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Pigeon Lake Wilderness offers skiers a quiet refuge in snowmobiling country. By Phil Brown LAST WINTER, a former colleague got in touch to see if I wanted to go skiing in the Inlet area. Not one to turn down a chance to ski or catch up with a friend, I suggested we do the loop…
On the Peavine Swamp trail system in the northwestern Adirondacks near Cranberry Lake I found a tranquil route through open forest, culminating on a knoll overlooking the Oswegatchie River.
By Phil Brown
Oseetah Marsh just outside Saranac Lake is the destination of one of my regular lunch-hour ski trips. It’s short, easy, and scenic, with views of the McKenzie Range, the Sawtooth Range, and nearby Scarface Mountain. Today I did the trip for the first time this winter. Why did I wait so long? To get to…
Paul Smiths VIC offers more than just good snow: it has doubled the mileage of ski trails since taking over the facility from the state in 2011. By Phil Brown Winter started slowly, so after we received a few small snowfalls in late November, I jumped at the chance to go on my first ski…
By Phil Brown
Last Friday I went on my first ski of the season, a long loop around Heron Marsh and over an esker at the Adirondack Visitor Interpretive Center in Paul Smiths. Although Paul Smiths is only a dozen miles from our office in Saranac Lake, it usually receives noticeably more snow. And so it was on…
Embark on a round-trip cross-country ski adventure to Raquette Falls, following an old logging road along the scenic Raquette River.
The round trip to Raquette Falls is an ideal ski in winters with a dearth of snow. By Phil Brown By early January, we were desperate. We had enough snow to ski the Whiteface Mountain toll road, local golf courses, and a few easy trails, but that was it. As the ski-less days dragged on,…
Despite lack of snow, most cross-country facilities manage to stay open. By Rick Karlin Donald Preuninger and Brian McDonnell have something in common: they both took over cross-country-ski centers before one of the warmest and driest winters in recent memory. But they aren’t complaining about the weather—not too much, anyway. “I can’t tell you we’re…
By Phil Brown
Several years ago, we asked Bill McKibben to ski the entire Jackrabbit Trail in a single day and write about it. Saranac Lake to Keene. That’s twenty-four miles, but that wasn’t enough for McKibben. When he turned his story in, I learned he started instead at Paul Smith’s, where there is an orphan piece of…
Snowy woods beckon skiers By Phil Brown We were all happy to be on our first backcountry ski trip of the season, but none of us was as excited as Ella. She often bolted ahead of us, eager to see what snowy adventure lay around the bend, and she kept her high spirits throughout our…