at the Boreas River. |
At one point on Gulf Brook Road, the road was flooded with about 4" of water in the road. We opted to take off our shoes and wade though the flooded section.
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| Barefoot was best. |
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| Looking downstream on the Boreas River |
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| A first look at Boreas Ponds (First Pond). Haystack, Basin, Saddleback and Gothics in the background. |
After 2 hours of walking, we reached the spillway at Boreas Pond (First Pond). I took some pictures and we watched the clouds rapidly passing over the mountains of the Great Range in the distance. After that, we continued on the gravel road for 5 minutes until we began a bushwhack to the large peninsula on the southeast shore of First Pond
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| Tom inspecting the shore along the peninsula. |
The peninsula was loaded with ferns and was quite pretty. I was surprised that the ferns were somewhat dry, considering the fact that it had just rained. We really didn't get wet bushwhacking the peninsula. We didn't discover any outstanding shoreline features, but it was easy to negotiate the terrain.
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| Zoom view of Mount Marcy |
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| Zoom view of Haystack |
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| Skylight, Marcy and Haystack |
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| Marcy and Haystack |
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| Sawteeth |
As we got further out on the peninsula, I found an old metal can with a wire handle and a glass jar. We turned slightly inward from the shore and we next discovered the old shoe and can that had been reported by Justin and Bill in their trip report.
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| Quite an old shoe... |
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| Artifacts discovered by Justin and Bill in their earlier trek to this area. |
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| A fire ring by the old shoe. |
We hooked one last time to the northern shore of the peninsula, when headed south along the high point of the peninsula ridge. We saw remnants of an old woods road in spots along with some herd paths or game trails.
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| Gothics and Sawteeth in the distance. |
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| Zoom view of Gothics |
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| Gothics and Sawteeth |
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| The ferns on the peninsula. |
Back at Gulf Brook Road we marched the 6.8 miles back to Boreas Road (Blue Ridge Road). The hike wasn't noteworthy, but it was nice to lay lies on Boreas Ponds and to realize that it would indeed be a nice place to spend some quality time paddling in a boat. Thanks Tom for the invitation to join you on this trip.
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| No confusion here. |
Hike Stats:
Hike Distance: 15.5 miles
Hike Time: 6 hours, 10 minutes
Total Vertical Gain: ~1450'
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| Gulf Brook Road and the peninsula bushwhack |
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| The route on the NG topo |
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