Sampson Lake and Whitney Lake: The West Canada Lake Wilderness

I didn't set out to hike to Sampson Lake; it just turned out that way. I intended to visit Whitney Lake with a possible side trip to Pillsbury Bay on Cedar Lake. These lakes lie in the very heart of the remote West Canada Lake Wilderness; one of the most remote areas in the Adirondacks.

My plan was to follow the "French Louie" trail to a side trail that leads to Whitney Lake. But I missed the turn to Whitney Lake and by the time I realized my mistake, Sampson Lake was just a mile away. So I went there instead.The trail to Whitney Lake appears on the official DEC maps of the West Canada Lake Wilderness and it is also seen on my trusted Trails Illustrated map. Even so, I probably should have paid more attention to the details. The DEC Web site notes that the Whitney Lake Trail is "un-maintained and hard to follow" and Trails Illustrated shows it as an "unmarked path". Oops.

The Whitney Lake Trail is highlighted on the 1999 edition of 24K USGS topographic map of the area. At that time there was a lean to on Whitney Lake and none on Sampson Lake (the reverse is true today). I can imagine that the area around the Whitney Lake lean-to was heavily degraded and it was removed to allow the shoreline there to return to a more natural state. 

What does it mean to say that a place like the West Canada Lake Wilderness is remote? Millions of people live within a half day drive of the WCLW so we're not talking about northern Alaska here. In Adirondack terms, remote means that getting into the heart of this 170,000 acre wilderness is going to require a long drive on rough roads, a long hike (ten miles or more), or both. The main access route on the eastern side follows gravel roads for ten miles from Rte. 30 to the Pillsbury Mountain trailhead (starting near Mason Lake south of Lewey Lake). For most of the way the road is reasonable, but the two mile stretch from Sled Harbor to the parking area might be challenging for low clearance cars.

Pillsbury Lake from near the Lean To.

The Pillsbury Lake Lean-To. The lean-to is situated to catch the breeze (nice on a buggy summer day) and to relieve pressure on camping areas near the shore line.

For the first three and a half miles the French Louie trail follows an abandoned woods road making for easy and fast walking. Past the lean-to the trail starts to fade with the usual complications of beaver ponds and sections obscured by blowdown. It's 6.5 miles from the parking area to Sampson Lake and, by the time you get there, you are deep in the Wilderness. The Lean-To on Sampson Lake is nice, but the best feature of this lake is the outstanding swimming spot located a couple of hundred yards down the shore line. Flat rocks leading into the water, and a sandy bottom, make this an idyllic place to spend a warm summer afternoon.

As mentioned, I missed the turn-off to Whitney Lake on the inward walk, but I did find it on the way out. A fallen tree obscures the turn off, but with some attention paid to the map to know where to look it's really not hard to find.After passing the Pillsbury Lake Lean-To (on the way in), the lake remains visible on your right for nearly a half mile. When you reach the point where a slight turn and  uphill grade signals that you are leaving Pillsbury Lake behind, the Whitney Lake turn off is close. After a couple of hundred yards look for a grass filled, meadow-like, area on your right. The faint path can be seen heading off roughly perpendicular to the main trail. If you have a GPS the coordinates of the intersection are:

43°35'30.64"N (43.591N)
74°32'23.03"W (74.539W)

Sampson Lake

Seven miles back to the car. Or, I could just sit here and live on the granola bars that I carry as my emergency food supply.

In a full day of hiking, on a very nice late July day, I saw only one other person and he was in the parking area when I returned to drive home in the early evening. Very few people hike these trails and the obscurity of this route reminded me how quickly the Adirondack forest reclaims its' own. In the Adirondacks it doesn't take long for old roads and trails to fade away. That is a big part of what makes the West Canada Lake Wilderness remote. The French Louie trail continues past Sampson Lake and joins the Northville Lake Placid Trail at West Canada Creek. That junction is 10 miles from the parking area and it's about as far away from civilization as you can get in this neck of the woods.

About four miles in the old road fades and this remnant of a vehicle that did not make the trip back out is seen near the trail. The front wheels bear markings "W.W.Corp Buffalo" and a bit of Internet research finds that these used on Buicks up to the 1928 model year. When this one made its' final trip is hard to say.