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Pigeon Lake Wilderness offers skiers a quiet refuge in snowmobiling country. By Phil Brown LAST WINTER, a former colleague got in touch to see if I wanted to go skiing in the Inlet area. Not one to turn down a chance to ski or catch up with a friend, I suggested we do the loop…
The Adirondack Explorer staff hiked the Saranac Lake 6 and prepared this guide containing trail descriptions, maps, and photographs.
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 Phil Brown
The other day I posted an item on Adirondack Almanack about old climbing routes on Noonmark Mountain. I focused on the Wiessner Route, vertical crack rated 5.8+ on the Yosemite Decimal System scale, making it the hardest route put up by Fritz Wiessner in the Adirondacks. The post contains photos of the route and an…
By Phil Brown
Rock climbers will have a few more routes to climb this weekend, according to Joe Racette, a biologist for the state Department of Environmental Conservation who monitors the nesting of peregrine falcons on cliffs. Racette said the Upper Washbowl cliffs near Chapel Pond are now open to climbers. DEC closes Upper Washbowl and Lower Washbowl…
By Phil Brown
On my lunch hour, I took a short hike to check out the rock-climbing cliffs on Baker Mountain on the outskirts of Saranac Lake. A few weeks ago, a huge wall of ice hung nearby, with its tongue extending along the base of one of the routes. Today the ice was gone, and the cliffs…
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.