ADIRONDACK PARK

To Jim's credit, he somehow managed to rustle us out of our sleeping bags in the chilly predawn darkness the next morning. "C'mon, guys," he cajoled while coaxing the campfire to life. "We've got to bust butt and make up for lost time today, even if it means paddling until dark."

Back on the water, we were soon faced with another obstacle: whether to walk or run Class V Buttermilk Falls. This time even Cliff, still brimming with testosterone at 61, agreed that it was a good idea to portage. Below the turbulent, bouldery cascade, we had been in our canoes for only about 10 minutes before yet another carry greeted us. Don said that normally this one-mile stretch of the Raquette River would be fun Class II-III whitewater, but with scant summer and fall rains, it, too, would now be a low-water drag.

Oddly, though, it was with some regret that we finished the trek around the rapids and emerged onto the southern end of deep blue Long Lake. The section of Raquette River we had just left was captivatingly beautiful, wild, intimate, some of our favorite scenery of the trip. By contrast, a disconcerting number of summer cottages and trophy houses ringing 14-mile-long Long Lake reminded us that despite the Adirondacks having the most wilderness acreage east of the Mississippi, you're never very far from indoor plumbing.

That evening, however, found us camped atop a rocky promontory on Long Lake, reconfirming the notion that it doesn't take long to regain solitude in this mega-sized park of marked contrasts. As the night wore on, there was not a single artificial light marring the horizon, nor was there any sound other than the wind through the trees and the occasional call of a loon. A miracle of darkness and silence, such a rare commodity in this age.

Only three days remained in our journey, but we still had much to do. Tomorrow we'd be continuing down the meandering Raquette River to a campsite near a series of idyllic cascades at Raquette Falls. From there our route would take us through Stony Creek Ponds, and across the legendary Indian Carry to Upper Saranac Lake and routes north. Ultimately, our goal was to enter the 18,000-acre St. Regis Wilderness Canoe Area, where we planned to finish our trip by setting up a base camp and pond-hopping for a day or so.

I was excited to see more of this largest mountain wilderness in the Northeast. But I also felt a little repentant. During our trip, I had occasionally sounded like a backcountry snob, comparing the Adirondacks, with its sometimes jarring intermingling of public and private lands, to other, more pristine wilderness canoe areas that I have visited where you can paddle for weeks without seeing a man-made structure, let alone another human being. To be sure, Adirondack Park is a very different forested wilderness-a modern one, a peopled one. But steeped in history and brimming with nature's treasures, it is a wonderful, accessible place, perfect for paddling. I, for one, will be comparing no more.