Mount Van Hoevenberg manager Kris Cheney-Seymour said the short ski season goaded the center to find a way to stay open longer in warm winters. By the following winter, Van Ho had installed a snowmaking system known as the Snow Factory. The result: it stayed open 137 days last season.
Molpus Woodlands is the Park’s largest landowner
Molpus Woodlands, which started buying lands in New York State in 2007, says it owns 240,000 acres, primarily in the northwest sector of the Park. Lyme Timber, based in New Hampshire, owns 239,000 acres in the Adirondacks.
Judge overturns state’s rail trail decision
A Franklin County judge has shot down the state’s plan to create a rail trail between Lake Placid and Tupper Lake, but supporters say the project is not dead.
Adirondack Hamlets-to-Huts test run postponed
By Noelle Connors Adirondack Hamlets to Huts postponed the test run of their first circuit loop from this fall to next summer. Adirondack Hamlets to Huts is a nonprofit which stems from the Adirondack Community-Based Trails and Lodging System Initiative. It is seeking to establish a network of huts and lodges in local communities connected by hiking trails to increase tourism. The Adirondack Hamlets to Huts had planned this weekend, September 27-October 1, to test the first circuit from North Creek to Indian Lake. According to Joe Dadey, Executive Director of Adirondack Hamlets to Huts, the testing is intended to >>More
From the Archives: An Interview with George Canon
Former Explorer Publisher Dick Beamish interviewed longtime Newcomb supervisor George Canon for the November/December 2007 issue. Canon died Sunday, June 18, at the age of 77.
Big plans for North Hudson
State wants to replace moldering Frontier Town at Exit 29 with $32 million Gateway to the Adirondacks By Rick Karlin Since its closure in 1998, Frontier Town could be more accurately described as a ghost town, but parts of the moldering theme park would be granted new life in a $32 million plan by the state to establish a Gateway to the Adirondacks at Exit 29 on the Northway. Governor Andrew Cuomo announced the plan in his State of the State Message in January and filled in some of the details later in the month. It will include an >>More
The master trail builder
Retired Forest Ranger Steve Ovitt aims to connect North Creek with the wild lands around the community. By BILL MCKIBBEN To really understand this story, you have to bear in mind two distinctive things about North Creek. One, it butts up against the mountains much tighter than most Adirondack communities. Start on the path that runs beside Town Hall (within sight of the Hudson), and within minutes you’re climbing steeply up Gore Mountain, entering one of the largest wilderness complexes in the Park. Two—and this negates the first advantage— North Creek is one of the few Adirondack hamlets bypassed by >>More
Building on tradition
Guideboat makers carry on a craft born in the Adirondacks in the mid-1800s. By MIKE LYNCH Building a traditional Adirondack guideboat is a complex task, with ribs carved from spruce-tree roots and with thin hull planks held in place with several thousand tiny tacks. It can take many weeks to complete one. “I grew up working with wood one way or another, and these are by far the most complex, demanding things, by a long shot, I’ve ever built,” said Rob Davidson, who started building guideboats a few years ago after moving to the Adirondacks from Oregon. Most builders spend about three >>More
Deluges in forecast
Climate change is expected to bring heavy rains, more floods, and more damage to communities. By Mike Lynch A few years ago, Paul Smith’s College scientist Curt Stager came across a rare find that he says helps tell the story of climate change in the Adirondacks: the journal of Bob Simon, a retired engineer and longtime resident of Cranberry Lake. Simon, who died in 1991, kept a meticulous journal with entries for temperature, wind direction, barometric pressure, water level, ice cover, when loons arrived, and when thunderstorms occurred. He made entries twice a day, morning and night, for the last >>More
APA approves rail trail
Despite agency’s vote, train supporters say the long battle over the state-owned rail corridor is not over. By Phil Brown The Adirondack Park Agency voted 9-1 in February to approve a controversial proposal to split a state-owned rail corridor into a rail segment and a trail segment, but the debate over the best use of the corridor is not over. The proposal calls for removing thirty-four miles of track between Lake Placid and Tupper Lake and fixing up forty-five miles of largely unused track between Tupper Lake and Big Moose. If implemented, Adirondack Scenic Railroad will have to discontinue a seasonal tourist train >>More