When Wild Winds Blow

Posted On June 22, 2026

A Tornado-like wind event tears through Middle Saranac Lake

Saturday, June 20th: My brother Ray watching from a safe distance as the DEC crew clears blowdown from Middle Saranac Lake’s site 63 after Ray rode out Thursday’s extreme wind event alone with his dog Pepper in the Bull Rush Bay lean-to.

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Thursday, June 18th, 1:06 pm: My cell phone rang. It was my brother Ray. His voice was subdued. I knew immediately from the sound of his voice that my brother was most definitely shaken.

“Hey, it’s me, Ray. I’m calling you because I needed to call somebody. I’m here in camp. This wind is insane. Worst wind by far I’ve ever experienced. I’ve been hiding out in the lean-to with Pepper listening to tree limbs bounce off the roof. There’s trees down everywhere. This wind is crazy. Insane. It blew through here like a freight train. Two big pine trees are leaning bad, I’m afraid they could come down at any point on the lean-to. My tent blew down. Trees all along the water are uprooted. The boat blew out off the beach but I had it anchored and the anchor held so it didn’t blow away altogether. A huge pine tree blew down and completely blocked the path up to the outhouse. I don’t think it’s safe to be in here right now, but the water is so rough I can’t get out.”

For a number of reasons, best summed up in a single word: “life”, this was the first time in years I hadn’t gone in with my brother to help set up camp. Now he was stranded alone in cammp in some sort of extreme epic weather event, and I had no viable means of getting in there to help him.

We talked back and forth on the phone a few times over the next hour or so. I offered to contact the NYSDEC in Raybrook from my end, but at 1:23pm my brother said, “The wind finally died down a bit. I’m getting out of here. I’ll stop and let the DEC know what’s happened here on my way out.”

My plan at that point was to wait until 5pm for my brother to get back to me, as I did not want to bother him while he was packing up, leaving camp and navigating his way from Middle Saranac Lake down river through both sets of locks the Lower Lake and Oseetah to his dock on Lake Flower. But my brother beat me to the punch. My cell phone rang at 4:36.

“Hey, I’m home. I did manage to get my tent relocated and back up in a safer spot away from the leaning trees. I talked to Keith, the DEC Caretaker at the State Bridge and told him about all of the downed trees and the big pines leaning over the leanto. He said he’d get in there on Saturday to take a look at things and assess the situation. He seemed pretty confident that he could take care of it.”

So Ray and I made plans to meet at the NYSDEC boat launch at the State Bridge at 10am Saturday morning to head back into camp together to further assess the situation, be available to assist the DEC crew’s efforts as appropriate and make adjustments accordingly for safely reorienting this year’s Monroe family Bull Rush Bay camp.

I spent my day Friday packing up my tent, sleeping bag, fishing equipment, tube feeding essentials and a base load of gear. With me I had ax, splitting maul, work boots, gloves, and an assortment trail maintenance hand saws and tools. I even threw in a pair of Dad’s vintage NYSDEC “Lands and Forests” hardhats, just in case, for good measure. I would have loved to pack in my own chainsaw, but being well versed in the Adirondack Park’s “dead & down” laws, I knew that was illegal. So, despite the fact that I am well aware that with the advent of near silent battery powered saws, many folks these days ignore those laws and our current mission involved exigent circumstance, I did not.

I rose early Saturday morning, took in my tube feeding and headed out. As neither Ray nor I had any idea as to how widespread the storm damage was, on my way up Route 3 I stopped to check out South Creek, which appeared to be completely unscathed, though I did note a plethora of new “No Overnight Parking Without a Permit” signs. I also noticed that the beaver dam that had always been on the upstream side of South Creek’s canoe launch dock was completely gone and that stretch waterway wide open. I made mental notes to myself both to get a NYSDEC parking permit for my truck and to plan an exploratory excursion at some point this summer as far as I could navigate upstream towards Stony Creek Mountain.

I also made sure I left early enough to stop at Middle Saranac Lake’s Amersand Walk in and conduct a quick recon of that trail’s condition. It was windy, unseasonably chilly, skies overcast and threatening rain. As a result, the walk in parking lot was sparsely occupied. I ran into only two other people on the trail. I made it down to the lake in about ten minutes. The only new blowdown I could see was down near the lake. A pair of trees had fallen across the trail near the beach.

