The only independent, nonprofit news organization solely dedicated to reporting on the Adirondack Park.
By Phil Brown
As mentioned in an earlier post, I recently toured Andalusia in southern Spain with my girlfriend and daughter. On my last two days, I went rock climbing, the first day in El Chorro, one of Spain’s premier climbing destinations, the second day at two nearby locales. I hired a guide, Victoria Foxwell of the Rock…
By Phil Brown
The Open Space Institute has acquired a 1,285-acre property that will facilitate access to Huckleberry Mountain, a crag in the southeastern Adirondacks with great views and dozens of rock-climbing routes. Katharine Petronis, OSI’s northern program manager, said the non-profit organization will sell the property to the state for inclusion in the public Forest Preserve. That…
By Phil Brown
The state Department of Environmental Conservation is advising recreationists to be prepared for winter conditions in the Adirondacks. With this week’s storm, snow depths in the region range from two to eighteen inches. Following is DEC’s news release. The recent snowstorm is providing good conditions for winter outdoor recreation in the Adirondack backcountry, New York…
By Phil Brown
State forest rangers and law-enforcement personnel searching for a missing hunter found him “in an unresponsive state,” evidently under the influence of drugs, in central New York over the weekend. The search for the hunter is one of four incidents in DEC’s latest Ranger Report. The full report follows: Town of Colonie Albany County Prescribed…
By Phil Brown
A state judge has dismissed a lawsuit challenging the Department of Environmental Conservation’s construction of “community connector” snowmobile trails in the Forest Preserve. Protect the Adirondacks argued that the trails—up to twelve feet wide on curves and graded smooth—violated Article 14 of the state constitution, which declares that the Preserve “shall be forever kept as…
By Phil Brown
Last week’s Forest Ranger Report from the Department of Environmental Conservation noted that a ranger had to rescue two hikers overtaken by darkness on Thomas Mountain. In this week’s Ranger Report, three of the five incidents involved searches for people benighted in the woods. In all four of these incidents, the people rescued failed to bring…
By Phil Brown
On the day before Thanksgiving, Rosemary Billquist, 43, was walking dogs in a field in the evening when she was shot by a hunter who evidently mistook her for a deer. The Department of Environmental Conservation announced that the hunter has been indicted on a charge of second-degree manslaughter, which carries a prison term of…
By Phil Brown
In October I hiked up Thomas Mountain and Cat Mountain overlooking Lake George. I went up Thomas first, via old logging roads. Near the summit is a cabin built before the state bought the property in 2013. Inside the cabin were a sofa, table, lantern, a few foodstuffs, even some music speakers. Cabins are not…
By Phil Brown
State environmental conservation officers recently arrested four hunters, in three separate incidents, for illegally hunting deer. Two of the suspects were accused of deer-jacking: shooting deer from pickup truck in Fulton County in the Adirondack foothills. They were issued a total of eighteen tickets. Following is a news release of ECO activities from late October…
By Phil Brown
Is the controversial idea of establishing huts at the ponds dead?