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
Bob Marshall was one of the original Adirondack Forty-Sixers, but he thought he was born too late. He would have preferred to have lived in the nineteenth century, before the Adirondacks were overrun by civilization. Well, Bob is now part of the twenty-first century. John Warren, the guy behind the Adirondack Almanack, reports in his…
By Phil Brown
Reinhold Messner, regarded as one of the best mountaineers of all time, has described Steve Houseas “the best high-altitude climber in the world today.” So you know he’s good. At this year’s Adirondack International Mountainfest, scheduled for the weekend of January 15-18, a small number of lucky ice climbers will get to learn from the…
By Phil Brown
Backcountry skiers should find good snow on many of the popular trails in the Adirondacks over the holiday weekend. We have a foot or more of snow in the Lake Placid region, and temperatures should remain below freezing into next week. Tony Goodwin reports that the entire Jackrabbit Trail (twenty-four miles from Keene to Saranac…
By Phil Brown
Seth Lang was part of the media horde that showed up Monday morning to watch the demolition of the Champlain Bridge. But the event held a special poignance for Seth, who grew up in Crown Point, just five miles from the bridge. “I can’t help but feel saddened by the loss of our bridge,” he…
By Phil Brown
Those of you who have been following the saga of Shingle Shanty Brook may be interested in an article that appears in the latest newsletter of the Sierra Club’s Atlantic chapter, written by Charles Morrison, the former director of natural resources at the state Department of Environmental Conservation. Morrison and two other Sierra Club members…
By Phil Brown
Everybody loves lean-tos, right? But perhaps not as much as the fellow who goes by the name of Dsettahr in Adirondack Forum. He has compiled an Excel spreadsheet of every lean-to he could track down in the Adirondacks and Catskills—nearly three hundred—and his goal is to spend a night in each one. We learned about…
By Phil Brown
Readers of the Explorer should be familiar with the photography of Jeff Nadler. His images often appear in our pages and sometimes on our cover as well (the female cardinal on the front our November/December issue was his). As a nature photographer (especially of birds), he spends a lot of time outdoors. In a recent…
By Phil Brown
We got enough snow last week to do a little backcountry skiing. One day I skied to McKenzie Pond; on another, I skied part way up Debar Mountain. The flats were fine, but on both trails, my skis scraped rocks on the hills. Expect the cover to remain thin for a while, at least in…
By Phil Brown
We finally have enough snow to ski on some of the early-season trails, such as the road to Camp Santanoni in Newcomb, the Marcy Dam Truck Trail in the High Peaks Wilderness, the Fish Pond Truck Trail in the St. Regis Canoe Area, and the Hayes Brook Truck Trail in the Debar Mountain Wild Forest.…
By Phil Brown
In the next issue of the Adirondack Explorer, we plan to publish an article by Adam Federman on the implications of the Old Mountain Road decision on the state Forest Preserve. Federman notes that probably hundreds of old roads crisscross the Preserve. As a result of the Old Mountain Road case, observers are asking whether…