Vagabond Vol.1 - Nights on Piseco
Old Piseco is down Route from Speculator, a small little lake aways from a small little town, you’d be forgiven for not knowing it. Ain’t much to be said about the Lake or the land around, and that’s the beauty of it. There’s a small retreat on the far end that rents out every year, but outside of that it’s a mostly private place. Hell, I would have never known of it myself had it not been shown to me. The Lake is lined with small streets and neighborhoods of cabins and homes that range from mostly empty to occupied year round. The thing about owning a private get-away is that a lot of the people who can afford to buy one can’t afford to spend much of their time there.
We’re lucky… I am lucky. Kevin’s family worked hard for years to be able to afford a nice lot on their favorite little lake, and they’re more than happy to have us there. For his family, Lake Piseco was a part of every summer, and now, going forward, it always will be. Honestly, it’s the American dream, what most of us lust after. Being there makes the future seem brighter. When I was kid we did the same thing on a group of sites in Fairhaven. Not exactly the same, but it’s more of a feeling than anything else. Ontario is it’s own kind of beautiful.
Piseco is filled with something special, not to take away from it, many little lakes of the Adirondacks would fit such a description. In this case you might say it’s the small little airport at the end of the lake, home to small aircrafts and the come-and-goers, or maybe it’s the small section of the NPT that goes right through it. Maybe it’s the frozen winters and speeding snowmobiles in January that fly across the lake and through every trail up to Lake Pleasant. Speculator is, after all, an all-season getaway.
Piseco is about 90 minuets south of the Great Range, so we often stage by the Lake for a weekend of climbing. I’ve seen her burning hot in June and freezing cold in January, and she’s never disappointed. There is no faint roar of rushing brooks, and even the crackle of an evening fire fades quickly out onto the Lake. The silence can be deafening. If you chance upon a day where an unusual amount of raucous laughter carries from the shore, know with some certainty that the boys have returned from the mountains; they’ve drank at the Ox Bow and now they huddle by the fire with stories to tell.