The only independent, nonprofit news organization solely dedicated to reporting on the Adirondack Park.
ARTA has no guarantees that the state would pay for or manage proposed recreational trail. By Brian Mann FOR MORE THAN TWO years, rail-trail activists have been pushing state officials to end decades of financial support for the Adirondack Scenic Railroad and convert a ninety-mile rail corridor between Old Forge and Lake Placid into a…
Young agrarians find happiness in working the land and building community in the Champlain Valley By Tracy Frisch WHEN ASA Thomas-Train met his future wife, Courtney Grimes-Sutton, she was skinning a pig. Rather than wonder why an attractive young woman was doing a job usually reserved for big, brawny guys, Asa reacted with admiration. “She’s…
Cross-country skiers take advantage of fresh powder to visit East Mill Flow and Round Pond. By Phil Brown IT WAS A NEARLY perfect day for a ski tour. The sun was out, and fresh powder covered the trail and coated the branches of evergreens along the way. Kim Martineau was especially happy to be here.…
A veteran ice climber says ascending the frozen cataract is not difficult, but it is risky. By Don Mellor It was suggested to me recently that “if God wanted us to climb ice, He wouldn’t have made it so slippery.” Theology aside, there’s probably some inverse truth here: we want to climb ice precisely because…
Department proposes to expand opportunities for hunting bruins in the North Country and other parts of the state. By Paul Post THE STATE DEPARTMENT of Environmental Conservation plans to expand bear hunting across New York to prevent conflicts with humans as the animal’s population spreads to new areas. At one time, the state’s bears were…
In the small eastern Adirondack community of Wadhams, a wood-sided building with rusted metal roof extends along the top of the rocky bank of the Boquet River. Its various sections join to each other with a sense of purpose that grows from adding space as a need arises, laterally along the bank and over the…
By Philip Terrie THE “FOREVER WILD” provision of the New York State constitution has protected the Forest Preserve since the first day of January 1895. On that day a new constitution, drafted during the summer of 1894 and approved by New York voters in November, took effect. But over the ensuing years, we have learned…
After December snowfalls, our editor goes on his first ski trip of the season to High Rock in the Five Ponds Wilderness. By Phil Brown AFTER SEVERAL LONG days in the office, I went to bed dreaming of my first backcountry ski trip of the season, a jaunt to High Rock in the Five Ponds…
In classifying former Finch, Pruyn lands, the APA creates two large motor-less tracts but allows a snowmobile corridor to divide them. By Phil Brown AFTER MONTHS of public debate and behind-the-scenes negotiations, the Adirondack Park Agency voted in December to prohibit motorized recreation on most of the former Finch, Pruyn timberlands the state purchased from…
Amateur astronomers promote the region’s dark skies by creating the Adirondack Public Observatory. By Kim Martineau FRAMED BY mountains and free of sprawl, Tupper Lake has always been a good place for gazing at the stars. Now the heavens just got closer. The Adirondacks’ first public observatory is set to formally open in July in…