Master skier on the Marcy trail

Mark Meschinelli at Marcy Dam. Photo by Phil Brown.

Last weekend I encountered Mark Meschinelli and Dave Hough, two members of the notorious Ski to Die Club, on the trail to Mount Marcy. Back in the seventies and eighties, Mark, Dave, and their crew set a standard in boldness by tackling difficult terrain–slides, frozen brooks, glades, you name it–in the gear of the day, namely lightweight leather boots and skinny skis.

These guys still got it. After summiting, I skied down with them and took a short video of Mark making parallel turns on the ski trail below Indian Falls. If you didn’t know any better, you’d swear he’s on alpine or randonee skis, but he’s actually using a telemark setup, meaning his heels are free. A friend tells me that Mark was equally adept at making parallel turns on the old cross-country gear in the heyday of the Ski to Die Club.

The clip is only about twelve seconds long. Look for Mark to enter the frame from the top. The figure is quite small at first, but you can tell he’s making graceful turns.

Incidentally, Mark also is an expert rock climber. A resident of Plattsburgh, he often can be found on routes at Poke-o-Moonshine Mountain just off the Northway. Last spring, Mark led a friend and me up Catharsis, one of the classic Poke-o routes. Look for a story on this adventure in a future issue of the Explorer.

Telemark turns on Whiteface Landing trail

Tony Goodwin

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 Council.

The council removed boulders, built bridges over streamlets, and, perhaps most important, fixed the drainage problems that sometimes left the bottom of the trail’s biggest hill bare and/or icy.

It so happens that we encountered Tony on the trail on Sunday afternoon. On the way out, we videotaped him as he descended the big hill, following him as he made graceful telemark turns in lightweight cross-country gear. I was impressed. Watch the video, and I think you’ll be too.

By the way, the three-mile trail from Route 86 to Whiteface Landing is rated as a novice tour in Tony’s book, Ski and Snowshoe Trails in the Adirondacks, but some beginners have trouble coming down this hill. If you’ve never skied to Whiteface Landing, the video will give you some idea of what to expect.

OSI protects 1,400 acres

The Johanson property borders Butternut Pond.

Our March/April issue, which should be mailed in a few weeks, includes a profile of Joe Martens, the president of the Open Space Institute. In the Adirondacks, Joe is best known as the guy who engineered the institute’s purchase of the ten-thousand-acre Tahawus Tract in 2003, but he also has been involved smaller projects in the Park.

A map of the preserve.

Recently, a landowner donated to OSI a conservation easement on 1,400 acres near Poke-o-Moonshine Mountain.  As a result, the land is protected forever from development.

The owner, Eric Johanson, starting acquiring the land decades ago when he was just nineteen years old.

“I did not struggle to put this preserve together to develop it,” Johanson said, “but to practice conservation, to hunt and fish, and to leave it intact for future generations as a model of sustainable forestry.”

Unlike the Tahawus Tract acquisition, small projects don’t generate big headlines, but they should be celebrated as well.

Click here to read more about the Johanson deal.

Avalanche Pass ski video

Looking toward Avalanche Pass from Marcy Dam.

The trip to Avalanche Lake from Adirondak Loj is one of the most popular ski tours in the Adirondacks, and justifiably so. You’re treated to a variety of spectacular scenery along the way, culminating in the lake itself, a frozen sliver of white immured between the cliffs of Mount Colden and Avalanche Mountain. On the return, you enjoy a half-mile descent from the pass on one of the few trails in the High Peaks designed for skiing.

A few weeks ago, I posted a video on Adirondack Almanack of my descent from Avalanche Pass. But I actually took several short videos that day, and now I’ve stitched them together to create an eight-minute movie. It features some of the highlights of the tour: Marcy Dam, the slide on Little Colden, the rock walls of the pass, the Trap Dike, and the lake itself. And, of course, the descent from the pass on my return (with the camera strapped to my chest).

I apologize for the crude production. I’m new to this happy medium.

DEC plans to remove two fire towers

Hurricane Mountain fire tower. Photo by Phil Brown.

In a controversial decision, the state Department of Environmental Conservation is recommending the removal of old fire towers on St. Regis Mountain and Hurricane Mountain.

Environmental groups have argued that the towers should be removed because they are in areas that are managed, by and large, as Wilderness. The guidelines for managing Wilderness Areas require the removal of most man-made structures. Also, environmentalists point out that both summits offer wide-open views without the towers.

