Causeway Park / Eagle Mountain
Final Days in Tupper Lake | Tupper Lake to Burlington, VT | Hiking in Causeway Park & Eagle Mountain | March 2023
After Charlotte’s vet appointment in Lake Placid, we returned to Tupper Lake for 2 more nights before going to Vermont for the optometrist appointment. During that time, we mostly laid low and let Char relax, and she spent most of that time sleeping. At one point on Thursday, she got up and seemed interested in going out, so we took her over to a park next to Tupper Lake to let her sniff around. Curtis also took an afternoon to relieve some stress and finish the Tupper Lake hiking challenge by hiking to the top of Coney Mountain.
Charlotte’s eye appointment was in Williston, VT, at 8am Friday. It was about 2.5 hours away from us, and since we were taking the ferry across Lake Champlain, we left at 4:30am just to give ourselves plenty of time. We drove through the Adirondacks in the dark, then arrived at the ferry just as the sky was beginning to turn pink with the sunrise over Mt. Mansfield and the Green Mountains. The ferry was much easier than we imagined — we arrived and paid, drove on to the boat, and within 2 minutes it started to cross the lake.
We arrived in Vermont 15 minutes later, then drove through Burlington and made it to the vet with an hour to spare. Instead of sitting in the lot for an hour, we drove over to a nearby county park to let Char wander around. We started on a trail, letting her sniff everything she wanted, and though she was pokey and a bit timid she did a great job following our leading.
Once the appointment had concluded, surgery was scheduled, and we were filled with a bunch more information, we drove over to a Petsmart to pick up a few essentials: a water fountain, and lots of treats to help with training. Like we mentioned in the last post, the vet had given her a temporary relief of pressure in her eyes, and she was acting much more like herself. It was only supposed to last about 8-12 hours, so we decided to take advantage of her feeling better and take her for a couple easy walks.
We drove to the Causeway Park West of Burlington. There’s a rail trail here that goes from Burlington to the islands, right over Lake Champlain. Since the trail was also a bike path, it was mostly flat and wide, which made for an easier “first walk” with our blind puppy. Overall this walk was very encouraging to us, and showed us that the pain was the only thing holding her back — without the pressure, she was much more interested in walking. She was also a big fan of the training treats we were using, rather generously I might add.
The Causeway Trail was enjoyable, until after we left the shelter of the tree lined path and started on the lake, where the wind was a bit too chilly to be comfortable. We enjoyed the views of the Adirondacks across the lake though. Curtis knew of another hiking area North along the coast, so we drove up to the Eagle Mountain area to go for an easy hike. This trail had more elevation change, and eventually had some rocks and roots, but Charlotte did so well navigating each obstacle — sometimes it didn’t even seem like she was blind. Besides us using instructions like Left, Right, Up, Down, she also uses her nose (of course) and uses her ears to feel out the ground, especially when going down steps to judge how far she should step or jump down.
After the hike, it was time to head to Plattsburgh, NY, where we had reserved a hotel for the night since hotels around Burlington were so much more expensive. This time we drove up to Swanton and crossed the lake on VT-78 and US-2, just South of the Quebec border, then drove South to Plattsburgh. Thanks to that, we got 2 new counties in Vermont, leaving only 2 unvisited.
When we arrived at the hotel, it was obvious that the pressure in Charlotte’s eyes was coming back, so we helped her up on the bed where she stayed until checkout the next day. We booked another Airbnb for the next week in Rutland, VT, about an hour South of Burlington, as a place to let Charlotte rest before and after surgery.
