The mountain lion conspiracy

A top-secret confidential source sent me a link to a YouTube clip that offers definitive proof that the government is releasing mountain lions in the Adirondacks. It’s part of a Nazi plot.

Beaver resigns as state mammal

A coalition of environmental groups launched an ad campaign today to protest Governor David Paterson’s proposed $69 million cut to the Environmental Protection Fund, which is used to pay for a variety of green initiatives, including land preservation. The Adirondack Council sent us the ad below, which features a snapping turtle, eastern bluebird, beaver, and brook trout resigning as the state’s reptile, bird, mammal, and fish, respectively. The proposed cut amounts to about a third of the fund.

Rally for the VICs

Andy Flynn, local writer and publisher, is organizing a rally at the Adirondack Park Agency to save the state Visitor Interpretive Centers at Paul Smiths and Newcomb. Flynn has served as the VICs spokesman until he left the job last year. Below is an e-mail from him:

To all:

I invite you to join us for a peaceful rally to protest the Adirondack Park Agency’s planned closure of the Visitor Interpretive Centers at Paul Smiths and Newcomb.

The “Save the VICs” Rally will be held from 9 to 11 a.m. Thursday, March 11, 2010 in front of the Adirondack Park Agency headquarters in Ray Brook. Come for one hour or two, but please come help us celebrate the value of the VICs to the Adirondack Park.

What you need to bring:

-Warm clothing (as this is outside)

-Signage displaying your feelings (i.e. Save the VICs; We Love the VICs; Keep the VICs Open)

-Instruments (guitar, banjo) to play if you know “This Land is Your Land” (lyrics to be provided)

-Children if you have them

-A friend or two or three

-Stories about your experiences at the VICs

Remember, this is a peaceful rally to support the VICs – outside the APA headquarters. The APA Board of Commissioners will be holding their monthly meeting inside the building at the same time, and rally participants are asked NOT to take their protests inside the building. We will be singing and chanting and holding our signs proudly outside and will make enough noise to be heard.

I encourage you to help us pressure the APA Board of Commissioners to come up with a plan to keep both centers open.

Join us at the March 11 rally and let your voice be heard!

Thanks!

Andy Flynn

Former VIC Senior Public Information Specialist (2001-2009)

Saranac Lake, (518) 891-5559

Angel Slides still unsafe

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 Mountain Guides dug a test pit on the narrower slide and concluded that the snow pack was unstable. As a result, Williams decided against taking skiers to the slide as part of last weekend’s Adirondack Backcountry Ski Festival.

Below is a video of the avalanche tests.

Billy Demong addresses hometown (video)

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.

Olympic skier Billy Demong raises a victory torch after Friday's parade in Saranac Lake. Photo by Phil Brown.

Saranac Lake and nearby Lake Placid, which hosted the Winter Olympics in 1932 and 1980, sent a dozen athletes to Vancouver, including two who won medals. Not bad for two villages whose combined population is about 7,600

Many of the athletes had moved to the Lake Placid region to train, but Billy Demong grew up outside Saranac Lake, in the rural community of Vermontville. He won a gold medal in the Nordic combined individual race and a silver medal in the Nordic combined team relay. The events feature cross-country skiing and ski jumping.

Amazingly, as a youngster, Demong competed on the same local cross-country-ski team with two other future Olympians: Lowell Bailey and Tim Burke, both of whom competed in the biathlon in this year’s games.

After the parade, Demong addressed a large crowd inside the town hall. “I feel like my life came full circle today when I drove up here from New York City …” he said. “This is the place where I grew up, in Vermontville, and at one point in my lived down the road from Tim Burke, three houses away and six miles or whatever.”

Demong, who will turn thirty this month, proposed to his girlfriend, Katie Koczynski. a few hours after he  became the first American to win a gold medal in Nordic combined.

The other local medalist was Andrew Weibrecht, who won a bronze in the men’s super G slalom and then made the cover of Sports Illustrated. Lake Placid, where he grew up, held a parade in his honor last week.

Another local hero, Peter Frenette, is still a senior at Saranac Lake High School. Frenette, who just turned eighteen, was the youngest member of the ski-jumping team.

The other regional athletes were: Ashley Caldwell, freestyle jumping; Haley Johnson, biathlon; John Napier, bobsled; and Mark Grimmette, Chris Mazdzer, Megan Sweeney, and Emily Sweeney, luge.

You can read more about these local athletes on the website of the Adirondack Daily Enterprise, Saranac Lake’s newspaper, which sent two reporters to the Olympics. Click here to read their coverage of the games.

Below is a video of Demong’s address to the crowd in the Harrietstown Town Hall.

Skiing Mount Marcy: Phelps Brook section

Alan Wechsler ascends into the clouds on Marcy. Photo 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 below zero. Descending the summit bowl, we couldn’t see the bumps in the terrain or any landmarks to gauge our position. “It’s like skiing blind,” Alan remarked.

It took us a while in this ghostly atmosphere to reconnect with the hiking trail. Once we got below the clouds, we could see again, and the skiing was terrific.

One of my favorite stretches of the Marcy trail is along Phelps Brook. By the time skiers arrive at the brook, they have descended all the steep, difficult sections. Now they can relax while cruising the 1.2 miles between the two brook crossings.

