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By Phil Brown
It’s been another frustrating winter for backcountry skiers. We haven’t had a big storm. Just as the snow starts to build up, we’re hit with a rainy thaw. That was the case again this week. Following an icy rain, we got a few inches of heavy, wet snow in Saranac Lake. This afternoon I skied…
By Phil Brown
On Saturday, my girlfriend Carol and I skied up the unplowed Whiteface Veterans Memorial Highway. From the tollbooth to the end of the road it’s a 5.4-mile climb, long but not very steep. It took us roughly three hours. Of course, the descent is the fun part. It normally takes less than an hour. Because…
By Phil Brown
The Adirondack Explorer has published a multisport guidebook to the former Finch, Pruyn lands to let people know of the many recreational opportunities on tracts that had been off limits to the public for more than a century. 12 Adventures on New State Lands: Exploring the Finch, Pruyn Tracts has something for everyone: the hiker, the paddler, the…
With snow scarce in much of the Adirondacks, two skiers head to the Cranberry Lake region for a day of backcountry adventure. By Phil Brown As usual, we were chasing snow. In the High Peaks, we didn’t have enough base to ski the backcountry, but we were hoping that a recent lake-effect storm had dumped…
DEC creates a trail for skiers that loops through former Finch, Pruyn timberlands near the Goodnow and Hudson rivers. By Phil Brown Since the state purchased the Essex Chain Lakes a few years ago, I had been meaning to try out the ski touring in that region. My initial idea was to ski on old…
By Phil Brown
On Friday afternoon I checked out the cross-country trails at Dewey Mountain in Saranac Lake. As expected, the groomed trails were in fine shape, but I was more interested in the ungroomed, rougher trails that lead to the top of the mountain as they more closely mirror conditions likely to be found on many backcountry…
Low snow, high hopes When most of the Adirondacks had nary a flake, the Cranberry Lake Wild Forest held out the promise of fresh tracks. By Phil Brown Early January, and we had hardly any snow in Saranac Lake. Meanwhile, Tug Hill west of the Adirondacks got clobbered yet again with a lake-effect storm. Upon hearing that the…
Cross-country skiers take advantage of fresh powder to visit East Mill Flow and Round Pond. By Phil Brown IT WAS A NEARLY perfect day for a ski tour. The sun was out, and fresh powder covered the trail and coated the branches of evergreens along the way. Kim Martineau was especially happy to be here.…
By Phil Brown
We got several inches of light snow over the weekend, so I went to the Jackrabbit Trail on my lunch hour to check out the ski conditions. I skied the two miles from McKenzie Pond Road to McKenzie Pond. The woods were beautiful, with fluffy snow adorning the branches of the evergreens. The trail looked…
After December snowfalls, our editor goes on his first ski trip of the season to High Rock in the Five Ponds Wilderness. By Phil Brown AFTER SEVERAL LONG days in the office, I went to bed dreaming of my first backcountry ski trip of the season, a jaunt to High Rock in the Five Ponds…