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Judges hear appeal of ruling that upheld right of canoeists and kayakers to travel through private land on Shingle Shanty Brook. By Kenneth Aaron Lawyers for the landowners who sued Adirondack Explorer Editor Phil Brown for canoeing across their property returned to court in early October, arguing that the waterway in question should be closed to the public. A five-judge panel of…
For thirty-six years Bill Brown has been tramping over the mountains, foothills, and lowlands of the Lake George Wild Forest keeping tabs on old acquaintances and meeting new ones in out-of the way crevices, under rocks, or wandering the forest floor. Bill is a researcher who studies the Adirondack population of timber rattlesnakes, a threatened species in New York. In the…
DEC is criticized for avoiding snowmobile-trail issues in draft document. By Phil Brown The state Department of Environmental Conservation has withdrawn a draft management plan for new state lands known as the Essex Chain Lakes Complex in the face of criticism that it failed to discuss the route of a controversial snowmobile trail. The decision to address the snowmobile issue in a…
A family spends a delightful two days paddling and hiking in the St. Regis Canoe Area—and, best of all, there were no long carries.
Officials propose removing the tracks between Tupper Lake and Lake Placid to create a bike path. By Phil Brown For several years, people have been arguing over the future of a little-used rail corridor running through the heart of Adirondack wilderness. In June, the state offered a compromise, but partisans on both sides say they won’t give…
Shortly after moving to the Adirondacks in 1996, I climbed Giant Mountain. Not only was it my first High Peak, it was the first time I’d climbed anything higher than the hill in the back yard where I grew up.
John Caffry and state file court papers in defense of the public’s right to paddle through private property. By Kenneth Aaron A state appeals court is expected to hear arguments this fall in a trespassing lawsuit filed against Adirondack Explorer Editor Phil Brown after he paddled through private land on a remote waterway that connects…
ON ONE OF the first warm days of May, Penfield Homestead Museum President Joan Hunsdon and her colleagues were cheerily undertaking some spring cleaning in advance of opening for the summer. Leaves required raking, photos had to return to their places on the walls of the entry parlor, and virtually every room of the house…
Adopted fifty years ago, the Wilderness Act reflects the nation’s growing appreciation of unspoiled lands. By Philip Terrie On a warm September day in 1964, President Lyndon Johnson signed what is now recognized as one of the most significant legislative acts in American environmental history. This was the national Wilderness Act. Before then, federal lands,…
After days of rain, a family beats the blahs by climbing Debar Mountain, a former fire-tower peak in the northern Adirondacks. By Lisa Densmore Ballard SOME DAYS I need to go hiking. I don’t want an epic outing, just some time in the woods to clear my head, enough of a climb to exercise my body,…