The Red Horse Trail

 

The Red Horse Creek enters the Beaver River from the north about five miles downstream from the foot of Little Rapids. It is a modest, shallow stream, easy to overlook. Upstream along the creek there are a series of natural glacial lakes and ponds, each higher in elevation than the last.

 

In the centuries before the arrival of white settlers, the Red Horse Creek provided the Haudenosaunee with a relatively easy way to cross from the Beaver River valley to the Oswagachie River that they could follow on north to the St. Lawrence River. Use of the route by generations of Native American hunters and travelers resulted in a discernable trail along the Red Horse Creek.

 

By the time the first people of European descent pushed into the Beaver River country in the decades before the Civil War, the Haudenosaunee were gone but traces of their long-established trail still existed along the Red Horse Creek. The white hunters, trappers, and fishermen who first explored the upper Beaver River rediscovered the trail. They opened a number of side trails to the lakes and ponds in the vicinity and they built shanties all along the trail for shelter that were frequently used by sporting tourists.

 

Ascending the creek from the Beaver River, the traveler arrives in turn at Big Burnt Lake, Trout Pond, Salmon Lake, and Witchhopple Lake. Three small streams flow into Witchhopple Lake. The westernmost, near the outlet, drops in from Clear Lake. The trail follows this stream uphill. Beyond Clear Lake the trail continues to climb to Summit Pond before crossing the ridge to Crooked Lake. All along the way the Red Horse Trail passes through miles of spectacular old-growth northern forest.

The first published account of the Red Horse Trail appeared in Edwin Wallace’s 1872 edition of his Descriptive Guide to the Adirondacks. By that time the main trail as well as a number of side trails were already being used by local guides. Wallace continued to feature the trail in successive editions of his Descriptive Guide with each edition providing more details. In his 1888 edition he claimed in a footnote that the chain was named for the red horse sucker fish that were once abundant in an inlet of one of the lakes.

 

In 1891 Dr. William Seward Webb purchased 115,000 acres of forest surrounding the headwaters of the Beaver River including around the entire Red Horse Chain. Webb needed to use only a small sliver of land for the right-of-way of the railroad. He intended to log the rest except for a 40,000 acre parcel he set aside for his great camp and game preserve. In 1894, before Webb could begin logging around the Red Horse Chain, the state raised the height of the dam at Stillwater. Webb sued the state claiming the higher dam prevented him from floating logs down the Beaver River to market. The state settled with Webb by acquiring 74,584.62 acres of Webb lands.

Part of the settlement required Webb to bear the expense of clearing and improving the existing Red Horse Trail. This benefited Webb because he wanted to keep users of the new public lands away from his adjoining private property. The improvements were completed in early 1896 under the supervision of Webb’s Nehasane Park superintendent, Fitz Greene Hallock. The improved Red Horse Trail connected the Beaver River to Crooked Lake at the height of land, then continued downhill northeast to the abandoned 1815 Albany Road north of Gull Lake where a still discernable path led to the Oswagachie River at High Falls. The trail was clearly marked and was suitable for use as a guide boat carry from the Beaver River as far as Crooked Lake.

 

In 1902 the Rap-Shaw Fishing and Hunting Club built its clubhouse on state land at the foot of Witchhopple Lake right along the Red Horse Trail. Club members and guides maintained the trail and its many side trails to favored lakes in the area. They placed boats at strategic spots on all the main lakes. They continued to maintain all these trails until their clubhouse burned in 1939 and they relocated the club to an island near the Stillwater landing.

 

The earliest USGS maps clearly show the Red Horse Trail. Specifically, the Big Moose Quadrangle of 1903 shows the section from the Beaver River to a short distance north of Crooked Lake. The first edition of the Cranberry Lake Quadrangle shows the north end of the trail from Crooked Lake to Sliding Falls on the Robinson River then to the Oswagachie River at High Falls.

 

An amusing description of the trail as it existed in August 1919 can be found in the illustrated diary of Bob Gillespie and Harvey Dunham published in Adirondack Adventures by Reehil and O’Hern. Dunham, author of the classic book Adirondack French Louie, frequently camped with friends at Salmon Lake along the Red Horse. It only took them half a day to hike from their camp to High Falls. Along the way they explored the ruins of the old Fur, Fins, and Feathers Camp near Sliding Falls on the Robinson River. At High Falls they encountered about 20 people camping in half a dozen old cabins. They slept in an unoccupied leaky cabin and hiked back to Salmon Lake the next morning. 

 

Paul Jamieson in Adirondack Canoe Waters – North Flow notes that around 1919 the Red Horse Trail was improved by the State Conservation Department with the aid of R.K. Jessup, one of the founders of the Adirondack Mountain Club. This may have included building a bridge across the Oswagachie at High Falls, upgrading the existing trail and installing trail markers.

 

The Red Horse Trail was used fairly heavily in the early 20^th century. Until the state evicted the many squatters from the Forest Preserve in 1916 there were at least six substantial guide’s camps that catered to visitors in the vicinity of the south end of the trail. Even after they moved their clubhouse to land rented at Beaverdam Pond in 1917, the Rap-Shaw Club, with 100 members and an equal number of guests, continued to use the trail frequently until 1939.

 

The trail was popular in those days because it was fairly easy to reach by public transportation. Passenger rail service to Beaver River Station started in 1892. By 1900 there was a fine hotel next to the train station called the Norridgewock that catered to campers, hikers, hunters and fishermen. From there it was easy to hire a guide to transport gear to any location along the Red Horse Chain. After the reservoir was created in 1925, a good number of people still visited the area by crossing from Grassy Point near Beaver River Station using boats equipped with newly popular outboard motors. Visitation declined steeply after World War II with the rise of the automobile. Finally, in 1964 passenger train service ended. Because the trailhead is located so far from the nearest road, use of the trail almost ceased and the Red Horse Trail faded into obscurity.

 

Camping, fishing and boating became quite popular on the Stillwater Reservoir during the 1980s. In an effort to provide a unique hiking experience, the local DEC ranger, Terry Perkins, set about restoring the trail. He replaced the rotted footbridges and personally hiked the whole distance to High Falls to clear brush and replace trail markers. Unfortunately, in 1995 a windstorm produced wide spread blow down that totally obliterated the trail north of Crooked Lake. 

 

The DEC with the assistance of the Adirondack Mountain Club (ADK) now maintains the trail from Trout Pond on the Stillwater Reservoir as far as Clear Lake. in the fall of 2010 and again in 2011 the ADK professional trail crew undertook a major rehabilitation of the trail including building thirty-five bog bridges out of native red spruce spanning a total of 319 linear feet between Salmon and Witchhopple Lakes. And so, this venerable trail, one of the oldest and wildest in the Adirondacks, lives on.

 

An illustrated version of this article appeared in the July - August 2018 edition of Adirondac, the member’s magazine of the ADK.