Raquette Falls Backpacking 05/02/15 - 05/03/15

A group of 7 of us from a Meetup group, including my younger brother Chad, met up at Corey's Road Saturday morning 5/2 to backpack to Raquette Falls. This was Chad's first backpacking trip and he was really looking forward to it. We hit the trail at about 9:30am.

Ready to hit the trail!

A little under an hour later we arrived at the junction with the trail to Shattuck Clearing. I remarked, "Holy crap, we went over 2 miles already?" Apparently I can hike much faster when someone else is setting the pace.

We continued following the ups and down of the trail, which were all a bit longer than I had hoped, and ended up down near the Raquette River. The trail had been taken over by the river for a couple hundred feet so we found a herd path and made our way around the wet area.

The trail went through this section

We passed by Raquette Falls lean-to #2, which was occupied, and made our way to Raquette Fall lean-to #1 near the DEC Outpost. A couple were there but had just stopped for a break and were about to continue on. We all were happy to get our packs off and just sat around for a bit before deciding on tent locations and setting up camp.

After we had gotten all set up and ate some lunch, we went for a hike along the river to see the falls. We stopped at Lower Falls first and everyone took lots of pictures and explored around the area.

Lower Raquette Falls

Chad on a big boulder

We then continued following the somewhat rugged footpath up to the Upper Falls. There wasn't as good of a viewing area to see Upper Falls but we stopped to take a few pictures and drink some water. Moving on, we followed the trail to the end which is the start of the canoe carry around the falls. We hung out here for a bit and Lexie took a swim

Lexie taking a swim

Looking downstream towards Upper Raquette Falls

DANGER!!!

Four guys in 2 canoes came flying around the corner of the river and pulled up to the carry. We decided to start moving back down the trail to give them more room to prepare for their carry.

We hiked back to the lean-to down the canoe carry trail. I had been on this trail twice before on canoe trips and remember it being much worse than it was. Although, those times I was carrying a way-too-heavy canoe over my head. Once we got closer to the lean-to, some of us picked up some nice looking branches for firewood.

Once back at the lean-to, we hung out a little more and then everyone went off to do their own thing for awhile. Chad and I hiked down to the little beach at the end of the canoe carry.

Little beach at the end of the canoe carry

While we were exploring around down there, an older couple paddled up in a canoe. Chad and I then headed up to check out the Ranger Cabin. It's still all boarded/locked up from the winter season so there wasn't much to see.

Chad heading up to check out the Ranger Cabin

Once everyone made their way back to the lean-to, firewood was gathered and chopped up and an attempt was made at getting the bear bag rope up. The rope got on the branch the first try, but it wouldn't come back down! The stick tied to the end got wedged up on the branch. This resulted in a lot of entertaining attempts to get the rope/stick unstuck. Eventually, everyone gave up. The rope was good enough to hang the bag for the night so we let it be and the next morning we had to leave the rope there for whoever uses the lean-to next.

Trying to get the bear bag rope OUT of the tree unsuccessfully

Everyone was pretty hungry by this point so we all started getting out our own dinners. I had recently bought a dehydrator and had brought along some chili I had made and dehydrated earlier in the week as an experiment. It was a huge success! The chili was delicious and rehydrated awesomely!

The chili was amazing!

After dinner we hung around the campfire talking and sharing stories. Bill, Chad, and I enjoyed some cold ones we had stored in the refrigerator the lean-to came with :)

Telling stories around the campfire

Free refrigerator included!

The next morning we all woke up whenever since there was no rush to leave. I was the last one up around 8:30am which I had expected, I'm not a morning person. After enjoying some breakfast we decided to hike over to Dawson Pond. We spent some time soaking in the views which included a shipwreck.

Shipwreck in Dawson Pond

Dawson Pond Outlet

Birdwatching at Dawson Pond

After hiking back to camp, we all started packing up for the hike back out. Unfortunately, none of our packs felt much lighter.

We hit the trail and soon discovered that a lot of the downhills we enjoyed on the hike in were not as enjoyable as uphills on the way back out.

Creek we crossed over on the trail

We ended up setting a pretty brisk pace and were back to the trailhead by 1:30pm. Bill went to sign us back in at the register and found that someone had left an unopened microbrew in the register!

Bill signing back out at the trailhead

After packing the cars up and changing shoes/clothes, we all said our goodbyes and headed our separate ways home.

This was a fantastic trip with a great group of people. My brother thoroughly enjoyed himself and did a great job for his first trip, he was out in front hiking faster than the rest of us for half of the hike back out! I know he has already expressed interest in going on more trips which is great because it's so hard to find hiking partners. I'm looking forward to another trip in July with this Meetup group where I'm planning on introducing one of my friends to backpacking, although I'm not sure if he is going to fare as well as my brother did :)

The rest of my pictures

Video clips of bear bag rope issues