Where: Low's Lake
Length: A 14 mile long complex of rivers, ponds and lakes. 8 miles to the main body of Low's lake with two short carries. The main lake is broad with large bays. Designated campsites are found all along the route.
Difficulty: Varies, depending on your destination. Anything from a short paddle on the slow moving Bog River to a difficult trip to the far reaches of Low's Lake. The lake is notorious for building large waves when it is windy.
Access: From Route 30, five miles south of Tupper Lake, Take Route 421 to Horseshoe Lake. Shortly after the paved road ends a well-marked side road (left) leads down to the put-in at Low's Lower Dam. Parking is tight on the weekends.
Slide-Show
If you paddle Adirondack waters you've at least heard of Lows Lake. It's the 'Mount Marcy' of Adirondack canoe routes. It's long, challenging, and extremely popular. It's also not the kind of place to go if you are just getting started. Finding your way can be tricky, and the lake is notorious for generating big waves from moderate winds. When the wind is blowing out of the northwest, as it often is, Low's Lake will put your paddling skills to the test.
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| The Bog River just above the put-in at the lower dam. For the first half mile the river passes through a narrow channel with rock walls rising on both sides. There are also rocks just below the surface, so, if your boat does not bounce off rocks well, you'll want to keep an eye peeled for obstacles. |
And, just as you might experience when starting a hike up Mount Marcy, parking can be a problem at the Lows Lake put-in. The small parking area is always full in the summer and, on nice weekends, cars line the narrow road for a quarter mile or more. Arrive early for best results.
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| About a mile in you pass under this railroad bridge. These tracks once carried the mainline of the New York Central Railroad. It was the building of that railway, in the later decades of the 19th century, that opened the Adirondacks to visitors, and shaped the landscape that we see today. |
Even so, while the parking situation might feel like a high peaks experience, the Bog River Flow is big, and the crowds dissipate quickly. To start, you follow the placid (and shallow) Bog River for approximately 2 miles. Then you'll paddle an additional mile to cross Hitchins Pond. After the short carry around the Upper Dam, it's an additional 2.5 miles on the river before the route opens up into Lows Lake proper. At that point there are numerous channels you might follow, and side trips that you might take. So, even on a busy weekend, solitude can be had if you keep going. By the most direct route it's over 13 miles from the put-in at the lower dam to the west end of Lows lake. And that distance tends to stretch out as you navigate the numerous channels and bays that characterize the first two thirds of the route.
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| My route from the put-in at the Lower Dam into the main body of the lake. This outing left a ton of lake still to be explore but, in a 10 foot recreational kayak, it was an 18 mile (round trip) grinder. To see the rest of Low Lake, I'm gonna need a bigger boat. |
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| The first carry is from the Hitchins Pond landing up to and across the Upper Dam. |
There are also a couple of short carries; the first of which I expected, and the second which I did not. The first carry is from Hitchins Pond around Low's Upper Dam. The full carry from the landing on the pond, up to and over the dam, is short, maybe 200 yards. And, except at times of low water, you can paddle up the stream below the dam and cut the carry in half.
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| This muddy carry is where you bypass the floating bog mat that currently (summer 2019) blocks the way. Using the "history" feature of Google Earth it's possible to view satellite imagery of this spot at intervals going back into the late 1990s. From this it's evident that the "mat" really is floating and that its' position has shifted over the years. Water is clearly flowing past this point, on the day of my visit there was water going over the spillway of the upper dam. But there is no open channel here and at places around the edge of the mat you see its' bottom; which is tangle of roots sticking out below the vegetation layer. |
The second carry is also short, but it was unexpected. Lows Lake is noted for the presence of large mats of floating vegetation. These mats are composed mostly of Sphagnum moss but, over time, a variety of vegetation including small trees takes root on top of the mat. You see these semi-floating Sphagnum Bog mats along the edges of many bodies of water but, at Lows Lake, large chunks have broken free from the shore and floated out into the lake. One such mat completely blocks the channel of the Bog River, about three quarters of a mile above the upper dam. When the water is high you can probably paddle around this obstacle, but in late July of 2019 the entire channel was blocked and two short carries were required. As I approached the first carry, and started to climb out of my boat, my foot disappear into the muck well up over my ankle. Yuck, two short and muddy carries are required.
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| The second obstruction. It doesn't look like much, but what looks like normal mud is some of the worst boot sucking mud I've encountered anywhere in the Adirondacks. |
Another interesting thing I learned about Lows Lake is that many maps of the area are only loosely connected to reality. Large areas shown as open water are actually very shallow and swampy. In some cases, what appear to be wide open channels on the maps are nearly impassable.
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| The shallow water visible over the sand might appear to be navigable, but it really wasn't. The water was only a couple of inches deep. I forced my kayak through it by pushing into the mud with my paddle. And that was to reach this sandbar, which could be crossed to to reach open water. |
For example, I followed a route south of Goose Neck Island and then along the south shore of the lake. I expected open water the entire way, but for half a mile the route varied between barely passable and impassable. At one point I had to "poll" my kayak using my paddle to push through a couple of inches of water. You might wonder why I didn't just get out and pull the kayak behind me. Well, the bottom through this stretch was composed of a deep, soft, muck. My paddle was sinking into the mud a foot or more on each push and, when I tried to step out onto what I thought was solid bottom, my foot disappeared into the mud up to mid-calf.
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| The mud on my kayak came from the flying mud storm I created yanking my paddle out of the muck. |
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| Looking west into the main body of Lows Lake. I thought this was a public island at the time, I now think that it was Pole Island; one of the islands you are supposed to stay off of in the summer. The Boy Scouts own a big chunk of the north shore of Lows Lake and several of the islands. The islands are off limits to the public in the summer when the scouts are "in camp." This island did not have the posted signs, which are prominent on Frying Pan Island and Goose Neck Island, and I thought I was OK. Oops. |
Having gotten clear of my bad choice of routes I headed to a small island for lunch. And, after a break it was time to head back. It was 8.7 miles (by the GPS) to that point and I had just reached the open water of the main lake. That's a long way in my little 10 foot "pond" kayak. This little recreational kayak is not a great boat for Lows Lake, but it does have one redeeming quality. It's nearly indestructible, so bouncing it off rocks, forcing it over stumps and submerged logs, and dragging it through the mud was not an issue. If you take a 20 pound pack canoe you'll want to be alert. There are many obstacles you will not want to hit with a lightweight boat.
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| A family of Loons. Loons are common and seen everywhere on Lows Lake. This picture shows two adults and a juvenile. |
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| As you paddle Lows Lake it is readily apparent that the esker which dominates the eastern end of the lake is made up almost entirely of sand. It is one immense pile of sand. I noticed this hole on the south side of Frying Pan Island and paddled closer to investigate. It looks like water percolating down from above flowed out of the sand through this opening. Maybe during one of the torrential rain events that hit the Adirondacks in June of 2019. |
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| The same hole in the sand, from further out provide a bit of perspective. |
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| The Hitchins Pond/Lows Lake esker is readily apparent in this image from Google Maps. Starting in the upper right, the esker runs along the short of Hitchins Pond and well into the Lows Lake where it forms a long sinuous island. In total the esker is nearly 10 miles long and it is composed of sand. |
