Mt. Colden’s Trap Dike is a well-known feature among hikers, climbers and geologists. It is not, however, the only trap dike in the High Peaks. Take notice and you’ll find smaller dikes crisscrossing most of the slides and treeless summits. Most of these are interesting and perhaps photogenic, but irrelevant to climbing. One of the best-kept backcountry secrets is a large vertical trap dike capped with a diagonal car-sized capstone on Mt. Marcy. It lies in a northeastern facing cliff deep in Panther Gorge and looks like a pencil-thin shadow from the summit of Mt. Haystack. This is Marcy’s Great >>More

New York State Department of Environmental Conservation Forest Rangers respond to search and rescue incidents in the Adirondacks. Working with other state agencies, local emergency response organizations and volunteer search and rescue groups, Forest Rangers locate and extract lost, injured or distressed people from the Adirondack backcountry. What follows is a report, prepared by DEC, of recent missions carried out by Forest Rangers in the Adirondacks. Herkimer County Town of Ohio Rescue: On June 9 at 2:30 pm, Ray Brook Dispatch received a request for assistance for an overturned boat on Gull Lake. The female subject stated that her husband, >>More

The famed surveyor Verplanck Colvin built the first tower on Stillwater Mountain way back in 1882. The hole that once held his copper marker is still visible on the summit bedrock. Colvin’s tower is long gone, but a steel tower built in 1919 still stands, and last week the state nominated the structure — along with the fire observer’s cabin and some other buildings — for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places. Click here to read the state’s application. The fifty-six-foot tower, which is on private land, has not been used for fire observation since 1988. However, it >>More

A recreational water path that extends along the Lake Champlain shoreline between Rouses Point and Whitehall, the Lake Champlain Blueway Trail is a guide for paddlers of more than 90 points of interests — such as parks, wildlife viewing spots, geological curiosities, historic sites, museums, and campgrounds. The online travel guide weaves historical information, recreational opportunities, paddling tips, boat launches, docking, and marinas. Primarily for use by paddlers, it can also be used by those in larger boats and those who travel along the frozen lake in winter. The Blueway Trail is organized into 16 segments, each intended as a >>More

DEC is seeking volunteers to maintain trails in the towns of Peru and Black Brook in Clinton County and town of Chesterfield in Essex County. You can be part of a one-day work group, a three-day once a year effort, or a few hours on numerous days throughout the year – during the week or on weekends – whatever works best for you. Available work includes: Clearing trails of brush and other vegetation; Removing blow down (fallen trees, limbs, and branches) with hand tools; Constructing and maintaining erosion control devices; Constructing small foot bridges and bog bridging; and, Rerouting short >>More

Champlain Area Trails will formally open the newest addition to the CATS trail network on Sunday, June 25 in Willsboro, with a hike starting at 1 pm. All are invited to celebrate the grand opening of the “High Point Trail” which goes to the highest point on Willsboro Point. The High Point Trail is on the property of Marsha and Bill Harbison, who developed the trail and have opened it to the public for hiking. CATS completed trail work, marked the trail, and created a small parking area trailhead. About two miles long, the High Point Trail has two loops >>More

Forest Rangers found a 10-year-old Sunday morning in good health after he went missing overnight in the Pharaoh Lake Wilderness. Forest Ranger James Waters said he found the boy (who forest rangers wouldn’t identify because of his age) about a mile off the Short Swing Trail. Waters had been on the way to meet up with another forest ranger near Gooseneck Pond when he took a break atop a bounder field. While taking a break, Waters yelled out, hoping the boy would hear him, which is standard during search-and-rescue missions. “I was yelling and sitting there still and … I >>More