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The Great Wild Silence
Encountering the Ineffable in the West Canada Lakes Wilderness
At West Lake there are no trucks or cars roaring in the distance, no train whistles, nothing to suggest the bustling world beyond the trees but a crosshatch of contrails left by jets in the sky above. The only structure standing next to the lake is a hiker’s shelter. The nearest road of any sort is six miles away as the bird flies. The lake lies in the middle of West Canada Lakes Wilderness — the largest roadless area in the Adirondacks. It’s a place where one can walk for days without encountering anything but the wild. And that’s precisely why I wanted to go there.
I found West Lake while poring over topographical maps, looking for a blank spot to satisfy the wild urges awakened by my sojourn in the Alaskan bush many years earlier. I first attempted to reach the lake in 2002 by hiking south along the Northville/Placid Trail. I accessed that trail a few miles beyond Wakely Dam. I set aside six days to reach the lake, hang out there for a while, and get back to my truck. On the second day I strayed. I left the NPT at Cedar Lakes, following an inviting, narrow path that took me to another place deep in the woods called Lost Pond. That digression reaped great rewards yet left me longing for the original object of my desire. Years would pass before I’d get another shot at it.
