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Photo by Nancie Battaglia |
The Paul Smith’s
Visitor Interpretive Center maintains many miles of ski and
snowshoe trails. |
Winter adventure at the VIC
Early blizzard lures skiers with call of
the wild
By Dick Beamish
Happy day! An early, mid-November blizzard
has graced our northern end of the Adirondacks with nine inches
of snow. Last weekend we were hiking these trails at the state’s
Visitor Interpretive Center at Paul Smiths. Today we’ll be
skiing on them.
We park at the VIC, a mile north of Paul Smith’s College and
12 miles from Saranac Lake, and carry our skis through the main
entrance of the interpretive building, which resembles a 19th century
Adirondack Great Camp. At the reception desk (staffed by a typically
cheerful volunteer) we pick up the latest trail map and head out
the back door into the snow.
Boots secured in bindings, we push off on the descent to Heron Marsh,
the ecological centerpiece of this 2,885-acre nature preserve. The
rhythmic swimming motion of pulling through with one pole and then
the other, the glide after each easy push of one leg and then the
other—it all seems so natural and familiar we can hardly believe
it’s been seven months since we last did this.
There are about 20 miles of ski and snowshoe trails on the VIC property,
which is leased to the state by Paul Smith’s College. Today
we’re doing a 4-mile loop that will take us back to the center
for lunch. Right off we encounter, coming toward us, the only other
skiers we will see for the next two hours, a couple we happened
to have dinner with a week earlier. This reminds us that the Adirondack
Park, despite being larger than Massachusetts and occupying one-fifth
of New York state, is in some ways a very small world. Our friends
report good skiing ahead except for trees down here and there across
the trail, a result of the fierce winds that accompanied yesterday’s
snowfall.
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Map by Nancy Bernstein |
Down the gentle hill we go, then take a short
detour to a bench overlooking the freezing surface of the marsh.
I decide to take a picture of Rachel with Jenkins Mountain in the
background. To get the best angle I step off the wooden platform
and sink up to my knees into the snow-covered vegetation; Rachel,
proving once again that chivalry is not dead, helps to pull me back
onto the trail.
We soon pass a sign not yet covered by ice or buried in snow. It
says we are on the “Shingle Mills Trail” and that this
“.8 loop explores the natural and human-created changes that
have occurred here. Present- day Heron Marsh was the site of a water
reservoir as early as the mid-1850s, with a water-powered mill building
at the base of the falls.” The sign suggests that we look
for birds, though most of those listed won’t be back until
next spring. But we will, as also suggested, keep an eye out for
beavers and muskrats. (There are signs of beaver activity everywhere.)
A half-mile on we cross a bridge over a small dam at the outlet
to the marsh. Though the mill and house (pictured on the sign) are
long gone, the water still pours over the dam and cascades down
a steep, boulder-strewn stream. The water is the color of dark beer.
From the bridge we look out over the shallow pond surrounded by
unbroken forest, further evidence that much of the Adirondack Park
is wilder today than it was a hundred years ago. Beyond the dam
the trail moves up and away from the marsh, through woods that until
recently were managed for timber production by forestry students.
Farther on the trail passes through a former golf course, in operation
when Paul Smith’s Hotel was a world-famed resort, but you’d
never guess it now except for a sign that marks the spot where golfers
once teed off. Now they would be driving into a dense, second-growth
forest.
But before getting to that point we fork right on the Tamarack Trail,
rather than take the longer Esker Trail to the left. We pass through
snow-covered conifer woods, including some awesome white pines.
Farther on the path dips down to cross the marsh on a long boardwalk.
On a cold, windy day we’d stop first to put on an outer, windproof
layer and raise the hoods over our wool hats. Not today, though.
Rachel, having warmed up, is now bare-headed and I’m fine
with a visor cap. Looking east across the marsh we see the VIC building.
Like a proper Adirondack Great Camp, it blends in with the surroundings,
with only a brown, wooden peak peeping over the trees.
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Photo by Dick Beamish |
Rachel looks awfully
chic—or is it sheik?—on her first ski of the season.
That’s Jenkins Mountain on the left. |
Beyond the marsh the trail winds upward for
half a mile before it makes a short descent marked “steep”
on our map, though what’s considered steep here would be judged
a gentle hill in other backcountry settings. Here and elsewhere
deer tracks and red-squirrel tracks have been criss-crossing the
trails but we’ve seen no sign of other regular residents such
as snowshoe hare, ruffed grouse and coyote. At the bottom of the
hill we connect with the unpaved, one-lane Jenkins Mountain Road,
reduced by the new snow to a two-lane path for skiers and snowshoers.
A mile from here, via the alluring Barnum Brook Trail, we arrive
back at the interpretive building.
Another day, with more time to play, we’d have followed the
Esker Trail (see map), a longer loop that begins with a few short
up-hills, passes through part of the long-gone golf course, dips
into a clearing with a side trail to Black Pond, then ascends through
the woods for a half-mile. From this high point you can enjoy a
long downhill to Jenkins Mountain Road, and from there continue
a mile and a half back to your starting point. That loop usually
takes us about 90 minutes.
With another hour to spare, we could connect with yet another loop,
leaving the Esker Trail and following the balsam-bordered Woods
& Waters Connector Trail (see map) for a mile to the lean-to
on Black Pond. (This is a summer route and not part of the VIC’s
winter trail system, it’s not maintained or patrolled, and
from the junction with the Esker Trail, you’re entirely on
your own.)
In previous winters, we have crossed Black Pond to the trail that
leads to Long Pond, then skied down the middle of Long to the lean-to
at the far end. (We’ll ski on lake surfaces only if the ice
is at least three inches thick, and we carefully avoid skiing on
ice near inlets and outlets.) From the lean-to it’s two-tenths
of a mile to the Jenkins Mountain Road and two miles from there
back to VIC headquarters. Much of this trip has a remote, wilderness
feeling to it that can make you forget you’re only a few miles
from civilization.
Back at our Adirondack Great Camp—and it is ours since we
are two of 18 million New Yorkers who own it—we have the place
almost to ourselves. We lunch in a long room that doubles as a gallery
for Adirondack photographers and painters on one side and for bird-watching
on the other. The feeders outside attract the species that are pictured
and described under the big windows, including, as we watch, some
blue jays, black-capped chickadees, red-breasted nuthatches and
a hairy woodpecker.
There’s much more to see and do here.You can take in the natural
history exhibits, films and slide shows in the 150-seat theater.
You can veg out in a visitor’s lounge overlooking Heron Marsh,
with the songs of birds piped in from the feeders outside. Or you
can study a huge platform-mounted relief map and trace the network
of skiing, snowshoeing and nature walks, including the new Boreal
Life Trail with its 1,600-foot boardwalk bordering Barnum Pond.
But today we decide to get back to work, so we wave goodbye to the
friendly young woman behind the desk, pick up our skis outside the
door, and drive back to Saranac Lake, thankful for this unexpected
early treat and hopeful that we have a long, snowy winter ahead.
Send your comments to:
Rick Fenton, NYSDEC, Region 5,
P.O. Box 1316, Northville, NY 12134 or phone him at (518) 863-4545.
You also can e-mail suggestions on any tract of state land in
Region 5 (the eastern two-thirds of the Park) to r5ump@gw.dec.state.ny.us.
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