About Adirondack Explorer

The Adirondack Explorer is a nonprofit magazine covering the Adirondack Park's environment, recreation and communities.

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  1. concerned hiker says

    Translation: every year the State discourages hiking during “Mud Season”.
    Yes, every year without exception. So basically, you’re not supposed to hike
    from April until around Independence day. The reason for this is because the
    trail system in the Adirondacks was built a long time ago and they didn’t know
    anything back then about proper, sustainable trail design. So, almost all of the
    trails in the Adirondacks are severely eroded and in very poor shape. But, instead
    of the State being responsible, and initiating a trail project to revamp the trails,
    they have for years been blaming hikers for overuse. In other words, “we don’t want you here, go home and stay away from the high peaks, find some easier mountains to climb that aren’t as exciting; or be fat and sedentary and get sick”.
    It’s not just the State that proclaims this, but all of the clubs that bow to the State.
    Ironically, it’s these same clubs that either volunteer to fix the trails for the state
    (a huge freebie that is given to the state, probably in the order of tens of millions
    throughout the years), or, a different club that is a non-profit organization. One can be a part of the professional trail crew at this non-profit organization. They will pay you $11.80 per hour to work like a slave and live out in the bush all summer. Or, you can be a summer steward for the same paltry wage, all you have to do is climb a high peak each working day to educate people about fragile alpine vegetation. (yes, I’m being ironic, this is also a very strenuous job). Now, sustainable trail design has been around for many, many years.
    A lot of trails in the Western U.S. are built this way. If properly built, they are designed to last 100 years or more. So, instead of the State government doing their due diligence (years ago), by looking into proper trail design and picking away at the trails one by one and getting them in order, they have just been relying on volunteers and grossly underpaid non-profit workers to do the work for them. And then they have the audacity to blame hikers and tourists on the overuse, telling them to get lost, go somewhere else, we don’t want you
    here, (NIMBY). This also applies to some (not all) of the affluent who can afford to live in these incredible places. Ironically, some of these people are tourists themselves because they have camps and second homes here, some probably having gotten rich off the backs of the same poor people they seek to drive away from state land which they also pay taxes for. There are some wealthy people, however, that freely let hikers hike on their land. Thank God for them. So, after many years of the State and environmental groups and the like constantly
    whining about crowding and overuse, they finally realized it was their fault; the trails are not sustainable, they should have known how to properly design and build (or re-build) the trails so that they don’t have to drive people away, but instead they could welcome them and their tax dollars. And yes, there was litter (oh my god!) litter in the Adirondacks…ok, so deal with it, keep educating people to not litter, fine them if you can catch them and maybe pay a crew to do sweeps every now and then, you don’t have to grossly over-react over everything, just deal with it like a responsible person should, take responsibility and turn things around, DO THE RIGHT THING.

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