I took a video of Alan skiing this part of the trail. I was right behind him until he took a small spill toward the end. The camera was strapped to my chest.

Adirondack Backcountry Ski Festival

A backcountry skier descends a birch glade in the High Peaks. Photo by Susan Bibeau.

The Adirondack Backcountry Ski Festival is back this weekend, and though most of the guided ski trips are booked, there are a number of cool events open to the public.

For starters, you can test skis and boots at Otis Mountain, a private hill with a rope tow south of Elizabethtown, and enroll in telemark and skinning lessons, taught by Ron Konowitz, and avalanche clinics, taught by Mike Kazmierczak, a representative of Dynafit and Mammut. It’s all free.

The clinics and demonstrations are on Saturday, starting at 10 a.m. A schedule can be found on the website of the Mountaineer, the festival’s host. Otis Mountain is on Lobdell Road off Route 9N (the turn is to the east).

At 6 p.m. Saturday, Backcountry magazine will host a dinner at Keene Valley Lodge, located a few doors from the Mountaineer.  Price is $20. After dinner, starting at 7:30 p.m., Backcountry will show two ski movies at the Mountaineer: The Freeheel Life and The Fine Line. Admission is $10.

As of today (Wednesday), all of the ski trips were booked except the Karhu Traverse, an intermediate tour through Avalanche Pass that starts in Tahawus and ends at Adirondak Loj. Karhu demo skis are available for this trip.

The Mountaineer will donate proceeds from the festival to the Adirondack Ski Touring Council and the New York Ski Educational Foundation.

Call the Mountaineer (518-576-2281) or check the store’s website for more information.

Interview with avalanche survivors

In light of Saturday’s avalanche on Wright Peak, I thought it’d be instructive to post an in-depth interview with two survivors of the avalanche that occurred in the same spot in February 2000.  Four skiers were swept up in the earlier avalanche, and one died.

The interview with Ron Konowitz and his then-wife, Lauren, appeared in the Explorer in 2003. Although usually reluctant to talk about the avalanche, they agreed to the interview in part to correct the record and in part to warn others of the avalanche danger in the Adirondacks.

 What emerged was the most detailed story of the disaster ever published and a frightening account of what it’s like to be caught up (and buried, in Lauren’s case) in an avalanche.

To read the interview, click the PDF files below.

Page 1, Page 2, Page 3

Skiers caught in avalanche

Two backcountry skiers were partially buried in an avalanche over the weekend on the Angel Slides on Wright Peak—the location of a fatal avalanche in February 2000.

The Angel Slides on Wright Peak.

David Winchell, a spokesman for the state Department of Environmental Conservation, said one man was pinned against a stump and buried up to his chest. The second was carried more than six hundred feet and buried up to his chest. Both men were able to dig themselves out and leave the area.

The Adirondack Daily Enterprise identified the skiers as Ian Measeck of Glens Falls and Jamie McNeill of Vergennes, Vt.

The skiers had dug a pit to test the snow before heading up the slope about noon on Saturday. While ascending, they heard “woofing” noises in the fresh snow—a sign of an unstable snow pack—and chose to backtrack. As they turned around, however, the snow gave way and carried them both down the slope.

Visible from Marcy Dam, the Angel Slides are bedrock slabs (one wide, one narrow) that were stripped of vegetation during a 1999 rainstorm. In winter, they are often skied. In 2000, an avalanche on the wide slab swept up four skiers. One of them, twenty-seven-year-old Toma Vracarich, was killed. Saturday’s avalanche also was on the wide slab. Winchell said the entire slab–300 feet wide by 1,200 feet long–avalanched.

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post for Adirondack Almanack on the 2000 disaster and other avalanches in the Adirondacks.

On Monday, DEC issued a news release warning that recent snowfalls have increased the avalanche danger in the Adirondacks. Click on the link below to read it.

Avalanche news release PDF

Customer feedback on the trail

Tom O'Sullivan, left, and Dave Richman on the Marcy trail. Photo by Phil Brown.

This past weekend, I encountered Tom O’Sullivan of Albany and his friend, Dave Richman of New Hampshire, near Fifty-Meter Bridge on the Van Hoevenberg Trail to Mount Marcy. I had stopped to put climbing skins on my skis and engaged them in friendly conversation.

We ended up introducing ourselves, and when Tom heard my name, he asked if I were the editor of the Explorer. I allowed that I was.

“You guys do a great job,” he said. “I love that publication.”

He’s not lying: Tom has been a subscriber for ten years.

One of the most gratifying things about working for the Explorer is meeting subscribers on the trail. It happens often, and like Tom, nearly all of them praise the publication and express a personal connection to it. I guess it’s  no surprise that readers share our love of the outdoors and of the Adirondacks.

Take Tom, for example. He’s middle-aged (like me), but he hasn’t slowed down. He tries to ski Marcy, the state’s highest summit, a few times every winter—and he’s has been doing this for twenty years.

Before Tom and Dave continued up the trail, I took their photo and mentioned that I might write a short blog about our encounter.

“Don’t make me out to be a big Marcy skier,” he said. “I just slog up and slog down.”

Our readers are modest, too.