Fall ADK weekend 2011

This past weekend we went camping in the Adirondacks with our friends Mike, Kelly and Ryan. As we did last year, we camped at the Old Forge Camping Resort but this year we chose to stay in camping cabins, rather than tents. A camping cabin has bunks, electricity and heat, but you still have to walk to the bathhouses. We had cabins side by side, so we only used one fire pit and going "home" at the end of the evening was a few short steps for both families.

Saturday was wet and quite chilly - in the 40s - but we made the most of it. We drove over to Fern Park in Inlet to hike and had the trails to ourselves. We were only a few feet into our hike when we encountered huge boulders. James climbed down into a crevice, which demonstrates the scale:


Wildlife was abundant and members of our group spotted deer, pheasant and a coyote. Mike also spotted this bear:


I adore how the bear has his paw to his lips to say "shh". The trail merged with a private road and if the Corasantis are reading this post, I wanted to respect the "private drive" portion of your sign and turn around, but I was outvoted. And if the Corasantis are reading this, you might want to remove that unnecessary apostrophe...I mean, the Corasanti's what?

As we hiked up the road, we saw these sculptures at intervals:




At the top we saw another bear, who was looking at the view:


And this was the view:


Gorgeous. The lodge was a rustic summer cabin but with scenery like that, who needs amenities?