Bear Mountain, In The Cranberry Lake Wild Forest - Part 1

On day two of my sister's visit, we made PeeWee comfortable, put the other dogs in the car and drove down Route 30 toward the village of Tupper Lake. But on the way, we stopped at Lake Clear to walk the sandy beaches:

It was still early in the morning, the winds were strong, the temperature frigid and the waves pounded the shoreline almost like we were at the ocean:

We walked a short distance on the golden sands and admired the autumn colors and distant mountains:

We explored into the forest just a bit to get a look at a tributary:

But then we headed back to our parked car. The dogs loved this romp on the beach but frankly, I was shivering:

We drove to Tupper Lake and then turned west toward Cranberry Lake, where we located the trail head for Bear Mountain and began hiking up the trail:

The trail began easy enough, and the autumn leaves were lovely. The dogs ran and played:

I set Fergus on a mossy log for a picture, but he seemed to be embarrassed about it:

We passed a lean-to, and stopped briefly to take a closer look:

It rained several times while we were on the trail, but the trees overhead protected us:

The trail became steeper and much more rocky, presenting my injured ankles with some tricky walking. We made it in fine shape, though I paid a price for it with ankle pain that night:

I'd never hiked Bear Mountain before and was looking forward to the scenic overlook. But I'll post about that in Part 2, tomorrow: