Day 4 - 2020 Northville Placid Trail Thru Hike - Spruce Lake Lean-to #1 to Cedar Lakes #1 Lean-to
The Northville-Placid Trail (NPT) is a 139-mile long distance hiking trail that runs through the heart of the Adirondacks - from the village of Northville in the south to the village of Lake Placid in the north. The trail is unique in the Adirondacks that it does not traverse any significant mountain peaks, but instead stays to the valleys and lowlands throughout the Adirondacks. That results in the trail passing many lakes, streams, ponds (and there being plenty of mud along the way).
Enjoying the morning on the shore of Spruce Lake
We thru hiked the NPT between August 9, 2020 and August 18, 2020. We hiked for 9 of the 10 days with one zero near Long Lake. For the hike, we had two cars, so we set up the overall plan to hike the NPT with a handful of car shuttles. The shuttling, while it burned up some time that could have been spent hiking, also gave us a chance to resupply and grab some town food roughly every 3 days.
For the fourth day on the NPT, we started at the Spruce Lake #1 Lean-to. Given our late arrival the night before, we slept in later than normal, took our time with breakfast and breaking camp. Once we were on our way we traveled 13.5 miles to end the day at Cedar Lakes #1 Lean-to.
As part of the hike, Jeff kept a journal of each day and so, with so we will be using his journal to provide a description of each day’s hike. You can also find the entire NPT thru hike on our YouTube channel here.
Day 2 - Spruce Lake #1 Lean-to to Cedar Lakes #1 Lean-to
Waking up in the morning we realized what a beautiful spot Spruce Lake was. We enjoyed the view of the lake as we purified water and got packed up. We did sleep in a bit considering by the time we unpacked, got dinner ready, cleaned up and got to bed it was around midnight. We hit the trail around 10am and headed north.
We quickly passed the other two lean-tos on Spruce Lake and then began making our way through relatively boggy spruce forest. At the outlet to Sampson Bog we passed our first hikers of the entire trip (save a few folks we ran into near the Northville Trailhead). They were heading south. Through some more boggy forest we eventually reached the West Canada Creek Lean-to and shortly thereafter the South Lake Lean-to where we had lunch and a swim. The lean-to there sports a sandy beach, which doesn’t get very deep, but is very nice. Let the toe dry out and managed to finally get boots and socks to dry off from the previous nights rain in the sun and breeze.
From there we crossed the outlet of South Lake on a really extensive set of bridges. At the same time Moe managed to somehow zoom on his phone to make it unusable. We had a bit of a spat and agreed that he could ask for my phone or tell me to take any picture he wanted. Then we passed through the area of the former ranger cabin/interior camp (all that has been removed now).
From the old camp site we continued on past Kings Pond and reached the start of the Cedar Lakes. Our destination was the Cedar Lakes Lean-to #1, which was located at the northern end of the lake, near its outlet. To be honest the last 3 miles felt endless and uninteresting and we were very relieved when we descended into the open area, saw the lean-to and saw that it was empty. We dropped our packs and took a moment to soak in the view. The lean-to is in the field of another former ranger cabin and the field goes down to the shore of the lake. It was beautiful.
As we were unpacking a group hiking south came upon us (hoping for the lean-to I think). We let them know the next one South was still open and they continued southbound.
It was nice to be able to unpack and have dinner before it got dark. It was also the first night we had a fire. It was wonderful to sit back in the lean-to, in the heart of one of the Adirondacks largest wildernesses and just be. We heard loons calling on the lake. The skies were clear and the Milky Way was shining. As the fire died down, we drifted off to sleep staring at the stars.
Looked through my phone settings to discover how Moe managed to zoom in on his phone. He had managed to tap his phone with three fingers three times?? Go figure. Undid it so he could use his phone again and turned off that setting!
Left toe open and tried to dry it out. Felt somewhat better by bed.
Resources for the Northville-Placid Trail in the Adirondack Park
The best guide to the NPT is the Adirondack Mountain Club's Northville-Placid Trail Guidebook
The best map is the National Geographic Trails Illustrated Map for the Northville-Placid Trail
You can save a few bucks and get both the Guidebook and Map as a bundle
Both proved indispensable for this hike. The NPT isn't currently in an app like Guthook and the AllTrails data is very, very limited. For the NPT definitely go with the old fashioned map and pick up the guidebook so you know what to expect. We carried both with us, but if I did it again, I'd just have the map. The map is waterproof/tearproof so it'll survive the hike.
Interested in hiking the NPT, but want guide services? Hike On Guides can do that - we have special long distance hiking services tailored for the Northville-Placid Trail.
Gear we used on the Northville Placid Trail