ADIRONDACK PARK

We eased out of the mouth of the Marion River and angled northeast across Raquette Lake's long open reaches. At its far shoreline, another carry on an old dirt track brought us to Forked Lake, a seven-mile-long gem with deeply indented coves and bays. In no particular rush, we pulled over to a campsite on state land.

The canoe-access campground was lovely and welcoming, but it was also a bit too luxurious for some of us. Devoid of people this late in the season, the five or six sites came complete with picnic tables, bearproof metal food boxes, one-holer outhouses, a couple of large brick-and-rock fire hearths, and even a pair of resident panhandling mallard ducks. "Pretty cushy, guys," Cliff harrumphed while strolling through the forest of pine, maple, and birch. "Why, this makes campsites in the overused Boundary Waters seem absolutely primitive by comparison."

Any pretense that this was pampered backcountry, however, was extinguished the following morning when we entered the Raquette River. Rather than do the smart thing, namely double-carry our canoes and gear to a deeper section of river above Buttermilk Falls, we decided to work our way down a shallow stretch of the Raquette, thinking that it couldn't possibly be as bony as it looked.

Launching our boats just below a small concrete dam at the end of Forked Lake, we had floated only a few yards before we were out of the canoes, pushing, pulling, and dragging them down the barely trickling, drought-stricken stream. Too stubborn to retreat to the portage trail hidden somewhere in the forest along the right bank, we pushed on, banging our heavily loaded, mint-condition Bell Wildfires over and through an obstacle course of sharp-edged ledges, stony jumbles, and little rapids. The fine-lined Kevlar boats were taking a beating-colored streaks of gelcoat left behind on the river rocks marked our passage-but Cliff was in heaven. "Now this is more like it!" he chirped, slip-sliding his canoe between boulders while negotiating a hull-scratching Class I run. "Finally, it's beginning to feel wildernessy, like we're actually canoe tripping."

Sometime later, with our boats and ourselves a little worse for wear, we dragged across the last rock ledge and were overjoyed to see a small, picturesque clearing where a vacant three-sided Adirondack lean-to stood. We were all experienced wilderness travelers, but we couldn't decide what to do-go on, or stay? Don consulted his own guidebook. "The next decent campsite is a two-hour paddle away," he said. "As slow as we're going, it'll probably be dark when we reach it." We took a vote and decided to spend the night where we were, even though our total distance for the day was an embarrassingly paltry two miles.