kayaking the Sacandaga River and Good Luck Lake in South Adirondacks

Besides hiking, Adirondack Park offers great kayaking too. Teddy, like many locals, has his own kayaks so we went to explore the West Branch of Sacandaga River and Good Luck Lake – with that name, you needn’t think twice about checking it out, and it turned out beautiful too! The banks of the canal that lead to Good Luck lake were full of blooming aquatic plants.

The views from the Good Luck lake made us feel lucky!

And we were indeed lucky to see a family of elusive loons. Their calls echoed because of the hills surrounding the lake, it sounded quite spooky.

We stayed at the lake till sunset, and next day returned to explore the Sacandaga River more.

That part of Sacandaga River is just perfect for laid-back kayaking: the current is not too strong, and the width allows easy maneuvering and yet being close enough to the banks not to miss any wildlife, that you’re likely to see there.

However, there are some places that hard to go through because of fallen trees.

Still, we managed to get through without too much hassle.

The bottom was mostly sandy, but in some places there were algae that looked like smooth golden-green hair.

Going further up from Good Luck lake, we had more and more places that were too shallow to paddle easily,

so the best way to continue was lifting up and crawling with the arms while still seated in kayak.

But after the bridge, it became too rocky and shallow to continue in kayaks. We walked for a bit, but there was no sign it was going to improve any time soon.

I think I forgot to mention, that ironically, Teddy’s dog was the only one clothed 😀 Teddy just didn’t want him to get lost.

It was nice to make a pause from rowing and get some blackberries. After that, we headed back downstream, and stopped at a little sandy beach. There was a fellow kayaker passing by, he seemed cool with us being naked but wondered why we didn’t have any ladies with us. We suggested him to work on that next time 😀

Down another bridge, the flow was even calmer. We tried to go through a small channel, but it was blocked by a beaver dam.

Well, it turned out that main branch was dammed by beavers too, just a few feet up!

But it wasn’t too difficult to get over it and was actually fun!

We heard some big animals running through the bushes – could be deer or bears – but the only wildlife we were lucky to see that time was a blue heron.

It seemed to be pretty busy fishing and didn’t pay much attention to us.

Given that Adirondack Park is ‘the largest state-level protected area in the contiguous United States’, there is obviously more to explore. Looking forward to the next trip to Adirondacks!