Blue flag in bloom

Blue flag on the shore of Horseshoe Pond. Photo by Phil Brown.

Last weekend I paddled with our publisher, Tom Woodman, on four ponds south of Floodwood Road. Tom wrote about our trip for the Explorer’s Adirondack Dispatches blog, so I won’t cover the same ground (or water, rather). I’m just taking the opportunity to post a photo of one of my favorite wildflowers, blue flag.

I took the photo on the shore of Horseshoe Pond, at the start of our carry to Follensby Clear Pond. Blue flag often grows near water and in swamps or wet meadows.

There are actually five species of blue flag in North America. The one that occurs in the Adirondacks most often is Iris versicolor. Its color ranges from deep blue to purple. White specimens are occasionally found. The flower blooms in late spring.

I hope you enjoy the photo. Let us know if you have a favorite Adirondack wildflower.

Ausable paddlers in hot water

Whitewater enthusiasts now have the right to paddle through Ausable Chasm, but they better be sure to obey the letter of the law.

Ausable Chasm.

Ausable Chasm Co. called the state police on Friday—the first day the run was open—to complain that kayakers were trespassing.

State Police Captain Brent Gillam said troopers filed criminal summonses against three paddlers, but the decision on whether to bring charges is in the hands of the town court.

One of the paddlers said on the Northeast Paddlers Message Board that he and two companions had entered private land after encountering a rope on the river.

“We were used to ropes meaning some type of warning down river,” the kayaker said. “We ventured onto private land. We asked the first staff member we saw, and went back. We were stopped by a cop when we were back in the water. After discussion and some waiting we were given violations.”

American Whitewater (AW) is trying to find an attorney to fight the tickets.

AW and Ausable Chasm Co., which runs a tourist facility at the gorge, offer different interpretations of the paddlers’ actions.

Kevin Colburn, AW’s national stewardship director, said they were confused by the rope and walked up an access road to scout the river.

But Tim Bresett, Ausable Chasm’s general manager, contends the paddlers were taking a short cut across the company’s land. “They were a half-mile from the river,” he said. “They were not scouting.”

Bresett said another paddler was ticketed Saturday for stepping out of his kayak to take photos, but Captain Gillam again said troopers only filed a criminal summons with the local court. Gillam said officers cannot charge somone on the spot with a violation (a low-level crime) unless they witnessed the incident.

Colburn suggested that the company is trying to intimidate paddlers from using the river. He said employees were yelling at kayakers who paddled down the river Friday and over the weekend.

“They don’t like the public floating through their river,” he said.

Bresett, however, said the company acknowledges that the public has the right to paddle through the chasm and scout rapids. “It’s not our position to play hardball with these guys,” he said, “but you got to play by the rules.”

After years of negotiation with New York State Electric and Gas, Ausable Chasm, and American Whitewater, the federal government ordered this stretch of river open to the public. Paddlers put in near the power plant at Rainbow Falls, negotiate heavy whitewater (up to Class 5), continue through milder rapids and flatwater, and take out at a bridge on Route 9.

Bresett said many of the kayakers who ventured down the chasm on Friday and over the weekend were “unskilled and unprepared.”

“I guarantee somebody will die on the river this year,” Bresett said.

Under the federal agreement, the river will be open each year from Memorial Day weekend until October 31.

Peter Borrelli to head Protect the Adirondacks

Protect the Adirondacks has hired Peter Borrelli, a longtime environmental activist, as its first president and chief executive officer.

“I’ve known Peter for almost forty years, going back to when we both served together at the Sierra Club, and I have followed his career closely ever since,” said Chuck Clusen, chairman of the Protect board.  “Peter brings a unique set of skills in communications, advocacy, and management never applied before in the Adirondacks.”

Protect was formed last year by the merger of the Association for the Protection of the Adirondacks and the Residents’ Committee to Protect the Adirondacks. The Protect board approved Borrelli’s appointment at a meeting in Blue Mountain Lake on Saturday.

Borrelli, who lives in Northville in the southern Adirondacks, has worked as a writer, editor, activist, and administrator for several environmental organizations, including the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Open Space Institute, and the Adirondack Council. He also once worked for the state Department of Environmental Conservation.

From 1996 to 2007, Borrelli served as executive director of the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies, where he oversaw research and lobbied for the protection of marine ecosystems. He recently wrote a book titled  Stellwagen: The Making and Unmaking of a National Marine Sanctuary, which was published last year by the University of New England Press.

