CAMPING IN THE ADIRONDACKS. 



SYCAMORE. 



A man who is penned up in an office 

 through the winter could not make better 

 use of his 2 weeks' vacation than to take 

 a trip to the Adirondacks ; and this region 

 is within reach of limited pocketbooks. 



The outfit is important. The first thing 

 to consider is your feet. They should be 

 well looked after and properly dressed. I 

 have found that the nearer I follow the 

 customs of the guides and natives, not only 

 in footwear, but in general dress, the better 

 off I am. They wear either moose hide 

 moccasins, with common rubber overshoes, 

 or old leather shoes with soft soles. These 

 are worn over heavy woolen socks, the 

 trousers being folded and socks pulled over 

 them, thus preventing the trousers from 

 flapping around the ankles, getting caught 

 in brambles, etc. I have found that moose 

 hide moccasins, heavy socks and canvas 

 leggings are the best. I have the soles of 

 my moccasins topped with rubber soles, as 

 one's feet are too tender to stand the sud- 

 den change from shoes to the soft soled 

 moccasins. Do not wear either leather or 

 rubber boots. The former will blister your 

 feet, the latter sweat and parboil them 

 painfully. One need not get into water 

 deeper than a few inches, and even if you 

 get your feet wet the climate is such that 

 it is almost impossible to catch cold. These 

 moccasins are almost waterproof to the 

 ankles ; they give perfect ease to the feet 

 in the long tramps and enable one to travel 

 through the woods without the slightest 

 noise, which is an absolute necessity in deer 

 hunting. The canvas leggings protect the 

 trousers from getting caught in twigs or 

 brambles and from getting wet by the early 

 morning dews and wet grass. 



The next thing to avoid is the canvas hat 

 and coat. They are noisy, and the swinging 

 of your arms or the scraping of a twig on 

 the canvas is remarkably loud in the still- 

 ness that prevails in the depth of the wil- 

 derness, and is often the means of losing a 

 good shot. There is also great danger in 

 wearing canvas clothes. Their color so 

 closely resembles that of a deer that one is 

 liable to "get a hole through his skin," as 

 the guides put it. An old suit of heavy 

 dark clothes, with coat that buttons close 

 and has a belt, and a black felt slouch hat 

 fill the bill. 



In addition to the cloth suit, one will de- 

 rive much comfort from a heavy sweater, 

 especially at night. A flannel outer shirt 

 is the proper thing to wear in the shirt line 

 at all times, and heavy underclothes are 

 never uncomfortable except in July. 



If it is possible one in a party of 4 should 

 take a rubber coat, for the special use, dur- 

 ing wet weather, of the one whose duty it 

 is to get wood and water and do odd jobs 

 about camp. 



For a genuine camping and hunting trip, 

 take only the necessaries of life. Provide 

 yourself with an Adirondack pack basket, 

 and do not take more duffle than will fill 

 it, rifle and blankets excluded. With one 

 of these baskets you have free use of your 

 hands and arms in getting over logs and 

 pulling yourself up river banks and steep 

 places in the trail. 



I smile when I recall my first trip to the 

 North woods. There were 4 in our party, 

 each dressed as he thought best ; some in 

 canvas and some in old wool clothes. Big 

 grain sacks took the place of pack baskets, 

 and these were loaded with 65 to 80 pounds 

 each, including our guns and ammunition. 

 These we carried in the only free hand we 

 possessed to save us from eternity. Our 

 launch into woods' life on that trip was a 

 6 mile carry down a riffle of the Ohio river, 

 and it was a severe test, rigged out as we 

 were and not used to anything harder than 

 the work one finds in an office. The 6 

 miles seemed like 36 and our duffle to weigh 

 200 pounds. Before we reached our desti- 

 nation darkness overtook us and one may 

 as well be in a coal mine as in the woods 

 without a lantern. It became difficult to 

 keep the trail, which in many places where 

 there were pine needles was hard to follow 

 even in daylight. My companion, M., and 

 I brought up in the rear of our procession, 

 carrying the tent between us on a pole, 

 besides our duffle, which was no easy un- 

 dertaking, as fallen trees across the trail 

 occur every few hundred feet. Notwith- 

 standing our precautions, we ran off the 

 trail and walked into the bed of a stream 

 which had dried up during the summer and 

 was filled with fallen timber and brush of 

 every description. M. was in the lead, and 

 fell backward in trying to rid himself of 

 the tent pole. Luckily the brush saved him 

 from a heavy fall, but his pack bag fell 

 through the brush, and being strapped to 

 his shoulders, held him flat on his back, 

 utterly unable to move. . In trying to help 

 him I got into almost the same situation. 

 We managed to stop the rest of the party, 

 who were ahead and had been lucky enough 

 to keep the trail. After shouting to them 

 to wait, knowing it was useless for them 

 to try to find us, we began our struggle 

 for liberty. I do not doubt that our antics 

 were laughable, but they were far from 



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