A Day on Lake George

A day on Lake George is a day spent in “God’s Country” or so say the locals. I can tell you that in my travels I’ve seen some beautiful places but few reach the level of beauty and tranquility as Lake George. Of course that’s just my opinion. I’m sure the folks water skiing, jet skiing and tubing would have a different description. There’s nothing tranquil about what they are doing roaring around the lake. Still, Lake George wasn’t nicknamed the Queen of American Lakes for nothing.

The lake was originally named the Andia-ta-roc-te by local Native Americans. James Fenimore Cooper in his narrative Last of the Mohicans called it the Horican, after a tribe which may have lived there, because he felt the original name was too hard to pronounce.

The first European visitor to the area, Samuel de Champlain, noted the lake in his journal on July 3, 1609, but did not name it. In 1646, the French Canadian Jesuit missionary Isaac Jogues, the first European to view the lake, named it Lac du Saint-Sacrement (Lake of the Holy Sacrament).

But by any name, its beautiful.

Our Day on The Lake

We started our day by picking up the boat at the Sagamore, a resort hotel located in Bolton Landing on Lake George. The Sagamore’s history dates back to the 1880’s. Located on it’s own private Island the main hotel is a nod back to the elegant travels of yesterday.

Casting off from our slip we left the stately Hotel behind us as we headed to one of the many islands on the lake.

Lake George is 32 miles long with somewhere around 170 islands. 148 of the which are state owned. Many with docks and campsites. Although many of the names of the islands and surrounding mountains were familiar I’d been away too long to recognize many of them.

Some of the surrounding mountains include Black Mountain, Elephant Mountain, Pilot Knob, Prospect Mountain, Shelving Rock, Sleeping Beauty Mountain, Sugarloaf Mountain, and the Tongue Mountain Range. Some of the lake’s more famous bays are Basin Bay, Kattskill Bay, Northwest Bay, Oneida Bay, and Silver Bay.

The lake is distinguished by “The Narrows”, an island-filled narrow section (approximately five miles) that is bordered on the west by the Tongue Mountain Range and the east by Black Mountain

All The Way to the End of the Lake

We picked up sandwiches at the little store on Glen Island where the ranger station is located. We cruised around until we located a vacant island with a dock where we stopped for lunch.

During our explorations we passed a huge eagle nest, empty today but looking in good shape. Eagles use the same nest over and over. They just keep adding on.

The afternoon was spend riding up toward Ticonderoga, the northern end of the lake. We stayed away from the southern end of the lake because there’s where Lake George Village is located with it’s Million Dollar Beach and where most of the tourists will be. On our return we spotted the cruise ship Mohican on the far side of the lake.