The only independent, nonprofit news organization solely dedicated to reporting on the Adirondack Park.
By Phil Brown
The Bloomingdale Bog Trail starts near Saranac Lake and ends eight miles later near Onchiota. Following an old railroad bed, it is ideal for jogging or mountain biking. I recently went to the trail with a different purpose in mind: canoeing. This is an idea I had for a while. Negro Brook flows under the…
By Phil Brown
Interested in a really long hike? The Adirondack Park has the Northville-Placid Trail (133 miles) and Vermont has the Long Trail (272 miles), but these are mere steppingstones to the granddaddy of long-distance routes, the Appalachian Trail. The AT, as it’s known, stretches 2,200 miles from Georgia to Maine, traversing 14 states. That might be…
By Phil Brown
The state hopes to begin removing the train tracks between Lake Placid and Tupper Lake as early as this summer and begin constructing a recreational trail in the rail corridor in the summer of 2018. The schedule was presented in an informational meeting at the Saranac Lake Free Library on Monday evening. The meeting was…
By Phil Brown
A few weeks ago, I wrote about the early life of Royal Robbins, the legendary American rock climber who died last month. At the time of his death, I had been reading To Be Brave, the first volume of his autobiography. It ends when Robbins is still a teenager. His second volume, Fail Falling, covers…
By Phil Brown
With the arrival of spring, the Adirondack Explorer is shifting its recreational focus from skiing and snowshoeing to paddling and hiking. The May/June issue, which we are finishing this week, includes my account of a canoe trip on the Grass River that Carol MacKinnon Fox and I did last year. Or were we on the…
By Phil Brown
Governor Andrew Cuomo came to Lake Placid on Friday morning to tout his budget for the Adirondacks and the rest of the North Country. Cuomo said his administration has spent tens of millions of dollars to promote tourism throughout the state as well as the Adirondacks. That investment, he added, resulted in a $9 billion…
By Phil Brown
Wildlife photographer Larry Master is writing about bobcats in the May/June issue of the Adirondack Explorer and submitted a great photo to go along with text. After reading about these beautiful creatures—the last wild felines in the Adirondacks—I was disturbed to learn that a man had been keeping a bobcat locked in a shed at…
By Phil Brown
On Sunday I spent the day skiing in the backcountry. On Monday I hiked up Baker Mountain looking for wildflowers. Yep, it’s mud season. Although I had two good ski days last weekend, my season is at an end. I skied the Whiteface Memorial Highway on Saturday and several trails in the High Peaks on…
By Phil Brown
Royal Robbins, one of the country’s legendary rock climbers, died last month at age 82. He made his reputation climbing big walls in Yosemite and influenced the sport’s history with his promotion of climbing ethics. It so happens that I was reading To Be Brave, the first volume of Robbins’s autobiography, when he passed away…
By Phil Brown
The equinox occurred on March 20. The baseball season opened on April 2. Nevertheless, spring has not arrived on the top of Mount Marcy. I skied Marcy this past Monday and found good conditions from Adirondak Loj all the way to the summit (see videos below). With this week’s rain and warm weather, conditions won’t…