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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…
Two paddlers explore one of the Adirondacks’ largest motor-free lakes, discovering tranquility, beautiful scenery, and a few loons.
Judge rules that ‘Explorer’ editor did not trespass when he paddled through private property, but the landowners plan to appeal. By Kenneth Aaron The owners of a scenic, remote Adirondack waterway plan to appeal a judge’s decision declaring that the route is open to paddlers under the common-law public right of navigation. In February, State…
The state needs to do much more to protect shorelines, uplands, and the privately owned backcountry. By Philip Terrie In the Adirondacks, we often point with pride to the extraordinary oddness of the Adirondack Park. From Manhattan’s Central Park to California’s Yosemite, Americans have gotten used to parks with neat boundaries enclosing a domain…
Agency says the public has the right to travel on a disputed stretch of Shingle Shanty Brook. By Phil Brown Weighing in on a long-running controversy, the state Department of Environmental Conservation says the public has the right to paddle through private land on Shingle Shanty Brook and adjoining waterways that connect two pieces of…
By Tom Woodman Part way through a presentation on a North Country Sustainability Study in January, an audience member commented: “The days of environmentalism and economic development being strange bedfellows are long gone. Now they work together.” Sadly this was an overstatement—in many cases development efforts are not compatible with sound environmental policy. But this…
Jay Harrison has transformed his backyard playground of Crane Mountain into a climbing mecca in the southern Adirondacks By Don Mellor Some people just see clouds. Others see all sorts of things—funny little poodles, wrinkly faces, continents. And once the shapes define themselves in the minds of the beholders, they become real and clear. “What…
Environmentalists say the APA needs to update its regulations to incorporate “smart growth” principles. By Kim Martineau As the proposed Adirondack Club & Resort in Tupper Lake wound its way through the approval process, two planning consultants separately recommended in 2008 that the Adirondack Park Agency require clustering of homes in the backcountry. Under a…