The only independent, nonprofit news organization solely dedicated to reporting on the Adirondack Park.
By Phil Brown
The New York Post has raised questions about the state’s purchase of Lyon Mountain from the Nature Conservancy in late 2008 for $10 million. Four years earlier, the conservancy paid $6.3 million for the same twenty thousand acres. In an editorial on Wednesday, the Post called the rise in price “a staggering 57 percent profit…
By Phil Brown
Last week, I posted a list of rock-climbing routes that are closed to protect the postential nesting sites of peregrine falcons. This morning, the state Department of Environmental Conservation announced that it is adding the Upper Washbowl routes to the list. The following is an e-mail sent out by Joe Racette, a DEC wildlife biologist:…
By Phil Brown
I just received the Forest Ranger Report from the state Department of Environmental Conservation’s Region 5, which encompasses most of the Adirondacks. It covers the period of February 6 through March 21. You can read it verbatim below. Essex County Town of North Elba, High Peaks Wilderness Area At noon on Saturday February 27,…
By Phil Brown
You know we’re in between seasons when you go backcountry skiing one day and canoeing the next. Last Friday, I skied Mount Marcy with Ron Konowitz. It was so warm than I stripped down to my T-shirt on the ascent. On the summit, we met Keith Kogut, a music teacher in Saranac Lake, who was…
By Phil Brown
If you’re thinking of climbing Mount Marcy from Adirondak Loj this weekend, you should plan for a longer-than-usual journey, thanks to the loss of a log bridge over Phelps Brook. The bridge that hikers use to cross the brook in high water was washed downstream about a week ago, according to David Winchell, a spokesman…
By Phil Brown
A year ago, scientists learned that a large bat hibernaculum exists somewhere near Chapel Pond. They inferred as much when dying bats were discovered flying around Route 73 last March, long before bats usually emerge from hibernation. Peregrine falcons that nest near Chapel Pond also discovered the bats. They returned from their winter habitat early…
By Phil Brown
David Gibson has stepped aside as executive director of Protect the Adirondacks, but he is continuing to work for the organization as an adviser on conservation issues, the Adirondack Explorer has learned. Gibson had been the executive director of Protect since its creation last year, when the Association for the Protection of the Adirondacks merged…
By Phil Brown
I’m sure many of you have heard about the hiker who died following a snowstorm in the Catskills last weekend. He and his partner had weathered a night in a snow cave. The next morning, he left to get help but never made it. He was found dead on Blackhead Mountain a short distance from…
By Phil Brown
One of the survivors of last month’s avalanche has written a dramatic account of his ordeal for Adirondack Almanack. Here’s a taste: “I don’t remember any pain when the avalanche struck me,” Jamie McNeill says. “The sensation is best described as almost instant acceleration in a river of wet cement. I was suddenly surrounded by…
By Phil Brown
A top-secret confidential source sent me a link to a YouTube clip that offers definitive proof that the government is releasing mountain lions in the Adirondacks. It’s part of a Nazi plot.