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Once a hero to Adirondack rafters, Pat Cunningham has become a pariah among his peers, and the state is seeking to shut down his outfitting business following the accidental drowning of a customer. By Mary Thill On March 30, 2012, Hamilton County Court gave Patrick Cunningham a second chance. It came with conditions and a…
By Phil Brown
Last Friday I went on my first ski of the season, a long loop around Heron Marsh and over an esker at the Adirondack Visitor Interpretive Center in Paul Smiths. Although Paul Smiths is only a dozen miles from our office in Saranac Lake, it usually receives noticeably more snow. And so it was on…
By Phil Brown
It’s starting to look a lot like winter on Baker Mountain, the little peak on the outskirts of Saranac Lake. I took the photo above a few days ago while hiking on my lunch hour. I’m already dreaming of cross-country skiing. We don’t have enough snow yet, but we should soon. One trail I’m eager…
By Phil Brown
State Supreme Court Justice Richard T. Aulisi is scheduled to hear arguments in a navigation-rights lawsuit at 9:30 a.m. Friday in the Fulton County Courthouse. The suit was filed after I paddled through private property owned by the Friends of Thayer Lake and the Brandreth Park Association in 2009 while journeying from Little Tupper Lake…
Hikers will delight in one vista after another while climbing Moxham Mountain. By Phil Brown I have driven past Moxham Mountain in Minerva many times and admired its cliffs from afar. Back in the seventies and eighties, rock climbers put up more than a dozen routes on these steep slabs, but because the approach crosses…
Judge to hear arguments in November in dispute over public’s right to paddle on privately owned waterway. By Kenneth Aaron The landowners suing Adirondack Explorer Editor Phil Brown for trespass say he’s just the latest in a long line of people who have tried to pry open closed waters for public use, and if he…
In pursuing their passion, a crew of mountain bikers creates a resource for all in the greater Lake Placid region. By Alan Wechsler I’m following Keith McKeever and his friends up a mountain-bike trail on a bright summer afternoon. The trail climbs smoothly but unrelentingly as it switchbacks up the side of Winch Mountain in…
By Phil Brown
When is summer over? When the calendar says? When the temperature drops to the low thirties overnight (as it has in Saranac Lake recently)? Or when you go to Barkeater Cliffs on a sunny weekend and find no one there? The Barkeaters are popular climbing cliffs in Keene. They’re reached by a half-hour hike from…
By Phil Brown A wall of rock 1,200 feet high and a quarter-mile wide tends to stand out. Indeed, the North Face of Gothics is one of the most conspicuous landmarks of the High Peaks, drawing the eye whether you’re in downtown Lake Placid or on top of Mount Marcy. Yes, the North Face…
State attorney general asks judge to dismiss claims against Explorer editor in navigation-rights dispute. By Kenneth Aaron More than three years after Adirondack Explorer Editor Phil Brown paddled through private land on Shingle Shanty Brook and almost two years after he was slapped with a lawsuit accusing him of trespass, the parties in…