A Late-Winter Hike on the Oregon Trail
Here’s how it looked Saturday at Stewart Flow, an easy hike of just .8 miles into the Wilcox Lake Wild Forest on the Oregon Trail.
There are extra challenges that can accompany late-winter hiking. On an unseasonably warm Friday two days before the spring equinox, two of us headed north from Saratoga for the Cod Pond and Stewart Creek trailheads in the Warren County First Wilderness.
Those trails, plus the North Bend and Baldwin Springs Trails, are segments of what is also known as the Oregon Trail, named after the Hamlet of Oregon in the Town of Johnsburg and a large tannery that operated in that area in the late 1800s.
Several tanneries, including those in North Creek, Griffin, Wells, and Hope Falls, provided work for builders, lumbermen, tanners, and others during most of the 19th century. The Oregon Tannery was built in 1877 by Stephen Griffin.
Men working at the tanneries operated huge mills to process the bark of hemlock trees, which contained tannates used in transforming animal hides into tanned preserved leather. On March 28, 1892, a fire destroyed the tannery, leaving about 50 workers unemployed.
Click to enlarge or find in the Warren County Recreation Mapper.
Today the area offers a primarily level walk through the woods toward Cod Pond in one direction, and the Stewart Flow in another.
On the challenges of hiking in the Adirondacks in late March… as we began we were confronted with the question of proper footwear. At the trailhead, from what we could tell about the snow cover, it appeared that microspikes would be the best option. As it turned out, that was, for the most part, true.
A half-mile or so after we set out toward Stewart Flow, we encountered the first of several stretches of the path that caused us to wonder about our decision to leave the snowshoes in the car. In all of those areas, we got some extra unintentional exercise as we postholed our way through six to eight inches of wet snow.
The reward of this hike is the spectacle of Stewart Creek along the way, and later Stewart Flow. By this time the spring melt was well underway, with high water levels and several rapids in the creek. The trail follows the stream closely through a forest of pine, hemlock, and birch trees, on this day offering pleasant views of ice on the banks of the stream on one side, and patches of snow through the trees on the other.
We encountered at least four sections of this trail that involved detouring around blowdown, and several areas where small stream crossings covered with ice of varying thickness made for uncertain footing. Boot gaiters and trekking poles were useful accessories under the conditions we encountered.
After pausing at the Stewart Creek bridge to admire and photograph the stream and the Stewart Flow, we pressed on toward North Bend. For a mile or so on this trail the ground was mostly bare of snow. But as we trekked deeper into the woods, we encountered an impenetrable combination of tangled blowdown and deeper snow, so we backtracked to check out Cod Pond.
Cod Pond Extension
A panoramic view of Cod Pond.
Click to enlarge or find in the Warren County Recreation Mapper.
The Cod Pond trail is an easy 2.2-mile roundtrip with a slight elevation gain and a worthwhile reward. After a 30-minute walk admiring tall pines and beautiful birches we began to get glimpses of the pond to our left, before the trail rose to the right, then turned toward the water.
The pond is a gem, with a rocky shore and beautiful views across its surface, in late March still almost entirely frozen, but with water pools making it clear that walking on the ice would be a bad idea.
After lingering in this scenic spot, we backtracked to the trailhead and wrapped up the day’s hike after just under three hours at a fairly leisurely pace.
Directions: From Exit 23 of the Adirondack Northway (I-87), follow Diamond Point Road to U.S. 9 north, to NY 28 south, to NY 8 south, 15 miles to the trailhead on the left.