Spring fling

The King Phillip's Spring before the pipe was removed. Photo by Phil Gallos.

Phil Gallos has a thing for springs. He has visited more than sixty of them in the Adirondacks, often taking photographs and recording his observations. In ancient times, he says, springs were sacred places–they sustained life.

“There’s an aesthetic and spiritual quality to going to the spring to get your water,” he says. “It is a connection to the natural pattern of our species. It is what we have been doing for millennia.”

Gallos, who lives in Saranac Lake, was upset when the state Department of Environmental Conservation closed King Phillip’s Spring on Route 73, just off Northway Exit 30. King Phillip’s was one of the most visible and most popular springs in the Adirondacks. Driving past on a hot summer day, a motorist often could see people lined up to fill bottles from a pipe sticking out of a chain-link fence. The water seeps naturally to the surface in the woods, where it had been captured in a spring box and piped downhill to the fence.

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One last ski

Mount Marcy in late April. Photo by Phil Brown.

Winter ended early this year, thanks to a dearth of snowfalls in March. As a skier, I was hoping April would make amends. Instead, we had several unseasonably warm days when the temperature rose well into the 70s. Nevertheless, whenever I drove around Lake Placid I could see snow in the High Peaks and felt its allure. On April 25, one of those balmy days, I set out for Mount Marcy from Adirondak Loj, carrying my skis. The trail didn’t have a trace of snow when I started out, but by the time I reached the second bridge over Phelps Brook, some 3.5 miles from the Loj, snow was everywhere. I put on my skis, with nylon climbing skins on the bottoms, and kept them on until I reached the top. The last signpost, about a half-mile from the summit, was still nearly buried in snow. It was a spectacular day, clear and sunny, and yet I had the place to myself–a rare treat on the state’s highest mountain. I ate lunch, devoured the views, and headed down. I’ve had more enjoyable descents–the snow oscillated from sticky to boilerplate–but backcountry skiing isn’t all about the skiing. It’s about getting out there. I have little doubt that some diehards will be skiing in May.

The last signpost on Marcy, still mostly buried in snow.

Pilots win reprieve

Just before we went to press for the May/June issue of the Adirondack Explorer, the Adirondack Park Agency voted 9-2 to allow floatplanes to continue landing on Lows Lake for three more years, thus ending almost a year of public debate. As a sop to green groups, the APA and state Department of Environmental Conservation agreed to classify Lows Lake and adjacent state lands as Wilderness. Look for a story on the decision when you get your Explorer. I am posting here two of the important documents relating to the decision. In one, DEC spells out the rationale for allowing commercial pilots to land on Lows and the rules they must abide. The second is a memo to the APA board in support of the proposal, written by the APA’s acting executive director and its counsel. It’s interesting that the memo fails to mention that the APA’s state-lands staff concluded that extending floatplane access to Lows Lake would violate the Adirondack Park State Land Master Plan.

• Lows Lake Memo PDF
• UMP amendments PDF
  

Two-wheelin’ & four-wheelin’

An ATV crosses an Adirondack stream. (Photo courtesy of Adirondack Council.)

On one of our first warm days of spring, I rode my bike from Meacham Lake to St. Regis Falls and back again in a 40-mile loop. Soon after turning onto Red Tavern Road, I was passed by four riders on all-terrain vehicles coming from the opposite direction. I didn’t think much of it, but as I continued down the road, I was astounded by the number of ATVs I encountered. Altogether, I would see more than a hundred ATVs that day, either driving on the roads or parked outside bars. In St. Regis Falls, where I stopped for lunch at the Adirondack Cafe (good soup & sandwiches), I saw more ATVs than cars on the streets.

I had seen ATVs on rural roads before, but nothing like this. I was flabbergasted because I thought ATVers were prohibited from driving on public highways except for short distances to access trails. Was I mistaken? After my bike ride, I e-mailed the State Police to find out what the law says. I received the following reply: “Section 2403 of the NY State Vehicle and Traffic Law prohibits the operation of ATV’s on highways except to make a crossing, unless otherwise posted.”

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