Back in 2012, when Saratoga & North Creek Railway applied for an exemption to operate the rail line, they received an overwhelming voice of support from state lawmakers, the Department of Environmental Conservation, and other local and public officials. Although I was not directly involved with local government at the time, I have read the concurring and dissenting filings with the Surface Transportation Board (STB) and support the exemption decision. The current controversy over the storage of train cars on the Tahawus line, specifically in the Town of Newcomb, does not in my opinion represent a “depraved indifference” to the >>More

Alongside the photographs accompanying John Thaxton’s otherwise unobjectionable article about crossbills in the January/February edition of Adirondack Explorer, I found this appalling claim: “Crossbills have bills that are designed to pry apart spruce cone scales to get at the seeds inside.” Now even some biologists will occasionally make the mistake of referring to evolutionary outcomes as intentional, so I don’t want to assume that the writer of this caption actually believes that the birds’ bills are “designed,” or that the writer meant to sneak in an attack on evolution, but the correct statement would have been that the bills “evolved” >>More

As a longtime fan of your magazine, I would like to comment on your recent report titled “Hemlock pest found in Park.” The article seemed to minimize the danger from the woolly adelgid, an invasive insect that has been killing hemlock forests elsewhere and was recently discovered near Lake George. My wife and I have a summer place in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania. Our hemlocks are in great distress and are expected to be wiped out. I am having thirty-four beautiful old hemlocks on a one-acre plot sprayed this fall at a cost of over $4,000—a stopgap measure that >>More

Your newspaper/magazine is absolutely the best! The photography is incredible. Every time I read the Adirondack Explorer, I am right there. It’s hard to stop reading. Please keep going on political happenings. Tom Woodman was very relevant when he wrote about the less-than-perfect person, Trump. Politics, unfortunately, has a great deal to do with maintaining our precious wildlife and forests. Anyone remember global warming? A hoax? Adirondack Explorer’s mission is to keep us enlightened. We need all the information we can get. So far, the Explorer has perfectly stuck to its mission. Enlightened social politics is exactly what we need. >>More

Thank you for publishing “Her First Walk in the Park” in the November/December issue. I work in an inner-city high school and felt that reading Autumn’s experience would be valuable for our students. I gave a copy to one of the teachers. He sent it to his daughter, age twenty-two, who has had difficulty becoming an adult. She immediately took a two-hour walk in the woods and decided to stick with her unsatisfactory current employment. Her thinking during the walk changed the thoughts about her own uncomfortable situation to thoughts of how she could help the stressed family she was with. Autumn’s >>More