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The slides created or enlarged by Irene have given hikers and skiers new terrain to explore. Slides often entail a difficult bushwhack, but many of Irene’s creations extend all the way to a trail or come close. Easy access doesn’t mean easy. A bad fall could be fatal. With that warning, here are five new…
Tropical Storm Irene closed Wilderness Areas, washed away roads, damaged hundreds of homes and businesses, changed the look the High Peaks—and brought people together. By Phil Brown Johns Brook rises deep in the High Peaks Wilderness, less than a mile from the summit of Mount Marcy. The stream is well known to hikers who cross…
By Phil Brown
The new issue of the Explorer (November/December) will include a two-page spread on climbing five new slides created by Tropical Storm Irene in the High Peaks. I’ve blogged about my climbs of four of them (see links below), but I have yet to write about my climb of the long slide on Saddleback Mountain. I climbed…
By Phil Brown
On Sunday I climbed the Trap Dike for the first time since Tropical Storm Irene triggered a landslide above and inside the dike. The slide swept away nearly all of the trees inside the canyon and created a new exit, a slab of clean white rock that can be followed to the top of Mount…
By Phil Brown
The state has reopened the trail from Elk Lake to Panther Gorge but warns that hikers still may encounter blowdown. The 10.2-mile route leads from the private Elk Lake to Four Corners, a trail junction that lies amid Mount Haystack, Mount Skylight, and Mount Marcy. The trail had been closed since August 29, the day…
By Phil Brown
Outdoors writer Mike Lynch will give a slide-show in Lake Placid this Sunday on his recent 740-mile paddling trek along the Northern Forest Canoe Trail. Lynch will appear as part of an American Alpine Club mixer at the Guides House at 2733 Main Street, next-door to High Peaks Cyclery. The mixer and membership drive will…
By Phil Brown
The death of Matthew Potel, who fell in the Trap Dike on Mount Colden last week, has led to an outpouring of sympathy for a personable young man who loved the outdoors. Potel, 22, of Croton-on-Hudson, slipped in the dike while leading a group of fellow students from Binghamton University. He expected to graduate in…
By Phil Brown
A student at Binghamton University died Friday morning in a fall in the Trap Dike, a classic mountaineering route on Mount Colden. Matthew Potel, 22, of Croton-on-Hudson was climbing the Trap Dike with seven other members of the school’s outdoors club. Although details are sketchy, sources say he fell on the dike’s second waterfall, the…
By Phil Brown
A month after Tropical Storm Irene blew through the region, several hiking trails in the High Peaks remain closed. David Winchell, a spokesman for the state Department of Environmental Conservation, said no new trails would reopen this weekend. The following are still closed: Southside Trail from the Garden in Keene Valley to the ranger outpost…
By Phil Brown
People driving between Keene and Lake Placid can see dramatic evidence of Tropical Storm Irene: a slide scar in the drainage between the two Cascade Lakes. The large waterfall in this drainage has always been visible—it accounts for the lakes’ name—but it is now much more conspicuous. The rains of Irene stripped the sides of…