May/June 2023

Adirondack Life

Adirondack Life magazine is your source for the best of New York's Adirondack Park.

Adirondack Life2 min read
From Dusk Until Dawn
Like snow, night blankets the landscape. When the sun goes down in my little hamlet, houses, no matter how simple or grand, look the same. You can’t see the state of front yards or who drives what. In the dark my worries howl. That’s when I look up.
Adirondack Life3 min read
Dark Matters
Our backyard adjoins a big chunk of woods with a CATS trail running through it, and we often hear coyotes late at night: sometimes from deep in the woods, sometimes quite close to the house. During the day, we see their signs everywhere but almost ne
Adirondack Life2 min read
A Little Night Music
Cast off your winter blues at this spring’s lineup of concerts around the Adirondack Park: On May 5, singer-songwriter Dar Williams brings her blend of folk and pop to the Lake Placid Center for the Arts (lakeplacidarts.org). Roots reggae takes the s
Adirondack Life5 min read
It Happened One Night
Some of the most consequential days in Adirondack history weren’t days at all. From the 1775 predawn raid of Fort Ticonderoga to the Dannemora prison break in 2015, deeds both dastardly and daring have occurred in the dead of night. Though his name w
Adirondack Life2 min read
All the Light We Cannot See
Teeny saw-whet owls swoop from the cover of thick trees.You might look at a satellite map of our country at night, like the one above, and assume there’s not much happening in the black sprawl that’s the Adirondack Park. But where there’s darkness, t
Adirondack Life6 min read
H0W-TO Star Struck
Some night this summer when the sky is clear, pick up a pair of binoculars, step away from the fire pit and open your mind to celestial high-drama echoing down to us from the Babylonians, the Greeks, and from the phantasmic beginning of life and time
Adirondack Life4 min read
Heart of Darkness
A few years ago, I went hiking in the late afternoon in the Split Rock Wild Forest on the east coast of the Adirondacks. It was one of those after-work impulses, a chance to escape my desk and wander in deep woods. The beauty of the sun slanting thro
Adirondack Life2 min read
Going Batty
WHY SHOULD YOU CARE ABOUT BATS? “Besides the fact they’re cute,” says bat researcher Vanessa Rojas, assistant professor at SUNY-ESF Ranger School, based in Wanakena, “the ecosystem services they provide are critical. Bats eat forest defoliators and o
Adirondack Life2 min read
The Grand Adirondack Hotel
LONGTIME ADIRONDACKERS get attached to places the way they knew them, mostly for sentimental reasons. In my case, more than 20 years ago I met my now-husband in the second-floor lounge of Lake Placid’s old Northwoods Inn. That hotel has been around a
Adirondack Life7 min read
Not-so-deserted Island
WHEN STEVE REYNOLDS’S GRANDMOTHER went to her reward in 1942, her last words were, “Oh dear, can’t I have another summer on the island?” For years she arrived on Lake George’s Recluse Island in May and stayed until October. And since her death, many
Adirondack Life2 min read
ADIRONDACK CRYPTIDS Champy vs. Bigfoot
DESCRIPTION: A Captain Crum, who navigated the lake in 1819, told a tale of an almost 200-foot-long black monster with three teeth and a star on its forehead. Sandra Mansi, the photographer behind a hotly debated 1977 image of “Champy,” compared the
Adirondack Life5 min read
One-Night Stands
Sometimes an extended getaway can seem like such a commitment. What if you’re only in the mood for a quickie? Whether you’re down for some easy-access backcountry or you prefer a bed at the end of the trail, we’ve got you covered with these onenight
Adirondack Life5 min read
WILDLIFE Night Vision
Yellow-green sparks shimmer among shadowy pines overlooking my backyard on the outskirts of Saranac Lake. It is a warm June evening, and the humid air hangs heavy with the fragrance of mountain maple blossoms and last year’s fallen pine needles. More
Adirondack Life5 min read
Secret Society
History is a slippery thing. It can be tempting to accept local lore as fact or take the written word as gospel, especially when the same snippets have been recorded in multiple sources. But the past remains unknowable, and its recorders have more in
Adirondack Life2 min read
Lighting the Way
DURING MY TRAVELS of this wilderness domain on trapline and trail, I often came upon ancient blaze marks on giant trees. Some were overgrown by age, but the visible marks were always at the same height on the tree and the same size, as if made by the

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