The only independent, nonprofit news organization solely dedicated to reporting on the Adirondack Park.
By Phil Brown
State wildlife biologists experimented for years with different methods to keep bears from stealing campers’ food in the High Peaks Wilderness. Finally, the state decided to require all campers in the eastern High Peaks to store food in bear-resistant canisters. This not a problem unique to the Adirondacks. The latest issue of the Journal of…
By Phil Brown
Paul Smith’s College will host a meeting of elected officials and other interested parties next week to try to keep the state-run Visitor Interpretive Centers from closing. Governor David Paterson has proposed shutting the two VICs, located in Paul Smiths and Newcomb, to save money. They would close by next January. The college leases to…
By Phil Brown
In his proposed 2010-11 budget, Governor David Paterson has recommended a moratorium on land acquisition and closure of the Adirondack Park Agency’s two Visitor Interpretive Centers. “This is an all-out attack on the environment by the governor. This threatens to destroy the Environmental Protection Fund,” said John Sheehan, a spokesman for the Adirondack Council. The…
By Phil Brown
The Fund for Lake George is opposing boathouse regulations proposed by the Adirondack Park Agency, saying they will do nothing to benefit water quality of Lake George and might prove counterproductive. Among other things, the regulations would outlaw roofed docks, which are popular around Lake George. “Decks on roofed docks will be transferred to the…
By Phil Brown
Last weekend, I saw a slide show in Keene Valley given by Steve House, one of the best mountaineers in the world. He’s an entertaining speaker, self-deprecating and down to earth despite his penchant for high places. Unfortunately, I missed the slide show given the the night before by Eric Weihenmayer, a blind climber who…
By Phil Brown
This YouTube link takes you to my second attempt at making a short backcountry ski video. For this one, I strapped my camera–an Olympus 1030SW–to my chest and skied down a small peak outside Saranac Lake. The clip is only a few minutes long. Unfortunately, when I converted it to QuickTime for the Web it…
By Phil Brown
On my lunch hour today, I climbed for 30 minutes up a small mountain and skied down through the woods. On the descent, I held my point-and-shoot camera in front of me to capture video. This meant I had to ski without poles, which I’m not used to doing. The results are only so-so. The…
By Phil Brown
The Albany Times Union recently ran a story in which Protect the Adirondacks blamed Governor David Paterson for the Adirondack Park Agency’s refusal to classify Lows Lake as Wilderness. “To our knowledge, this represents an unprecedented level of interference from the governor’s office,” said Dave Gibson, the environmental group’s executive director. “The governor not only…
By Phil Brown
Bob Marshall was one of the original Adirondack Forty-Sixers, but he thought he was born too late. He would have preferred to have lived in the nineteenth century, before the Adirondacks were overrun by civilization. Well, Bob is now part of the twenty-first century. John Warren, the guy behind the Adirondack Almanack, reports in his…
By Phil Brown
Reinhold Messner, regarded as one of the best mountaineers of all time, has described Steve Houseas “the best high-altitude climber in the world today.” So you know he’s good. At this year’s Adirondack International Mountainfest, scheduled for the weekend of January 15-18, a small number of lucky ice climbers will get to learn from the…