Five Ponds Wilderness Area
The Five Ponds Wilderness Area, an Adirondack Park unit of New York's Forest Preserve, is located in the towns of Fine and Clifton in St. Lawrence County, the town of Webb in Herkimer County and the town of Long Lake in Hamilton County. The 107,230-acre wilderness area includes 1,064 acres of private inholdings, 99 bodies of water covering 1,964 acres, 57.9 miles of trails, and 14 lean-tos.
Geography
The area is bounded on the north by Cranberry Lake, a portion of the Oswegatchie River, the road leading to Inlet and private lands; on the east by the Colton town line and private lands in the vicinity of Gull Lake, a road leading to Gull Lake and the Remsen to Lake Placid railroad; on the south by Stillwater Reservoir; on the southwest by the Pepperbox Wilderness Area and on the west by the Aldrich Pond Wild Forest and the Watson East Triangle Wild Forest. In the vicinity of Young's Road the wild forest and wilderness boundary is the Streeter Lake snowmobile trail. Land south and east of this boundary will be classified wilderness upon acquisition of inholdings.The terrain is low, rolling and interspersed with many small ponds. Swamp areas and small brooks are numerous. The forest cover varies from pole-size hardwoods in the sections that were heavily logged and burned more than forty years ago to virgin pine and spruce stands.
Forest
This is one of the few locations in the northeastern United States where stands of virgin timber can be found. The Rich Lumber Company owned the land tract north of the St. Lawrence County line from 1903 to 1914. Although some logging was done before 1903, the bulk of it occurred during this time period, when a railroad was put in to remove the large white pine logs. Part of Glasby Creek was not logged and some of the tall white pines still stand along the State Trail. The East Branch Oswegatchie on the parts across from High Rock still has very tall white pines, across it on an adjacent tract of state land, that was acquired by New York State in a tax sale in 1884.Several fires burned large areas south of Cranberry Lake. The blowdowns of 1950 and 1995 did considerably more damage. South of the St. Lawrence County Line was owned by William Seward Webb, and was never commercially lumbered; this area was sold to New York State in 1896. It holds the largest unlogged tract anywhere in the Eastern United States. It has been considerably damaged by both blowdowns, including over half of the esker at Five Ponds. The old growth pine and red spruce stand on the esker between Big Five, Little Five and Big Shallow, Little Shallow and Washbowl ponds is an example of this virgin timber.
Slightly south of the St. Lawrence-Herkimer-Hamilton county marker stands what is the largest virgin White Pine in the Adirondacks. Recent tree surveys have found one white pine standing at 144 feet tall, however, none over 150 feet tall have been found there yet. The virgin pine stand at Pine Ridge near the East Branch of the Oswegatchie is another well known spot where examples of original growth timber may be seen. However, portions of the Pine Ridge stand were completely blown down in the 1950 hurricane. Most of the remainder of Pine Ridge was destroyed in the blowdown of 1995. The Adirondack Park Agency ruled to leave the downed timber untouched. Camp Johnny, a nearby rise of land and popular camping spot remained untouched. There is extreme blowdown in the Cat Mountain area and in the very remote and nearly untraveled Riley Ponds section of the Five Ponds Wilderness Area.
Extremely difficult traveling conditions remain, where crisscrossing blowdown exists, with bushes, small trees and witch-hobble grown up through. The Toad Pond area, on the very remote Robinson River area, has piles of Spruce blowdown. Not all areas have this extreme of blowdown— the southern portion of the Five Ponds Wilderness on the Red Horse Chain of Lakes has much of the forest in the valley areas still intact. Many white pines are standing on the Red Horse Creek, where the State Trail follows, forming a kind of double canopy in places. Very large Yellow Birch and Black Cherries can be found in places, near Clear Lake on Covey Pond Hill. Most of the large spruce around Mud Pond and the Clear Lake area have died off or have been blown down. One, on the northwest side of Clear Lake is over one hundred feet tall.
There are places that are seldom travelled, especially southeast of Sand Lake, west of Crooked Lake, and north of the Middle Branch of the Oswegatchie River. A large Carpet Spruce swamp exists in this area, intermixed with blowdown and rocks. The Middle Branch of the Oswegatchie, west of Willy's Lake and north of a private inholding at Bear Pond is not canoe-able.