November/December 2018

Adirondack Explorer

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Adirondack Explorer1 min read
Sarah Galvin
Age: 40 Birthplace: Plattsburgh Residence: Lake Placid Occupation: Co-owner of The Bookstore Plus Accomplishments: Completing the Adirondack 46 when I was a junior in high school. Completing a National Outdoor Leadership School semester in the Austra
Adirondack Explorer5 min read
Briefs
By Michael Virtanen A new ruling is expected by year’s end in the eight-year-old lawsuit that pits landowners against outside paddlers over rights to a two-mile waterway in the remote northwestern Adirondacks. State Supreme Court Justice Richard Auli
Adirondack Explorer2 min read
Salt Claims Piling Up
A potential lawsuit over road-salt contamination in the Adirondacks began gathering clients this fall. Notices of claim have been filed on behalf of a dozen clients against the state and several Adirondack counties and towns that spread salt, general
Adirondack Explorer7 min read
The Pollution Patrol
Water is the lifeblood of the Adirondack Park’s tourism, adventuring and second-home economy, as well as its wilderness. Its lakes and rivers face multiple threats ranging from salt to human waste and invasive plants and aquatic animals. Hundreds of
Adirondack Explorer7 min read
Remote Jobs On The Line
Need proof that getting universal high-speed broadband internet access in the Adirondacks is a vital piece of the region’s economic jigsaw puzzle? Just ask Suzanne Hurtado, who lives on Lost Pond. Within days of getting fiber-optic access in 2017, sh
Adirondack Explorer5 min read
4x4ever Wild?
In mid-June, Whiteface Mountain advertised a summer activity—rides aboard big all-terrain vehicles on the ski slopes of the High Peaks landmark. Called the “4x4 Alpine Expedition,” marketing videos showed children and adults enjoying the guided tours
Adirondack Explorer9 min read
Paddling Toward A Vision
Kris Bratton couldn’t believe she hadn’t known about this place years before. The architect from Highlands, New Jersey, stood on the banks of Sagamore Lake on a crisp late-September morning, marveling at her ability to come tramping up a trail on the
Adirondack Explorer3 min read
Punishing The Peaks
Mary Lamb has been hiking in the High Peaks since the late-1980s. Over that time, she’s noticed that many trails have gotten significantly wider and more eroded. “It’s sad,” said Lamb, who lives in Ticonderoga. “I just feel like hiking other places n
Adirondack Explorer7 min read
3 Peaks, 1 Great Day
On a Saturday a few winters ago, I awoke late and started thinking of where to go backcountry skiing. I wanted to go someplace new, but given the hour, it couldn’t be too big of an outing. Then it struck me: Goodman Mountain near Tupper Lake. The sta
Adirondack Explorer7 min readNature
Rise Of The Lake Raiders
Thirty years ago, with increasing frequency, squadrons of black seabirds were spotted on Lake Champlain flying low and fast across the water as if on some sort of black-ops raiding mission. Their appearance was something of an environmental success t
Adirondack Explorer5 min read
Partnership Farms Fun
From Guadeloupe, just shy of the swamp, slither along Darkside, where the woods dim and the midday light goes dusky. Turn away from the fen on a serpentine path beckoning you to the Hobbit House, in boreal woods thick with balsam and spruce. Next, ho
Adirondack Explorer4 min read
A Quick Jaunt From Suburbia
Hiking in the Adirondacks with kids—any hiking, really—offers a choice: a well-known spot that is predictable and easy to get to, or a more remote hike, farther away from civilization, where it is still possible to experience wilderness. On this late
Adirondack Explorer4 min read
Still Guiding Kids’ Way
More than twenty-five years ago, Rose Rivezzi and David Trithart started hiking for a purpose. In the mid-90s, along with young sons Albert and Will, they took an assignment from the Adirondack Mountain Club to research and write a guidebook for hiki
Adirondack Explorer6 min read
Fire Restores A Forest
Mark Lesser, a forestry instructor at the State University of New York Plattsburgh, was vacationing in Nova Scotia in the second week of July when his cell phone lit up with texts and tweets. The Altona Flat Rock pine barrens were on fire just beyond
Adirondack Explorer4 min read
