Fish Creek Ponds- Saranac Lake, NY

[kathybrj]

We did a 3 night stay at Fish Creek Ponds in site 99 which is actually on Square Pond. Square Pond and Fish Creek Pond offer boating to pretty much all kinds of boats. This made it a bit on the noisy side and made the water particularly choppy.

I believe New York State DEC says that 80% of campsites on Fish Creek Pond are on the water. Our site was wonderful. We were near a water spigot for filling our tank, had direct water access for our kayaks and a bath house across the road (toilets and sink, only).

The campground is right next to Rollins Pond, which has a horse power limit on water craft on it. We road our bikes up through Rollins Pond and decided we would try an extended stay there next year, if we can get reservations.

We kayaked up a stream off Fish Creek Pond and paddled for 3 hours before turning back. We could have gone farther, if we had started our earlier. There are also portage trails that would have taken us to completely different channels and ponds. The water is calm and there's a variety of wildlife to observe along the way.

There are also many hiking and mountain biking trails within the park. The kids had a very good time on the biking trails.

There was a campstore truck that came by daily that sold ice and other necessities. There was a firewood truck that also came through daily. We got a nice size bundle of hardwood for $5. There was also an ice cream cart that came around in the evenings- hard ice cream available in cones or dishes. A very generous small serving was $1.75. Really good quality ice cream!

There's a general store about 1 mile from the campground, called the Trading Post, owned by an old friend of mine. He's got the place fairly well stocked. There's a deli and baked goods, ice cream stand and other groceries.

We'll definitely be adding this trip to our yearly trips.

[garym053]

Thanks for the post! Every year we say we're going there and something always comes up! Maybe this will encourage us to make the reservations!!!

[kathybrj]

Gary- we have done the same thing for years- talked about going but never got around to making the reservation.

This year, I made the reservation about 2 weeks in advance of the trip. Since we had purchased some kayaks up in Maine, we thought we'd like to get some time in to use them.

From what I hear, we got VERY lucky to get a site in such a short time. The place was jammed and our site was what I would call really top notch.

We will probably go to Rollins Pond instead next time. It seemed much quieter, although it is really out there in the woods. Quite a long drive to get to the main entrance, so I'm going to be very careful about packing to avoid unnecessary trips out.

By the way, I wanted to go to Rollins Pond on Columbus Day weekend but it closes on Sept. 4th.