(Photos courtesy of Glenn Sapir, Stephen George and Dan Ladd)
What do chicken wings have to do with outdoor writing? If you attended the 2019 NYSOWA Spring Safari held May 9-12 in Schroon Lake, the answer is everything.
Schroon Lake is in southern Essex County in the Eastern Adirondacks and bills itself as an Adirondack Base Camp. And with good reason, as there is plenty to do around Schroon Lake: hunting, fishing, hiking, biking, paddling, camping; you name it, there’s plenty of it around.
For this event, Rowes Adirondack Cabins served as our base camp. And what a fine base camp it was with cozy cabins and a big outdoor fire pit.
The Schroon Lake Chamber of Commerce (www.schroonlakechamber.org) had an interesting alternative to the standard opening evening meet-n-greet session in that they arranged for Safari attendees to take park in a wing crawl. Six area restaurants were visited - Witherbees Carriage House, Sticks and Stones, DeCesare’s Pizzeria, Flanagans, the Timber Wolf and Alpine Pizza - and all put out a smorgasbord of delicious chicken wings.
NYSOWA members judged the wings on which were the meatiest and tastiest. They were all fantastic and the winner was DeCesare’s, who later provided pizza for us at a dinner held at the old Schroon Lake boathouse.
Meanwhile, some solid hunting and fishing went on albeit after dodging some raindrops. Friday morning's activities were all but washed out. To top it off, a wet, rainy spring had water levels hight, but anglers made due. So did turkey hunters, including Ed Noonan (Safari co-chair) who bagged a nice jake.
Camping is big business around Schroon Lake as there are two state campgrounds on the lake itself and a third is about to open in North Hudson, just a few miles to the north. That would be the new Frontier Town Campground, which opens on June 28. NYS DEC staff met with NYSOWA members for a tour of the campground and an informative Q&A session.
Camping stayed part of the discussion as on Saturday we were treated to lunch at Yogi Bear’s Adirondack Jellystone Park™ Camp Resort, also in North Hudson. Proprietor Mike Lenhard served up a picnic lunch and before taking us on a tour explained what’s behind owning and running a Yogi Bear franchise. And, at Saturday night’s pot-luck game dinner, NYSOWA Supporting Member Brad Buyce of Alpin Haus did a demo of the new No Bo (No Boundaries) tiny camper. This thing is basically a tear-drop style camper on steroids.
Scrhoon Lake is a fine little town on the Route 9 corridor with everything an outdoors-minded person needs. Even the newly designed Stewarts Shop in Schroon Lake is unique in that it looks right out over the bandstand/gazebo in the center of town, and thus the lake. Do drop in, NYSOWA members are glad they did.
Special Thanks to the following:
Schroon Lake Chamber of Commerce
Rowe’s Adirondack Cabins
Witherbees Carriage House
Sticks and Stones
DeCesare’s Pizzeriah
Flanagans
Timber Wolf
Alpine Pizza
Stewarts Shops
Wayne and Marty Welch
Vito LaPenna
Ed Skorupski
Don Sage
Brad Buyce
NYSDEC
Yogi Bear’s Adirondack Jellystone Park™ Camp Resort,