Another big pine had come down across the trail, barely missing one of the outhouses. A recurring windstorm theme, as things would turn out.

I quickly checked conditions on the lake before making my way back. Middle Saranac was windy and overcast. The water for this late in June was still very high. I did not see any debris or downed trees of note along MIddle Saranac Lake’s Ampersand Beach.

I quickly made my way back up the trail, in and out in under twenty minutes, returned to my truck and drove on down Route 3 to the Lower Saranac Lake NYSDEC Second Pond state bridge boat launch. I stopped at the registration booth to talk to the attendant there and get a parking permit for my truck. He confirmed that the Saranack Lake Islands Caretaker, Keith, and his crew had already headed up the lake to Bull Rush Bay and site 63.

I met my brother Ray at 10am exactly, loaded my gear onto his brand new completely decked out 23 ft., 100HP Honda powered, Fogarty’s Marina purchased pontoon boat, and we headed out. It was windy, and on the way up the lake, it started to rain. So, even with Ray’s brand new pontoon boat canopy up, we managed to get slightly damp.

Over the wind, rain and roar of his engine, Ray again described what he had experienced to me as we rode.

“A heavy wind came up. It started as a WHOOSH, got a lot stronger, fast. Then it came in like a freight train. Hardest wind we’ve ever had up there. A lot harder even than the time we had to rescue those kids from the twin water spouts that dumped all their canoes. The front half of my tent blew down. I took cover in the leanto with Pepper. Tree limbs kept falling on the leanto roof “Bam! Bam!” I could hear big trees crashing down. The big pine tree came down on the way up to the outhouse. The wind blew like hell for less than a minute. Then it backed off a little. That’s when I looked out and saw the big pine trees leaning over the leanto. I had to go rescue my boat. It had blown off the beach. Thank God my anchor held. All the trees along the beach got uprooted. Site 64 got hit too. I saw that on my way out.”

“Sounds almost like you might have gotten hit by a miroburst, or maybe even a tornado. There were tornado warnings out. At least one confirm tornado touched down east of here over towards Vermont.”

“Yeah, I didn’t see any rotation. I think it was straight line wind. but then again, I wasn’t down by the lake when it blew through, I was inside the leanto.”

We made our way through the upper locks onto Middle Saranac Lake. There were no downed trees or floating debris visible on the river until we hit the last bend. There we saw one tree splintered halfway up the trunk with the top half in the water at the ledges near the mouth of the river, but it was not in the channel. I got my initial view of Bull Rush Bay’s damage as my brother and I pulled into camp.

We could hear chainsaws buzzing as we beached and unloaded. The NYSDEC crew consisting of SL Islands Caretaker Keith, Shawn, whose primary role is upper locks locktender, and a burly young bear of a trailhand named Brando, was already on site cutting.

The path to the outhouse was blocked by the root base and trunk of one massive pine.

The Bull Rush Bay outhouse was dislodged from its base, but survived a near miss.

While the DEC crew worked, Ray and I busied ourselves cleaning up limbs and debris around camp. All the while keeping a wary eye (and ear) on the two towering pine trees leaning precariously overhead.

We were all ready to bail for safety at the first telltale CRRACKK!!

The DEC crew worked quickly and effieciently. They were finished with everything they came equipped to do before noon. While they headed up the lake to assess and remediate damage on other sites, Ray and I began burning brush and debris in Bull Bush Bay’s fireplace. I set my two man tent up on the side hill well away from the danger zone and stowed all of my gear there.

The DEC returned later that afternoon with shovels to reset the outhouse.

Keith said that the two sites nest to ours, site 64, which is an overflow site, and 65, which is a group site had gotten hit really hard, but that there was nothing noteworthy beyond that. Due to the Adirondacck Park’s aforementioned dead and down laws, the size and height of the trees in question, and their potential impact on the leanto, he informed Ray that he would coordinate to have DEC forestry personnel with the appropriate expertise and authority come in on Tuesday to assess how best to handle them.

