Sand Lake Falls, Woodhull Lake, and Bear Lake 5/9-5/11/12 (Adirondacks)

I decided to spend some more time exploring the south west corner of the Park- an area that is still new to me and which I've infrequently visited. After visiting Bear Lake and Woodhull Lake last spring, and climbing Woodhull Mountain, I was curious to explore further south, in particular the trail between Bear Lake and Atwell.

Atwell is an interesting little community- very much in the "middle of nowhere." To reach it, one must drive 15 miles down a road through pretty much the middle of nowhere. Very remote and peaceful seeming (although there are public car accessible camp sites on North Lake opposite the community, and it looks like they get pretty heavy use during the summer!). It's obvious that the trail to Sand Lake Falls gets very little use by hikers through- only a single register sheet, front and back, contained all the entries made by hikers for the past year and a half!

It was dark by the time I started hiking, but the trail follows an old road and so navigation was not an issue... at first. I flew down the trail, making very good time on the old road bed. Some parts were wet, but for the most part the trail was in great shape.

When I'd signed in, though, I noticed an entry made by a group a few weeks earlier that had listed a 2 night stay at Sand Lake Falls as their destination. Next to their entry, was a comment that they'd been forced to turn around because it was "too wet." At first I thought this meant that they'd turned around due to rain... I was soon to find out though that this had a much more ominous meaning...

when I was about 3 miles in, the trail met up with Woodhull Creek. The ADK guidebook described the next mile to the lean-to as "sometimes being wet," a description that is woefully inadequate. The trail follows the edge of the creek, disappearing into expansive wetlands. Trail markers are absent for long stretches at a time, and one is forced to pick their way through wet moss, dense vegetation, water that was calve-deep at times, and floating bog mats. The tread of the trail here completely disappears, leaving the hiker to guess as to the best route across each flooded section. To further add to the difficulty, I was attempting to cross the wetlands at night, trying, sometimes in vain, to scan ahead with my headlamp and pick up even the faintest reflection of a trail marker on the far side of each wet section.

Eventually, I made it to Sand Lake Falls, although my feet were soaking wet long before I got there. I settled down in the lean-to, made a quick dinner, and fell asleep, with the roar of the nearby falls drowning out every other noise- this lean-to certainly isn't a destination for the light sleeper!

The morning dawned cool and gray. I spent some time poking around at the falls. The main falls are certainly an impressive sight- it looks like there could be some decent swimming at the base when it gets really warm. The log book in the lean-to also made reference to a smaller set of falls upstream, which I bushwhacked to. These were more a flume through a natural chasm in the rock than true waterfalls, but still neat to see. Lying around the lean-to was a fair amount of old logging equipment- cross cut saws and the like. I assume that there must have been a lumber camp located at this spot at one point...

My destination for the second day was Woodhull Lake for lunch, then Bear Lake to camp in the new lean-to there. I started north on the snowmobile trail from Sand Lake Falls. For the most part, the trail north to Millbrook was in good shape, but a few spots were pretty badly rutted due to illegal ATV use. I discovered that there is no gate at the north end of the trail, where it meets the road in Millbrook, so there really is little deterrent keeping the ATVers out.

Millbrook has a sign declaring it to be a dry town with a population of 0. It's really just a collection of hunting camps, all clustered together on a parcel of private land on the end of Bear Creek Road.

Continuing north of Millbrook, the trail joined an old road, and was in great shape all the way to just before Woodhull Lake before it left the road bed. I did follow the side trail all the way down to the boundary line with the Adirondack League Club's lands. I was able to spot the boundary with the ALC land's easy enough, but there were not posted signs anywhere. The National Geographic map seems to indicate that there are trails (canoe carries perhaps?) that connect Woodhull Lake with Sand Lake- are these open to public use?

Continuing north to the Woodhull Lake lean-to, the trail became wet again in a few spots but was still overall in decent shape. As I was eating lunch in the lean-to, it started to rain lightly. Someone had torn all of the pages out of the log book, which was disappointing, as I'd hoped to read my entry from when I'd camped there almost exactly a year before.

After lunch, I continued through the drizzle down the Bloodsucker Pond trail to Bear Lake. This is one of my favorite Adirondack hiking trails- it obviously gets little use, and for much of it's length it follows a picturesque babbling Adirondack brook.

When I arrived at the Bear Lake lean-to, what I saw was a bit of a shock. The difference between a year ago and this trip was like night and day. This lean-to is rapidly becoming a high use, highly impacted area. The rock against which the fire pit was built is beginning to crack and peel back, layer by layer. Numerous social trails and satellite sites have begun to form. The area around the lean-to has completely lost the duff layer, exposing numerous roots. The understory vegetation has been lost (much of it looks to have either been trampled or ripped out of the ground), and some freshly cut stumps are indicative of more aggressive firewood gathering habits.

Several entries in the lean-to log book lamented the fact that the new lean-to was constructed so far from the water... all I can say is that I am thankful it was; if it had been built on the water, the shoreline would have been wrecked from all the impact, and the damage much more significant. As they are, the impacts are probably inevitable, and on the plus side, the lean-to seems to have drawn enough use away from the illegal campsites directly on the lake that they appear to be beginning to recover.

The temperature had been dropping all day, and combined with the rain which turned steady, I spent a pretty cold evening in the lean-to. Friday morning dawned bright and sunny, however, and soon it began to warm up. After packing up, I took the trail south from Bear Lake back to Millbrook. On the south end of Bear Lake it passes through the remains of what looks to have been another lumber camp. I kept my eyes open for the old trail to the Coleman Dam, but I never saw any sign of it (is the Coleman Dam a hard bushwhack? Is it even worthwhile visiting?).

I made good time back to Sand Lake Falls, where I stopped for lunch. It was nice to be able to see the falls on a sunny day!

By this point, it was warm enough that the black flies were starting to come out- and they continued to get much worse that afternoon as I hiked out. They weren't biting, yet, but the were swarming pretty good in my face and eyes and around my neck... and I managed to inhale a few. Bug season is definitely upon us!

When I returned to North Lake, the first camper was set up for the weekend. As I gathered my gear and got ready to leave, several more showed up. One guy that I talked to indicated that he's there almost every weekend in the summer, and that the campsites do indeed get very very busy!

Definitely a neat area. I'll be returning at some point for sure to stay at the lean-tos on Gull Lake and Chub Pond. I've also noticed that it's possible to hike from Nobleboro to Stillwater almost entirely on trails in the Western Adirondacks... I read an entry in the Sand Lake Falls log book by a couple who did just that. It would certainly be a worthwhile adventure!