Borrelli was the founding editor of Amicus Journal (now called OnEarth), a magazine published by the Natural Resources Defense Council.

“My hope is that Protect will come to be respected not just as a consolidation of two former organizations with their own history and accomplishments but as a new entity with a new vision of how to move forward,” Borrelli said.

His appointment follows closely the resignation of David Gibson, who served for more than two decades as the executive director of the Association for the Protection of the Adirondacks and as the first executive director of Protect. Earlier this year, Gibson was demoted to adviser. He resigned after the organization furloughed him in May.

Last week, Gibson complained that Clusen did not reply to his resignation letter and that Protect did not allow for an orderly transition.

Gibson and Dan Plumley, who also resigned from Protect, are considering forming a new environmental organization.

Gibson may form new group

David Gibson and Dan Plumley, both of whom resigned this month from Protect the Adirondacks, are thinking about forming a new environmental organization.

“We’re talking a lot about the possibility. Nothing’s crystallized,” said Gibson, who once served as Protect’s executive director.

David Gibson

Meanwhile, Charles Clusen, the chairman of the Protect board, said Protect expects to hire a new staff director in late June. The person will be given the title of president.

“This person lives in the Park, and he’s known the Adirondacks for a long time,” Clusen said.

He said the person has “vast experience” in land-conservation issues and has headed at least three other organizations. “Overwhelmingly, people will be impressed,” Clusen said.

Protect was formed last year by the merger of the Association for the Association for the Protection of the Adirondacks and the Residents’ Committee to Protect the Adirondacks.

Gibson had served as executive director of the Association since 1987 and assumed the same title in the new organization. This March, however, he was demoted to adviser. When he was furloughed in May, he decided to call it quits in June.

Plumley, who held the title of director of conservation programs, also quit in June. He told the Adirondack Daily Enterprise: “It’s been my great honor to work for and with Dave, and I have to admit, in many ways, in my heart, I kind of resigned from Protect when he was moved aside. That was a decision that I could not support.”

Gibson expects to decide by mid-July whether to go forward with starting a new organization.

Changes planned for Moose River Plains

Map of proposed land-classification changes in Moose River Plains.

The state Department of Environmental Conservation has two interesting proposals for the Moose River Plains. One should make local officials happy. The other should make environmentalists happy.

The Moose River Plains is now classified as Wild Forest. DEC wants to reclassify twenty miles of dirt road as an “Intensive Use Area,” a designation usually reserved for state campgrounds.

The department does not intend to create a full-out campground, with showers, bathrooms, paved roads, and other modern amenities, but it expects to maintain up to 150 roadside campsites with fireplaces or fire rings, picnic tables, and outhouses.

The Intensive Use classification will allow more campsites than would be permitted under the Wild Forest classification. Without the classification change, in fact, DEC would be forced to close many of the existing campsites in the Plains.

The department also wants to reclassify more than fifteen thousand acres in the Plains as Wilderness, where all motorized use would be banned. As part of this proposal, the Otter Brook Road and Indian Lake Road would be permanently closed to motor vehicles, according to DEC.

The new Wilderness tract includes Little Moose Mountain, one of the Adirondacks’ hundred highest peaks, and Little Moose Lake, a large water body at the base of the mountain. The tract would be added to the West Canada Lake Wilderness.

Last month DEC touched off a controversy when it announced it lacked the resources to open the roads in the Moose River Plains (they are closed in winter). DEC has since agreed to open most of the roads—with the exception of Otter Brook and Indian Lake roads.

Asked why DEC wanted to expand the Wilderness Area, spokesman Yancey Roy replied in an e-mail: “For the overall balance of actions proposed.”

DEC will discuss its plans at Thursday’s meeting of the Adirondack Park Agency, which must schedule public hearings on the proposals.

A broken ankle, forest fires

The state Department of Environmental Conservation released today a forest-ranger report for Memorial Day weekend. Nothing too exciting. A broken ankle. A missing hiker who turned up OK. And several small forest fires. The full text of the report follows.

DEC FOREST RANGER MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND ACTIVITY REPORT

High Peaks Search & Rescue Incidents

On Sunday, May 30, 2010, at approximately 2:50 PM, DEC Dispatch in Ray Brook received a call from the husband of Isabella Kicior, 28, of East Rutherford, NJ reporting that his wife had injured her ankle while hiking on the VanHovenberg Trail between Marcy Dam and Indian Falls.

