Help the world; watch a ski film

Want to do something good for the world? Then watch the new Teton Gravity Research ski film at the Lake Placid Center for the Arts this Friday night.

Proceeds from the ticket sales will benefit the Adirondack Ski Touring Council and the Barkeater Trails Alliance, two nonprofit organizations that maintain trails for cross-country skiing and mountain biking in and around Lake Placid.

The film, One for the Road, follows some of the world’s best skiers on the road and on the slopes, whether in Jackson Hole, Japan, Iceland, or Alaska.

The doors open at 7 p.m., and the movie starts at 7:30 p.m. There will be prizes and a raffle.

Tickets at the door cost $12 (or $6 for children under 12), but you can purchase them in advance for $10 (or $5) by clicking this link.

Dance to benefit bike trails

The Fellowship of the Wheel, Vermont’s largest mountain-bike club, will host a dance and raffle at the Echo Center in Burlington this month to raise funds to help maintain more than a hundred miles of trails that are open for public use.

The Singletrack Dance and Fundraiser will be held on Friday, April 15, from 7 p.m. to midnight.

The Pulse of Boston, a popular dance band, will perform. The band plays a mix of covers and originals in a variety of genres, including funk, Latin, reggae, soul, and disco.

More than $5,000 prizes will be given away. The $25 admission fee includes a raffle ticket. Additional tickets can be purchased at the door.

Fellowship of the Wheel builds and maintains trails in Chittenden County, which includes the city of Burlington. It is Vermont’s most populous county.

Click here to see a nicely done video about the organization.

Click the link below to read a news release (PDF file) about the dance.

Dance news release PDF

McCulley testifies against train

The tracks outside Saranac Lake. Photo by Susan Bibeau.

Jim McCulley traveled to Albany this week to testify against the state’s continuing subsidization of the Adirondack Scenic Railroad. A short article in the Adirondack Daily Enterprise generated a lot of online comments from readers. Click here to read the article.

McCulley, the president of the Lake Placid Snowmobile Club, wants to see all or most of the tracks pulled up to create a corridor for biking, hiking, and snowmobiling. Snowmobilers do use the corridor, but McCulley says the rails and ties limit its usefulness.

Proponents of the train argue that removing the tracks would be shortsighted at a time when the nation is, or should be, embracing mass transit to reduce our dependence on oil. But is reviving the train a for freight and/or passenger service a realistic option? That’s a question that we will look at in a future issue of the Adirondack Explorer.

For background on converting the railbed into a recreational corridor, see this earlier story in the Explorer.

A first for bikers

The state Department of Environmental Conservation recently announced the official opening of eight miles of mountain-bike trails in Wilmington. These are the first trails in the public Forest Preserve designed for biking, but they also can be used for hiking, skiing, and snowshoeing.

The trails were built to the specifications of the International Mountain Bicycling Association and are rated easy, moderate, and hard. There also are plans to construct another seven miles of bike trails a few miles away.

The Explorer published a story on these trails five years ago when they were still being developed. At the time, I took a ride with Bert Yost, one of main promoters of the trail system. After our ride, I climbed to a couple of nice lookouts on hiking trails accessed from the bike network. And after the hike, I took a swim in the Ausable. All in all, a nice day. You can read the story by clicking on the PDF files below. Beware that some of the information is outdated as the story was written before work was complete. You can also click on DEC’s map of the trail system.

bike-trails-page-1

bike-trails-page-2

DEC map.pdf