The Port Kent/Red Tavern Road And St. Regis River

We were on our way home, driving through the northern Adirondack wilderness along Port Kent Road. I've driven this way before, but this time continued on the road farther than ever before. The St. Regis River makes a bend which brings it briefly up alongside the road and, in other places, there's marshy wetlands with mountains in the distance:


This is too small to be the St. Regis River so must be a tributary. The wetlands and spruce forests were quintessential northern wilderness. It's developed over time that my trips to and from the farm have become the main events and my stay overnight at the farm has become secondary. Well, with this kind of scenery it's no surprise:

I came to a section of road which had lots of private property and many camps, most of them quite modest. This one had an old fireplace standing in its front yard, presumably where the original homestead used to be. You can see it more clearly if you click on the photo to enlarge it:

I passed by the a portion of the St. Regis River with roaring(!) rapids and falls and took a video which you'll find at the end of this post. But as I traveled farther, the upper portion of the river calmed down and became more tranquil in appearance:

And then I passed by more camps and began snapping photos of them:

And another old church. This had been restored but showed no indication that it was being used as a church:

This wilderness camp had been abandoned and the front door was open:

And we passed more marshy wetlands:

This was all breathtaking, but I don't think I'll try this route in the wintertime:


As I drove, I saw the East Branch of the St. Regis River to my right. It was so beautiful that I left the dogs in the car (I wouldn't want one of them to fall in!) and went down to take a video. It was magnificent. Most of the nearby trees are fragrant Balsam Firs so it smelled wonderful. It was, in fact, a multi-sensory experience. It was much larger and more awesome in real life than in the video, of course, but you can get the general idea. There's about a 6 foot wall of water upstream which the camera captures but you might not otherwise notice it in the video because it's all smooth and not churning. But it was truly breath taking: