The Great Adirondack Moose Festival

A couple of Saturdays ago my guy friend and I ventured out to Indian Lake to attend the 2nd Annual Moose Festival.  I wasn't quite sure what to expect, but I knew most if not all the events were going to be totally free and the Adirondack Museum which is about 15 minutes from Indian Lake was also free that day so if the festival was a bust we could at least visit the museum.  Indian Lake is a hamlet in the middle of the Adirondack Park (almost quite literally dead center).  It's about an hour drive from Glens Falls.

We got up early and headed out around 9 to make it there around 10:15ish.  Coming into Indian Lake there is Byron Park which just appears to be a small playground/boat launch and possibly a beach?  We stopped there first because they were having logger demonstrations, a small quilt show and more importantly a logger breakfast!

I'm always super jealous of people that can make such awesome pancakes as mine always come out either super thick or not done.  I don't quite get what my problem is.

Anyway, the pancake breakfast was $2 and well worth it!


While headed to the breakfast we were told to come back and try the sawing exhibit but it had gotten pretty busy when we were done, so we just snapped some pics.  I loved that the guy looked like a hardcore logger, haha



It was a pretty dreary day, but Abanakee Lake was so calm, it was like a perfect mirror.




The Moose Festival was simply a celebration of moose.  There are about 1200+ moose in the Adirondacks and the population is growing.  Indian Lake has several popular moose hang outs, although the closest thing I saw to a live moose that day was all the wooden cutouts that were scattered around the town.


In town there were a few tents set up with vendors giving out information and selling moose crafts.  It started to rain at this point and it was hard to stay comfortable because it was still warm (especially in the tents) but we didn't want to get wet so we were wearing our hoodies.  A few of the shops in town were having sales so we stopped in one or two of those.  We stopped in the Chamber of Commerce to pick up a map of the self guided tour and decided to ride out the rain until the moose lecture at the theater which wasn't until 1:00.


To anyone that doesn't do so already, I highly suggest always visiting the visitor center or chamber of commerce at any town you may not be familiar with.  There's always such a wealth of information and the people are always super excited to tell you about the area.  Maybe someday I can get a gig in one...

The self guided tour was a nice drive, the topic of discussion for most of it was percentage of leaf change and how we thought the moose probably ventured off to another town to avoid the paparazzi.

We came back into town to attend a lecture given by the Department of Environmental Conservation on...you guessed it, moose!  It was a really great lecture, but then again I love everything moose so I'm sure to me it would be. :)  We also found out that there's a moose hanging out in Glens Falls as we speak!  I've yet to see him though.  This moose was hanging out outside of the theater where the lecture was…



After the lecture we skipped over to the Indian Lake Tavern where they were having some beer/wine sampling.  At this time the sun had come out and the rain stopped!  The only beer I hadn't tried of the three that they were serving was a special brew that the Lake Placid Brewery had made and the name escapes me.  Both of us were unimpressed, it tasted like a mix of Bud Light and Coors Light.

Around 1:30 we decided we had done all the moosetivities there was to do and decided to head to the museum.

The Great Adirondack Moose Festival was a great small town event that I'm sure will gain more popularity as time goes on (and as our moose population grows!).  I could definitely see this becoming something that I would attend each year.  It was held both Saturday and Sunday, although it seemed that most events were held Saturday.  I liked that we were able to enjoy the museum in the same day as I'm not sure that 2-3 hours of moosetivities would have warranted an hour drive north.

We did NOT go to any of the local restaurants and I wish we did.  We were hungry on the way back and we could've stopped in Indian Lake or North Creek for food but instead we went home and had Golden Corral?!  Not very good adventure planning on my end, but there's always next year!  We did stop along the drive to take more pictures.


I thought this sign was totally random, it was a state sign that talked about The Adirondacks and you’re only able to read half of it because of everything growing around it.  It’s the first time I ever saw a state landmark sign talking about the park.

On the way back we saw BALLOONS!  You can kind of see them in this picture…


This was also the same weekend of the Adirondack Balloon Festival.  I'm not a huge fan of the balloon festival, the parking is bogus and I feel like once you've seen one hot air balloon up close you've seen them all, but I can't help to always get a little giddy inside when I see them in the air.  Especially so many of them!



Stay tuned for a review of our Adirondack Museum trip!