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A video time-lapse from the top of Hurricane Mountain in Essex County.
By Phil Brown
We took advantage of fall sunshine yesterday to climb the historic Wiessner Route on Upper Washbowl Cliff with Matt Wiech, a guide with the Eastern Mountain Sports Climbing School. Fritz Wiessner, a top climber in his day, put up the route in 1938. Like most of his routes, this one is regarded as moderate in…
By Phil Brown
We sent files for the March/April Explorer to the print shop Monday, so I took the next day off to ski to Avalanche Pass and, given the dearth of snow this winter, was surprised at the quality of the skiing. I also tried out our new Go Pro video camera during the descent of…
By Phil Brown
The Explorer‘s intern, Evan Williams, climbed Mount Arab recently with his father and captured the adventure on video. Arab is a small summit west of Tupper Lake. It’s a great destination if you’re looking for a short, easy hike. The hike to the 2,545-foot summit is only a mile. The Friends of Mount Arab have…
By Phil Brown
Backcountry skiers who think it’s now safe to ski the Angel Slides on Wright Peak should be aware that an avalanche risk may still exist. Two skiers were caught in an avalanche on the wider of the two Angel Slides on February 27, but they escaped with minor bruises. Last Friday, Jesse Williams of Cloudsplitter…
By Phil Brown
Hundreds of people lined the main street in the tiny village of Saranac Lake on Friday afternoon to welcome home gold-medal skier Billy Demong and other local athletes who competed in the Winter Games in Vancouver. Saranac Lake and nearby Lake Placid, which hosted the Winter Olympics in 1932 and 1980, sent a dozen athletes…
By Phil Brown
Yesterday I skied Mount Marcy with Alan Wechsler, one of the contributors to the Explorer. I had skied Marcy just a few weeks ago, but I never tire of this trip. We had great weather until we emerged above tree line. The summit was a complete whiteout, and the wind was fierce, with wind chills…
By Phil Brown
On Sunday, I skied to Whiteface Landing for the first time in a few years and was pleasantly surprised by the state of the trail. I’m not talking about the snow conditions, although they were superb. I’m referring to improvements made in recent years by Tony Goodwin and his volunteers at the Adirondack Ski Touring…
By Phil Brown
The Jackrabbit Ski Trail offers lots of great skiing over its twenty-four miles, but the best part is the six-mile stretch from Whiteface Inn Road in Lake Placid to McKenzie Pond Road outside Saranac Lake. The highlight is a mile-and-a-half downhill run from McKenzie Pass to McKenzie Pond. On Sunday, I did a round trip…
By Phil Brown
This YouTube link takes you to my second attempt at making a short backcountry ski video. For this one, I strapped my camera–an Olympus 1030SW–to my chest and skied down a small peak outside Saranac Lake. The clip is only a few minutes long. Unfortunately, when I converted it to QuickTime for the Web it…