We want to like the Adirondacks, but somehow, it always seems to throw in a bit of disappointment. Yesterday we had a nice drive through Vermont and New York up to the Saranac Lake region of the Adirondacks, arriving at Fish Creek Pond Campground in the late afternoon. We'd made a reservation for four nights (our first mistake), thinking that we could spend three days riding and hiking in the area.
From the description online, the campground looked quite nice, surrounding the pond with almost all the sites on the water. When we made the reservation, there wasn't much to choose from, but the online photo of site 298, the one we reserved looked open and sunny and it was on the lake. The campground had showers, but no power. What it didn't show was that the campsites were cheek by jowl, the toilet block was at our back door, the site was barren, sandy and shady and the showers were literally two miles away from our site (as were the only trash receptacles).
At Gifford Woods, we could hear the loons on Kent Pond morning and evening. Here, with the powerboats zipping back and forth, only a few mallards and seagulls could manage to hang around.
With the children in the site on one side yelling well into the evening, the strange guy on the other side (left off by some relative and without a vehicle) asking if it was safe to leave all of his food and gear out (I then asked him if he'd read the form he had to sign about the bears and keeping all food and cooking gear in a hard-sided vehicle) and the screen doors slamming every time someone entered or left the loo, it was hard to consider staying four nights. The final blow was when I went back to the entrance to ask if we needed extra vehicle passes to go in and out on the motorcycles, since they checked as you came in. They told me I could have only one pass and we'd have to pay four dollars for the other bike each time we entered.
When we got up this morning, it was raining. We decided to cancel the other three days of our stay.
We want to like it, but it seems like the Adirondacks are bad juju. The last time we camped here we were chased home by a hurricane. When we last came through here with Speedy, a brake line split and we ended up spending a night in a rest area (actually much nicer and quieter than the campground), then getting towed 70 miles to a place that couldn't repair it and another 70 miles to the local Dodge dealer where we spent another night.
We didn't want to head back home yet, but pondered where to go. Finally we decided to give western Massachusetts a try. After all, it was the only place we didn't pack maps and guides for. We headed for the northwest corner by Williamstown and North Adams. There were two state park campgrounds nearby, Clarksburg State Park and Savoy Mountain State Forest.
After a 190 mile drive, we tried Clarksburg first. After lunching in their day area and a pass through the campground we decided to continue on. The campground was quite nice, but most of the sites were very small and deep in a tall pine woods. We wanted something more open.
We have a very nice guide, The Best in Tent Camping, New England. It has detailed descriptions of about 100 campgrounds in New England, including descriptions of each site. Savoy Mountain is one of the campgrounds it covers. It described a set of sites as being at the top of the campground in an open meadow. This sounded appealing and it is.
We took an open site right at the top. The campground is nearly empty and we have only one other set of campers here on the top. A far cry from the darkness and the crowds of Fish Creek Pond. After dinner, we had tea by our first campfire and listened to the thunder in the distance as the light faded. Eventually the thunder and the rain reached us and we retired to Speedy
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