Once the debris around camp was cleaned up and I had had time for my afternoon tube feeding, Ray and I decided to do some exploring and assessing of our own. I walked east, down along Bull Rush Bay towards the river. There was not a single new tree or branch out of place once I left camp. No one would ever have guessed there was just an epic wind event there. I walked uphill past the leanto. Same story there. There was one more big birch tree down just beyond the outhouse, but once I crested the rise, there was nothing new to the north.

The trail to the west as we approached site 64, however, was a whole ‘nother story. There were trees facing every which way. Trunks were snapped off, leaning, uprooted, twisted or down everywhere!

Site 64’s outhouse somehow manged to escape unscathed.

Its picnic table, however, did not. Whatever extreme wind event had occurred that Thrusday afternoon on Middle Saranac Lake, Site 64 was clearly in its path’s bullseye.

From there Ray & I returned to camp and decided to continue our storm damage assessment by boat.

While the damage along site 63’s shoreline was visible, the carnage on site 64’s beachfront was worse.

Ray & I continued travelling up Middle Saranac Lake’s shoreline, heading west.

Just as with site 64, Site 65 was a complete mess.

While it appears both picnic tables may have actually threaded the needle and avoided complete annihilation, we did not independently verify the Site 65 outhouse’s status.

Once we got further west beyond Site 65, there was nothing. Bartlett and Halfway Islands appeared to have escaped unscathed. The same was true for Hungry Bay and the leanto at Martha Reben.

Ray and I then crossed the lake to Ship Island and the mouth of South Creek to the south. They were both free of visible damage or debris.

We recrossed the lake past Norway Island, where the winds had clearly hit high up along the island’s north shore.

Second Island, which, due to its rocky composition and extreme lack of soil, one would think m ost wind storm vulnerable, escaped undamaged, probably protected by Norway Island’s high shoulders. First Island’s southern exposure was likewise free of downed trees. On the north shore, however, we did spot some storm damage up towards the island’s west end.

Ray and I returned to camp to settle in for the evening and discuss what we’d seen. It alppeared to me clearly that whatever extreme wind event happened, it was very narrow, focused, and blew in from the west. It hit the north shore of Norway Island, then increased its intensity as it slid into Middle Saranac Lake’s northern shore channel, where it slammed ashore with sites 63, 64 and 65 as its bullseye, a target area approximately 500 yards wide.

Ray insisted he did not see any signs of rotation. What he experienced were straight line winds. We did however, see trees every whichway and huge tree trunks topped off and badly twisted over on site 64, which appeared to be the epicenter of this, what seems to me at least, to have been at a minimum a tornado like storm.

I think what Ray got on site 63, was the outside straightline wind shear from sort of tornado briefly touching down on site 64. But I’m no meteorologist, or torndao-ologist, or any kind of ologist. That’s just my Adirondack Outlaw layman’s assessment.

While we were sitting there in camp, me in the Bull Rush Bay leanto hooked to my feeding tube, ray warming his feet by the fire, he sat up quick and said “Did you hear that? I just heard cracking. There’s more trees over on site 64 still falling.”

He asked that same question three times. “Did you hear that?!” He was jumpy. He’d clearly been shaken by the storm. Which says a lot about that intensity level of whatever happened, because my brother Ray has lived his entire life on that lake. From wind storms to water spouts to bears in camp to rescued canoers,he’s seen it all.

Then he asked me, “So, it may seen a little bit over the top, but I want to know, if one of those big trees hanging over the leanto starts to crack whilke you are hooked to your feeding tube, can you get out of there?” It was a legitimate question. I assure him I could.

We both heard the fourth set of site 64 cracks. So when I finshed my tube feeding, since we still had some daylight, we took a walk back over the hill to Site 64 to investigate. Indeed, several more trees were down, including one massive pine.

Ray & I awoke this morning to the sound of more falling trees cracking and crashing. this time up the hill to the north of our camp.

After a quick breakfast Ray & I rode down the lake together to share Father’s Day with our respective families, both of us praying that those two site 63 leaning trees threatening Bull Rush Bay’s leanto will bend with the wind, and not break.

At least until Tuesday.

Until Our Trails Cross Again:

ADKO

& My Brother Ray

Who weathered the tornado like storm.

Alone.

In the Bull Rush Bay leanto.