The only independent, nonprofit news organization solely dedicated to reporting on the Adirondack Park.
By Phil Brown
A lawyer for the state Department of Environmental Conservation argues that his former boss misconstrued the Highway Law in dismissing a ticket against a Lake Placid man who drove his pickup truck on an abandoned road in the Sentinel Range Wilderness. Randall Young, the top attorney in DEC’s Region 6, is asking the commissioner of…
By Phil Brown
The Adirondack Council is accusing the Adirondack Park Local Government Review Board of misleading the public in its critique of the state’s plan to buy Follensby Pond and former Finch, Pruyn lands. In a news release this morning, the council asks that the Review Board withdraw a resolution calling on the state to back out of the land…
By Phil Brown
The Adirondack Park Local Government Review Board this week passed a resolution urging the state not to go forward with plans to purchase Follensby Pond and some sixty thousand acres of former Finch, Pruyn lands. The resolution, adopted Wednesday, argues that the purchases would violate the Adirondack Park State Land Master Plan, hurt the local…
By Phil Brown
The state Department of Environmental Conservation’s plan to move its Adirondack emergency dispatchers from the Lake Placid region to Albany is creating quite a stir. Critics contend the move will make the public less safe. The argument is that dispatchers in Albany will be less familiar with the Adirondack—and its bewildering nomenclature—and this could slow…
By Phil Brown
The state Department of Environmental Conservation has granted a request by its own staff to clarify an agency decision that the Old Mountain Road in Keene—now part of the Jackrabbit Ski Trail—had never been legally abandoned and therefore could be open to motorized use. The decision by DEC Commissioner Pete Grannis in 2009 raised questions…
By Phil Brown
The Adirondack Explorer has filed an answer to the lawsuit accusing me of trespass for paddling through private property on my way to Lake Lila in May 2009. Essentially, we argue that the waterways in question—Mud Pond, Mud Pond Outlet, and a stretch of Shingle Shanty Brook—are open to the public under the state’s common…
By Phil Brown
Region 5 of the state Department of Environmental Conservation released today its Ranger Activity Report for November and December. The region covers the eastern two-thirds of the Adirondack Park. The report follows verbatim. Clinton County Town of Champlain, Private Lands On Thursday, November 4, at approximately 11:45am, State Police in Plattsburgh requested DEC Forest Rangers…
By Phil Brown
I’ve done several ski trips in the Saranac Lake region with my daughter Martha over the past week. Conditions are excellent if you choose the right trail. Two that I can recommend are the Hays Brook Truck Trail in the Debar Mountain Wild Forest and the Fish Pond Truck Trail in the St. Regis Canoe…
By Phil Brown
Joe Martens, president of the Open Space Institute, may be the state’s next environmental conservation commissioner, according to the Albany Times Union. The newspaper reported on its Capitol Confidential blog that Governor-elect Andrew Cuomo is looking at Martens, who in the early 1990s served as an environmental adviser to then-Governor Mario Cuomo, the incoming governor’s…
By Phil Brown
Backcountry skiers can contribute to a good cause by participating in the Camel’s Hump Challenge in Vermont on February 13. At 4,083 feet, Camel’s Hump is one of the highest mountains in Vermont. In the annual Camel’s Hump Challenge, participants ski around the mountain on trails not normally open to the public. Each skier must…