Letters
Thanks to Mike Virtanen for his in-depth coverage of conservation easements in the Adirondack Park (Sept./Oct. 2018). As reported, an impressive total of 781,000 acres are now protected by state-owned easements. This land stays in private ownership,
Adirondack Explorer3 min read
New Trail A Start But Won’t Solve All High-use Troubles
In the three hours my husband Jim and I spent checking out the newly built Mount Van Hoevenberg East Trail on Saturday of Columbus Day weekend, we shared the trail and summit with some sixty people—and at least twenty dogs—who enjoyed an easy hike an
Adirondack Explorer2 min read
Keep Brown Tract Pond rustic
New York State public campgrounds are managed under what is called “Intensive Use” rules. These lands are the most developed (least restrictive of development) public lands in the Adirondack Park State Land Master Plan. “Wilderness” is the most restr
Adirondack Explorer4 min read
Work To Limit Road Salt
Scientists in the 1970s began to notice and be alarmed by the abnormally acidic lakes and streams they were discovering throughout the Adirondacks. In some cases, fish populations were disappearing. Their groundbreaking work coined the term acid rain
Adirondack Explorer4 min read
Do Wildlife Species Need More Clear-cuts In The Adirondacks?
In the September-October edition of the Adirondack Explorer, ecologist Charles Canham says there are legitimate concerns about overharvesting trees in the Adirondack Park, and that there is no good ecological or silvicultural rationale for clear-cuts
Adirondack Explorer4 min read
Seeking Jane Doe
Years ago, a colleague of mine, eager to jumpstart his love life, began placing and answering personal ads in a newspaper. Let us just say that they led in interesting directions. Adirondack whitetail deer seek relationships in similar fashion. They
Adirondack Explorer3 min read
Winter’s Bug Collector
A few minutes past dawn on a totally overcast, windless, minus-five-degree day, we walked slowly, slightly uphill through a foot of fresh snow, hoping, we both thought probably futilely, to see or hear a bird for the Elizabethtown Christmas Bird Coun
Adirondack Explorer5 min read
Caroline Welsh
In 1976, as guest curator for the Albany Institute of History and Art’s bicentennial exhibit, Caroline Welsh undertook a survey of 200-year-old artwork found in private collections from ten counties around that city. Her tools for documenting, one by
Adirondack Explorer2 min read
Rail Line Could Revive
After New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation in September asked federal authorities to declare the thirty-mile rail line from North Creek to the former Tahawus mine in the central Adirondacks abandoned, talks have since shifted to a poss
Adirondack Explorer6 min read
A Magical Healing Place
I had to make a radical change. Therapy and treatments hadn’t eliminated the mental and physical pain that lingered due to some traumatic events I had experienced. So my therapist and I developed a multi-pronged plan of attack. It involved a women’s
Adirondack Explorer2 min read
The Untamed Shrew
Shrews abound in the Adirondacks, occurring in all terrestrial habitats and even in water. Shrews are distinguished from other small mammals by their tapered head, tiny external ears and eyes, short limbs, and dense fur—features adapting them to a se
Adirondack Explorer5 min read
A North Country icon
Several years ago, I visited friends at their camp on Cranberry Lake. They invited me to take their vintage guideboat out for a spin, something I had never done before, so I jumped at the opportunity. In I climbed and gave a good yank on the oars, si
Adirondack Explorer2 min read
Ice Fishing (Hardwater Angling)
Ice fishing can be a great way to get outside in the winter months to enjoy the fresh air, get some exercise, and maybe catch some dinner! There are a few very basic things you’ll need: something to make a hole in the ice, something to hold the fishi
Adirondack Explorer4 min read
Poetry In Mountain Lives
I knew I loved the Adirondack writing of Roger Mitchell, a poet now in his eighties, but did he still write poetry? The day I found his email address and sent a short letter he responded promptly, “Very glad to hear from you and to report that I am s

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