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Outdoor opportunities spring to life with warm weather

Following fast on the tail of a pleasant string of nearly summer-like days, the local lakes and ponds are finally turning on. While the brilliant sunshine and cloudless days haven’t been ideal for trout fishing, the weather has certainly been conducive to almost any outdoor activity.

Bikers are back on the roads and trails, while paddlers, boarders and boaters can be found on the lakes, rivers and ponds.

In the course of just a few days, it seems the local weather pattern has skipped over the traditional mud and frost heave season. Even though it has been far more summer-like than usual at this stage of the season, the usual clouds of Adirondack blackflies have already provided proof that their season is set to begin.

Outdoor travelers should be cautious when encountering young wildlife at this time of the year, as the adult parents are usually nearby and they can be very protective. Sadly, the fresh season has already been marked by repeated moose-car incidents. Fortunately, none of the drivers were injured, but the moose had to be put down.

I was happy to discover the sprinkling of port-a-potties that have recently been posted at many local roadside trailheads. Although the placement of potties was long overdue, it offers evidence that local advocacy groups have the ability to work together with local town, county and state agencies to address such matters in a common sense fashion. The placement of potties along the Ausable River was a wise choice.

Although it isn’t practical to place porta-potties at every local trailhead, the effort should be expanded to include the trailheads for the Saranac Lake 6ers, where large fields of toilet paper tulips tend to sprout up as soon as the snow melts.

Paddlers, boaters, anglers and swimmers should be aware that local water temperatures remain dangerously cold. The cold water can rapidly sap your strength and cause cramping, even with the stongest of swimmers. Don’t be fooled by the warm weather, strap a life jacket on when you’re on the water.

Camp lore

Transcendentalists such as Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson believed that society and its institutions, particularly organized religion and the established political parties of the era, served to corrupt the purity of the individual.

They had faith that people are at their best only when they are truly “self-reliant” and independent in both mind and spirit. It was only from such real individuals that a true community could be formed. Self reliance was best achieved in the proving grounds of primitive surroundings, such as Thoreau’s Walden or the Philosopher’s Camp on Follensby Pond in the Adirondacks.

It is interesting to note the fervor that surrounded their efforts at the time to instill a sense of self-reliance in their members. Likewise, they sought out opportunities that would provide young men with the

basic skills and will to become self-sufficient transcendental leaders.

While reading over their plans for proposed transcendental camps for boys, the process of character building was paramount.

“The object of the camp is healthful recreation without temptation,” the plans said. “It is a camp where boys live close to nature, give themselves up to play and acquire skills.”

The purpose of camping:

“It is great fun to live in the glorious open air, fragrant with the smell of the woods and flowers; it is fun to swim and fish and hike it over the hills; it is fun to sit about the open fire and spin yarns or watch in silence the glowing embers; but the greatest fun of all is to win the love and confidence of some boy who has been a trouble to himself and everybody else, and help him to become a man.

“The summer time is a period of moral deterioration with most boys. Free from restraint of school and many times of home, boys wander during the vacation time into paths of wrongdoing largely because of a lack of directed play life and a natural outlet for the expenditure of their surplus energy.”

The need:

“A boy in the process of growing needs the outdoors. He needs room and range. He needs the tonic of the hills, the woods and streams. He needs to walk under the great sky, and commune with the stars. He needs to place himself where nature can speak to him. He ought to get close to the soil. He ought to be toughened by sun and wind, rain and cold. Nothing can take the place, for the boy, of stout physique, robust health, good blood, firm muscles, sound nerves, for these are the conditions of character and efficiency.

“The early teens are the most important years for the boy physically. Through the ages of 13 and 15 the more he can be in the open, free from social engagements and from continuous labor or study, the better. He should fish, swim, row and sail, roam the woods and the waters, get plenty of vigorous action, have interesting, healthful things to think about.”

Real purpose:

“This is the real purpose of camping – ‘something to do, something to think about, something to enjoy in the woods, with a view always to character-building, This is the way Ernest Thompson-Seton, that master wood-craftsman, puts it. Character building! Camping is an experience, not an institution. It is an experience which every live, full-blooded, growing boy longs for, and happy the day of his realization.

“At the first sign of spring, backyards blossom forth with tents of endless variety. To sleep out, to cook food, to search for nature’s fascinating secrets, to make thingsall are but the expression of that instinct for freedom of living in the great out-of-doors which God created within him.”

Too much house:

“Civilization has been making of the world a hothouse. Boys need to get away from the schoolroom and books, and may I say the martyrdom of examinations, high marks, promotions and exhibitions! Are we sacrificing bodily vigor for abnormal intellectual growth? Have we been fighting against instead of cooperating with nature?

“The tide is turning, however, and the people are living more and more in the open. Apostles of outdoor life like Henry D. Thoreau, John Burroughs, William Hamilton Gibson, Howard Henderson, Ernest Thompson-Seton, Frank Beard, Horace Kephart, Edward Breck, Charles Stedman Hanks, Stewart Edward White, ‘Nessmuck,’ W. C. Gray, and a host of others, have, through their writings, arrested the thought of busy people long enough to have them see the error of their ways and are bringing them to repentance.

“Camps for boys are springing up like mushrooms. Literally thousands of boys who have heretofore wasted the glorious summer time loafing on the city streets, or as disastrously at summer hotels or amusement places, are now living during the vacation time under nature’s canopy of blue with only enough covering for protection from rain and wind, and absorbing through the pores of their body that vitality which only pure air, sunshine, long hours of sleep, wholesome food, and reasonable discipline can supply.”

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