Three DEC Forest Rangers responded to the incident and carried Ms. Kicior down to Marcy Dam. She was transported by a forest ranger vehicle on the Marcy Dam Truck Trail to the South Meadow Road. A Lake Placid Rescue Squad Ambulance transported her from there to the Adirondack Medical Center in Lake Placid.

On Sunday, May 30, 2010, at approximately 11 PM, DEC Dispatch in Ray Brook received a call from the wife of Randy Freeman, 57, hometown unknown, reporting that they had been hiking Mt. Marshall in the Town of Newcomb and became separated.  She was concern because Mr. Freeman had minor health issues.  A DEC Forest Ranger was dispatch and encountered Mr. Freeman just before midnight near the Upper Works Trailhead in satisfactory condition

Adirondack Wildland Fires

The dry weather prior to and during the Memorial Day Holiday Weekend resulted in a High Fire Danger Rating and eight wildland fires in the DEC Region 5 portion of the Adirondacks. However, the rains on Tuesday, June 1, have likely put out many of fires and lowered the fire danger. Summary of wildland fires that DEC forest rangers and others responded to over the past 5 days:

• The 0.3 acre Valentine Pond Fire in the Town of Horicon, Warren County, which was started by lightning on May 27, is out.
• The 1.0 acre Wevertown Fire in the Town of Johnsburg, Warren County on Mill Mountain, which was started by fire on May 27, is out.
• The 7.0 acre Skagerack Mountain Fire in the Town of Chesterfield, Essex County, which was started by lightning on May 27, is in patrol status.
• The 3.0 acre Spier Falls Fire in the Town of Corinth, Saratoga County, started on May 28 by lightning, is now in patrol status with forest rangers reporting some hotspots on 6/1.
• The 2.0 acre Ingraham Road Fire in the Town of Chester, Warren County, started on May 31 of unknown origin at this time, is out.
• The 0.5 acre Oven Mountain Lane Fire in the Town of Johnsburg, Warren County, started on May 31 by a structure fire, is out.
• The 0.5 acre Eagle Lake Fire in the Town of Ticonderogra, Essex County, started on May 31 by a campfire, is under control.

New Adirondack hiking guidebook

In the July/August issue of the Adirondack Explorer, a Montana angler writes about falling in love with fishing the Adirondacks. He was introduced to the region by another love, Lisa Densmore, a freelance writer and photographer who grew up in Saranac Lake.

Lisa Densmore

Well, Lisa has just published Hiking the Adirondacks, which describes forty-two hikes from all parts of the Adirondack Park. Released by Falcon Guides, the book sells for $18.95. It can be purchased in stores or online.

Lisa is more than qualified to offer us advice: she has been hiking in the Adirondacks since she was a young girl. Although she now lives in New Hampshire, she has a summer camp on the Chateaugay Lakes in the northeastern corner of the Park.

The book carves up the Park into six regions—the same six delineated in the series of guidebooks published by the Adirondack Mountain Club. In a smart move, Lisa subdivides the High Peaks region into two chapters, one for peaks above four thousand feet, the other for smaller peaks.

She includes hikes to eleven of the forty-six High Peaks. No doubt people will quibble about her choices. For example, she offers separate chapters on Algonquin and Wright, two neighboring peaks that share the same approach. It would have made more sense to combine them into a single chapter (or drop Wright altogether) and add a chapter on Nippletop or Dix.

But this is a minor cavil. Overall, she did a superb job in selecting hikes that are sure to appeal to the general hiker. Some of my favorite mountains are in this book: Catamount and Lyon in the northern Adirondacks, Nun-da-ga-o Ridge in Keene, Tongue and Buck near Lake George, Crane in the southern Adirondacks, Vanderwhacker in the central Adirondacks, and Black Bear near Inlet. Not to mention little Baker Mountain in Saranac Lake, which I often climb on my lunch hour.

This is not a book for people who prefer flat hikes. With two or three exceptions, all of the hikes lead to summits or lookouts. However, the climbing varies greatly in difficulty. Kane Mountain, for example, entails an elevation gain of just 535 feet.

Densmore’s professionalism is evident in both her writing and photography (it’s a shame the inside shots are not in color). I had the opportunity to watch her at work when I tagged along on two of her hikes: the loop over Nun-da-ga-o Ridge and the traverse of Pitchoff Mountain. I can attest that she is a meticulous note taker and observant photographer. Readers will enjoy the fruits of her labor.