The only independent, nonprofit news organization solely dedicated to reporting on the Adirondack Park.
By Tom Woodman In the central Champlain Valley, an area that the Adirondack visionary Gary Randorf refers to as the Adirondack coast, communities are building a trail system with a whole different vibe than the trails of the nearby High Peaks. Where the trails in the wild heart of the Adirondack Forest Preserve can…
Writer Sue Bibeau takes on the 90-Miler canoe and kayak race with boatbuilder Allison Warner.
State tries to curb illegal trade in bear paws and gall bladders. North Country Taxidermy in Keene does a steady business in mounted deer heads, stuffed mammals, skulls, horns, and fur rugs and blankets. Black-bear gall bladders are a lesser-known commodity. Bud Piserchia, who owns the shop, acquires as many as 150 gall bladders during…
Author discovers a hidden treasure not far from her hometown. By Lisa Densmore I grew up in Saranac Lake and have been hiking in the Adirondacks for much of the last four decades. However, until this spring, I had not hiked up Jay Mountain, actually Jay Mountains, plural. My hiking calendar always seemed to omit…
Environmentalists and local leaders agree that the privately owned backcountry should be protected—but how? By Phil Brown Nearly forty years have passed since Governor Nelson Rockefeller, while signing a law regulating development in the Adirondack Park, declared to the reporters and conservationists in the room, “The Adirondacks are preserved forever.” He had some reason for…
By Tom Woodman Think back on a favorite excursion in the Adirondack wilderness, and if you were lucky a forest ranger played a cameo role. Maybe you encountered him on the trail and he filled you in on the conditions farther on. Or maybe she was advising hikers at a busy trailhead on the right…
Should the state bill careless backcountry users for searches? By Kelly de la Rocha When Stephen Mastaitis of Saratoga Springs started a winter hike up Mount Marcy, he never dreamed he’d be coming back down in a helicopter. The fifty-eight-year-old lawyer and three others began the day hike bright and early on a February morning,…
By Michael Virtanen On a mostly sunny Monday with the blue-black water on the quiet bay rippling lightly and glistening, my wife got the hang of a new sport in roughly the time it took to push off from the dock, brace her paddle shaft across the eleven-foot board for balance, and stand up. Outfitted…
The Clintonville Pine Barrens is a quiet spot. Most of the people who hike here live a short drive away in communities such as Ausable Forks, Keeseville, and Plattsburgh. Occasionally, the barrens attract hikers from farther afield. Commenting in the trail register, a visitor from Toronto described them last year as “a dream place.”
Text and photos by Mark Bowie Though short, shallow, and lazy, the Kunjamuk River doesn’t lack for grace or beauty. For an overview, prospective paddlers would, ideally, fly over it in an airplane; barring that, they could try Google Earth. Either would reveal the serpentine and remote nature of this small waterway and the difference…