The only independent, nonprofit news organization solely dedicated to reporting on the Adirondack Park.
By Tom Woodman FOUR DECADES ago the Adirondack Park Agency came into being. It was not an easy birth or infancy. Political opposition weakened this new creature even before it saw the light of day. And controversy surrounded its early years as it worked to incorporate conservation values in the regulation of private lands. Its…
The North Country’s prison economy boomed when New York State got tough on drugs, but now the inmate population is dwindling and so are the jobs. By Brian Mann IN MAY 1973, Governor Nelson Rockefeller signed two controversial laws that would change life in the Adirondacks. The Adirondack Park Land Use and Development Plan, which…
State acquisition of Essex Chain Lakes Tract from the Nature Conservancy opens up Blackwell Stillwater to flatwater paddlers. By Phil Brown IN THE LAST ISSUE of the Explorer, I wrote about paddling a stretch of the upper Hudson River newly open to the public. As you may recall, we started in Newcomb and traveled about…
By Kenneth Aaron The first time Dave Cilley encountered the no-trespassing cable across Shingle Shanty Brook, it was in the late 1970s or 1980s, shortly after the state purchased land around Lake Lila and he was exploring the area. He turned back, and it’s been forbidden fruit for him ever since. Until this year,…
Canoeists explore stretch of upper Hudson recently acquired by state. By Phil Brown Some say the upper Hudson River below Newcomb has always been open for paddling, and they’re right—assuming you’re capable of shooting class IV rapids in the Hudson Gorge. For the rest of us, this part of the Hudson opened this spring. In…
By Tom Woodman Gazing on OK Slip Falls as the waters plunge 250 feet into the gorge at our feet, it’s easy to give in to a rush of impressions. This cataract, the tallest in the Adirondack Park, has true grandeur and raw power. But it also displays surprising subtlety. The falling torrent divides…
Agency weighs a variety of options—and opinions—for managing 21,200 acres of former Finch, Pruyn lands. By Phil Brown Wild rivers, pristine ponds, deep forests, marble cliffs, a towering waterfall—the former Finch, Pruyn lands recently acquired by the state seem to have everything. If not everything, then more than enough to satisfy a variety of outdoor…
By Tom Woodman You can measure time a number of ways aboard the Fort Ticonderoga ferry. The voyage from shore to shore of the Lake Champlain Narrows takes seven and a half minutes. Set your watch. Seven and a half minutes across, seven and a half minutes back. Or you can free your mind…
By Tom Woodman Larry Master walks slowly along the paths on his property. There’s much to take in as he shows a visitor around and plenty of time to open the senses to the natural world. Tracks in the soft spring snow are mostly red squirrel, snowshoe hare, and coyote. There are a few from…
Climbers put up more than a hundred new routes on huge cliffs opened to the public after the purchase of IP timberlands. By Phil Brown Over the past two decades, the state has purchased conservation easements on some 750,000 acres in the Adirondack Park. These timberlands are protected from development, and many of them are…