Monday, August 4, 2014

Wood's Island

I used the Cape Ann several times, in order to get the "feel" of it, in preparation for a camping trip to Wood's Island. It seemed like every time I took it out to see how it would handle in rough conditions, the water was calm. Nevertheless, after postponing one trip due to the weather forecast, I decided to take it to Lake Champlain, whether camping or not.
There is also a geocache on Wood's that I wanted to find, so I used it as an excuse. On Saturday, the forecast called for a 50% chance of an afternoon shower, but I went for it anyway. The weather cleared up on the way, making for a pretty drive.
St Albans is an odd, out-of-the-way town, that looks like it used to be "more" than it is today. It smelled like corn. 
I put in at Kill Kare State Park, using my camping reservation to get free parking, although I no longer had any intention of camping (heck, I  paid these guys $20 already ;) By now the weather was HHH, so I way-marked the launch with my GPS, and navigated to the geocache: 2.3 miles. It was a pretty easy crossing, about 1/2 hour.
  
 This is a beach made of flat chips of shale. I decided to land here, and hike to the cache. I'm actually glad that I decided to blow off camping-Wood's is nice, but not nearly as nice as Knight. The loop trail goes very close to most of the campsites, which are not nearly as good as on Knight. Saw some huge & amazing trees, however:
On the way back, stopped at Burton Island for another cache. It's a more "typical" concentrated campground, but nice.
I overdid it a little. It was 7:00 but the time I loaded up the 'yak, and much too late to think about driving home. Overpaid for a motel room, and had a rough night with my back. An amusing sight on the way home: