The only independent, nonprofit news organization solely dedicated to reporting on the Adirondack Park.
Phil Brown edited the Adirondack Explorer from 1999 until his retirement in 2018. He continues to explore the park and to write for the publication and website.
By Phil Brown
Two women who were trying to hike all five peaks in the Dix Range on Saturday got lost near the Macomb Slide and had to spend an unplanned night in the woods. Forest Rangers searched for them through the night to no avail. The women were located Sunday morning on a trail about a quarter-mile…
By Phil Brown
Check out our video of a hiker in fifty-mph winds on Wright Peak.
By Phil Brown
Adirondack Recreational Trail Advocates has been a strong voice for converting the rail line between Lake Placid and Tupper Lake into a biking, hiking, and snowmobile trail. Last month, however, Acting State Supreme Court Justice Robert G. Main Jr. ruled that the state’s plan for the rail trail violated the law. On Friday morning, ARTA…
By Phil Brown
A scientist at the Center for Biodiversity blasted as “absolutely political” a decision by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to keep the Bicknell’s thrush off the federal list of endangered species. The Bicknell’s is a rare songbird that breeds in spruce-fir habitat at high elevations in the Adirondacks, New England, and southeastern Canada. The…
By Phil Brown
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service today denied a petition to put the Bicknell’s thrush on the list of endangered species. The songbird breeds at high-elevations in the Adirondacks and New England. Click here to read the background on the petition by the Center for Biological Diversity. The F&WS news release follows: Service Finds Migratory…
By Phil Brown
The Adirondack Explorer's editor enjoys a day on a rock tower overlooking the Mediterranean.
By Phil Brown
The state’s forest rangers have busy again this year. Following is the department’s news release on the rangers’ activity for the week of September 25 through October 1. New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) Forest Rangers respond to search and rescue incidents statewide. Working with other state agencies, local emergency response organizations, and…
By Phil Brown
Each year the American Alpine Club publishes a little book titled Accidents in North American Climbing, on the theory that reading about accidents is one way to avoid them. Usually, most of the reports are from out west or Alaska. Occasionally, an accident in the Adirondacks makes the book. This year, however, a full three…
By Phil Brown
Wallface is the biggest cliff in the Adirondacks and so naturally has attracted the attention of rock climbers from way back. The first recorded routes were put up by two of the country’s best climbers of the 1930s—John Case and Fritz Wiessner. The authors of Yankee Rock and Ice say Wiessner regarded Wallface as the…
By Phil Brown
Kevin “MudRat” MacKenzie was among the rock climbers flown to Wallface Mountain this week to search for Alex Stevens, a hiker who disappeared more than a week earlier. He took this video.