Lake Lila a photo essay

[shiraz627]

Originally Posted by stripperguy

Thanks...

I'm not satisfied with the Aluma. I mean, I love the trailer itself (5 x 8 feet), but it's not ideal for carrying longer boats.
When I carry my and MDB's solos, everything is fine. But when I need to carry some 17 and 18 foot boats, I have to shift the hulls so far back (to not hit the tow vehicle, especially on turns) that the trailer tongue becomes unloaded, or nearly so. This makes for poor and possibly dangerous towing.

I'll likely find a cheap trailer next year, tear it apart, and build my own dedicated canoe trailer. I built trailers before, and it'll be pretty easy.

You have a BT638. I have the same trailer but with solid sides and a bifold gate. I think to use that trailer to carry boats, you need to lengthen the tongue.

[TrailBlaser]

I am in the process of scanning my 35mm slides and came across these:

https://imgur.com/gallery/XmzWci2

[stripperguy]

Wow!! Fantastic pics...were the overhead views from a floatplane?
I was there in 1983 and the lodge was still standing, but surely didn't look as nice as in your photos. The dates say 1993, are you sure of the date? Maybe pics are from separate trips?
BTW, I love the look of your green "REYWAS", is that a 17'9" Cruiser? I have a red one.

[montcalm]

Pic of the lodge looks like a zoom of the previous shot from Frederica. I can see the exact same aspect in both pics.

[TrailBlaser]

Originally Posted by stripperguy

Wow!! Fantastic pics...were the overhead views from a floatplane?
I was there in 1983 and the lodge was still standing, but surely didn't look as nice as in your photos. The dates say 1993, are you sure of the date? Maybe pics are from separate trips?
BTW, I love the look of your green "REYWAS", is that a 17'9" Cruiser? I have a red one.

Thanks very much. I bet you are right about the slides being from different dates. I remember going in right after it opened up. My recollection is that the interior wasn't in bad shape. I thought I took photos inside too, but I have well over 10K slides and haven't touched them until recently. I am in the process of digitizing them and "discovered" these in a one box labeled Adirondacks. Most of the slides were not dated and few had Lake Lila written on them. In the 80s I was single and doing a lot of trips in the ADKs, both personal and guiding. I took my camera on just about all of the personal trips. Back then I took a couple of flights with Helms over the Five Ponds Wilderness, so it could have been from one of those flights, but I know I took shots from the top of Frederica. I still have the Sawyer (I guess I have to re-scan that one) but it is spending a lot of time on the sawhorses now that I have a Hornbeck...

[TrailBlaser]

Originally Posted by montcalm

Pic of the lodge looks like a zoom of the previous shot from Frederica. I can see the exact same aspect in both pics.

I typically carried three lenses: a standard 18-55mm, a wide angle and 300mm. I think you are right, it is more likely a zoom shot rather than from one of the float plane trips I took over the Five Ponds Wilderness. I recall taking some photos from those flights but haven't come across them yet.

[montcalm]

We have an early 80s Sawyer as well, 17', Kevlar, the same green as the one in your photos TB. We have more "modern" canoes as well, but we've kept this as our "kids" boat. It's still better than 90% of the canoes on the market now despite being nearly 40 yrs old.

[TrailBlaser]

The Sawyer is the Autumn Mist (weighs under 40lbs). It has been great to paddle over the years. I found the receipt recently; I purchased it in March of 1988 for $875 along with a Yakima 58" rack system ($173). Cooke Custom Sewing made a cover for it, which really helped on big windy lakes and in bad weather. I had purchased a new 4Runner the previous fall and took off in July for a solo canoe camping trip: Quebec, Maine, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. I was supposed to go from Newfoundland to Labrador, but after days in Newfoundland with cold temps and continuous heavy rain and forecast indicating the same weather in Labrador, I bailed and headed back. I ended up spending the last couple of weeks canoe camping in the ADKs.

[TrailBlaser]

Originally Posted by stripperguy

Wow!! Fantastic pics...were the overhead views from a floatplane?
I was there in 1983 and the lodge was still standing, but surely didn't look as nice as in your photos. The dates say 1993, are you sure of the date? Maybe pics are from separate trips?
BTW, I love the look of your green "REYWAS", is that a 17'9" Cruiser? I have a red one.

I took another (closer) look at the slide of the lodge - it says October 1983, not '93. Some of the others (that have dates) are from 1988.

[Nehasane]

My first Lila trip was in my red Cruiser (Goldenglass) soon after the lodge was removed. Sold the Cruiser maybe 20-25 years ago (Stripper?), had a green Autumn Mist for a while too.

[stripperguy]

Originally Posted by Nehasane

My first Lila trip was in my red Cruiser (Goldenglass) soon after the lodge was removed. Sold the Cruiser maybe 20-25 years ago (Stripper?), had a green Autumn Mist for a while too.

Maybe... I bought mine used from a dude in Guilderland that said he owned and raced it going back 25 years or so.

It would be cool if we all could compile our pics of Nehasne lodge when it was still standing.
I’ll start a new thread tonight

[Wldrns]

I had visited Forest Lodge at Lila via the railroad access corridor when it was still a working lodge in the early 1970's. When my wife learned that the state had taken over the land, she wanted to go to see the great camp. We planned to hike in during that first coming spring, not sure now what year that was. But we learned that just 2 weeks prior to our trip, the state had razed the lodge, but we decided to go anyway. Although legal to access at the time, the access road from the Sabattis Circle road was not yet open for vehicle travel. So we backpacked in the whole way on foot. The former lodge site was a mess. I think we counted as many as 13 chimneys still standing in the smoldering rubble, many had multiple fireplaces on multiple floors.

From Wikipedia:
In 1979, New York State acquired the 7,200 acres (29 km2) of Nehasane Park surrounding Lake Lila; Forest Lodge was razed by the state at the request of the Webb family as part of the acquisition process. The railway station that formerly served the lodge still stands.

I could not find any reliable information on the year that the lodge was razed.I took several slide photos, later digitized them, but did not preserve the exact date when digitizing.

[TrailBlaser]

Great photos! Thanks for posting them up. The area has such an interesting history.

[stripperguy]

I guess I'll need to pull out the old photo albums...my pics of Nehasne in 1983 were on print film! The only pic I have of the lodge (chimney, really) from digitized slides is this one.

August 1984



MDB and I had visited Lake Lila in the summer of 1983 with another couple. They decided to not join us in a paddle across the lake to visit the lodge, too rough they said, we'll check it out next year. Ha!
When MDB and I returned in August of '84, we spoke with the ranger about the lodge having been razed. He said he was part of the crew that burned the buildings in March of that year. He commented that the lake ice was melted for 100 yards from the shore from the intense heat.

One more.
Here's the train station in August 1984