The only independent, nonprofit news organization solely dedicated to reporting on the Adirondack Park.
The Adirondack Mountain Club completed a segment in the summer of 2015, realizing their goal of bringing the Northville-Placid Trail closer to the trail’s southern terminus. By Bill Ingersoll I knew we were going to have no problems fording West Stony Creek the moment I saw it from the summit. The waterway snaked its way…
Novice skiers can enjoy breathtaking scenery at a wild pond north of Saranac Lake. By Phil Brown My daughter Martha used to love going down hills on cross-country skis. If she fell, she’d herringbone back up the trail and try again. That was before she took up indoor track in winter, before she enrolled in college, and before she went off to…
Coney, Adams, and Treadway reward snowshoers with spectacular views for only moderate effort. By Spencer Morrissey Snowshoeing in the Adirondacks has a long history. Originally a means of travel, it is now a popular recreational pastime. The French called snowshoes raquettes because the paddle-shaped contraptions of earlier times resembled rackets. They were used by hunters and…
With snow scarce in much of the Adirondacks, two skiers head to the Cranberry Lake region for a day of backcountry adventure. By Phil Brown As usual, we were chasing snow. In the High Peaks, we didn’t have enough base to ski the backcountry, but we were hoping that a recent lake-effect storm had dumped powder in the western Adirondacks. So we called…
By Lisa Densmore Ballard My father handed The Gift to me just after I completed the last hike for my book Hiking the Adirondacks in 2009. It was unexpected and unexciting, an old book, its pages sepia brown and its binding slightly frayed. The name—“Robert L. Johnson, Park Commissioner, Albany, N.Y.”—stood out in faded gold…
Skiers take Pine Pond Trail through quiet woods and along wild stream to a frozen lake ringed by mountains. By Phil Brown I once met a man on the Jackrabbit Trail who was skiing to Lake Placid as part of an arduous loop. He had skied from the end of Averyville Road outside the village…
Wilmington trail offers plenty of excitement for skiers who don’t like to earn their turns. By Phil Brown Any backcountry skier who has slogged seven and a half miles up Mount Marcy realizes that the old saying “What goes up must come down” has got it backwards. It should be “What comes down must go up.” Yet that’s not always true.…
The largely abandoned Wardsboro Road near Lake George connects the present with the past. By David Thomas-Train The midsection of Lake George, known as the Narrows, is so tightly squeezed with steep mountainsides that there are no highways along its shorelines; without such access, most of that stretch of lake is bordered by state land.…
A pedaling paradise The author and her husband explore a maze of logging roads on the Kushaqua Tract open to mountain biking. By Susan Bibeau Recently my husband Jeff and I rediscovered our love of mountain biking, and so after I surprised him with a brand-new bike this spring, we started looking for new places to explore. We had already ridden the…
The author, her husband, and a reluctant teenager make a steep climb to a fire tower only to find the view obscured by clouds. By Lisa Densmore Ballard With a name like “Vanderwhacker,” I had to climb it, again. Vanderwhacker Mountain, elevation 3,386 feet and located between Newcomb and Minerva, is the highest point in…