We set out Friday morning and had a leisurely drive to Pillsbury trail head. Amazing, the dirt road between Sled Harbor and the trail head was navigable. This is a rarity and not something I would take for granted.

We started our hike down the old military road and arrived at the Cedar Lake dam a little after 4pm Unfortunately, the dam has deteriorated to the point where the water is passing under it and the lake level is much lower than last year. We actually stayed on Beaver Pond, just north of Cedar Lake at an easy to miss but nice campsite by the Beaver Pond Bridge.

Saturday, we hiked by the three leantos on the north side of Cedar Lakes but only spotted two of them. The sign is missing for the third one but there is great camping spot close to it that we did see. At the west end of Cedar Lake, we saw the remains of the Ranger Cabin. This cabin had been closed many years ago. However, I had read about this cabin in Larry Weill's book “Excuse Sir... Your Socks Are On Fire” so it was fun to actually see the location of some of his adventures. We had our lunch at West Lake Leanto #2 which had a beautiful new roof, thanks to our roofing team last year.

Saturday evening, we stayed at Sampson Lake Leanto where we ran across a group from the ADK Niagara Chapter. They were on a similar expedition but had started on Thursday. Fortunately, there is plenty of tenting space around that leanto. We spent the evening sharing their fire and good company. Unfortunately, the Sampson leanto's roof is in bad repair and the rest could use some shoring up as well. Hopefully, it is on DEC's list to fix.

Sunday morning, we hiked back to Pillsbury trail head. Then, we drove to the Oxbow Restaurant for a late lunch with the Niagara Chapter group before heading home.