Nevertheless, many local residents (and no doubt many visitors as well) want the towers to remain. They see the structures as reminders of the region’s history.

Environmentalists have split over the removal of a fire tower on Wakely Mountain, which has virtually no view otherwise. DEC recommends keeping this tower and the observer’s cabin. It would be used as a radio-repeater station.

DEC will hold a public meeting on the Hurricane tower at Keene Central School on Thursday, Feb. 25, at 6:30 p.m. A public meeting on the St. Regis tower will be held at the Freer Science Building at Paul Smith’s College on the same night, starting at the same time.

More information about the fire-tower study is available here.

Click below to read DEC’s news release (PDF file).

DEC on fire towers PDF

DEC debunks cougar rumor

Did you hear they found a dead mountain lion in Black Brook? It was hit by a car. The state Department of Environmental Conservation picked up the carcass and hauled it away the other day. There’s even a photograph to prove it.

The photo has been making the rounds of the Internet.

You can read all about this mountain lion on the Internet. Some guy took a picture of it on his cell phone.

But there is a problem with the story. The same photo turned up on the Internet weeks ago, supposedly taken in Pennsylvania. And a guy in Adirondack Forum says he received the photo twice: the first time, a few weeks ago, he was told it was taken in Springville, N.Y. ; the second time, just yesterday, he was told it was taken in Black Brook.

You can read about the hoax here and here. And click  here to read about an earlier hoax.

DEC spokesman David Winchell said the agency decided to issue a news release debunking the rumor after receiving a number of phone calls and e-mails about it.

Winchell acknowledges that mountain lions have been seen in the Adirondacks, but he insists there is not a wild population. Rather, DEC maintains that any cougars in the region are pets that were released or escaped. He says it’s easy in some states, such as Ohio, to acquire exotic animals.

“They’re cute when they’re little,” Winchell said of cougars, “but when they grow up they’re wild animals, and the people can’t take care of them, so they bring them to the Adirondacks and release them.”

Click on the link below to read DEC’s news release (Word document).

DEC on hoax

Adirondack ski video: Descent from McKenzie Pass

McKenzie Pass. Photo 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 to the top of the pass from McKenzie Pond Road. It took me nearly forty-five minutes to climb the hill (after skiing two miles to its base) and just five minutes to descend. That might seem like a lousy pain-to-pleasure ratio, but the schuss makes up in exhilaration what it lacks in duration.

I made a  video of my descent with the Adirondack Explorer Chest Cam (a point-and-shoot strapped to my chest). You’ll hear me narrate as I ski (btw, the Hemingway story I refer to is titled “Cross-Country Snow”).

I wore a GPS watch that measured my progress. I averaged 14 mph and reached a top speed of about 25 mph.

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Banff Film Festival in Lake Placid

A scene from "The Ultimate Skiing Showdown."

Ever dream of mountain biking in the French Alps, rowing across the Atlantic, or jumping off a cliff?

Probably not. But other people have, and you can watch their adventures at the Banff Film Festival at the Lake Placid Center for the Arts, starting at 7:30 p.m. Sunday.

In all, eight films will be shown, ranging from four to forty-six minutes in length. Advance tickets are available for $18 at High Peaks Cyclery or the arts center. If tickets are still available on the night of the show, they will be sold for $21 at the box office.

High Peaks Cyclery also plans to screen films from past Banff Film Festivals from 4-6 p.m. Saturday. The free event (including free beer) will be held at the Adirondack Mountain Guide House & Museum next-door to the store on Main Street in Lake Placid.

Besides High Peaks Cyclery, local sponsors of the film festival are the Mirror Lake Inn, Olympic Regional Development Authority, and the Whiteface ski center.

Question about Slant Rock

We received the e-mail below this afternoon. Since I have never camped at Slant Rock, I cannot help the writer. Does anyone know the answer?

“I was hiking in the Adirondacks with several friends two weeks ago. We stayed two nights at Slant Rock lean to on the trail from the garden trailhead in Keene Valley past Johns Brook Lodge toward Basin Mountain. During and after the hike we were and are all engaged in a raging debate about which way the front of the Slant Rock Lean-to faces and what mountain it looks directly across at. Can you clear this up for me?”

Expect blowdown and ice

This afternoon I went up Baker Mountain, a small peak outside Saranac Lake, to test a pair of crampons (Black Diamond’s Sabretooths, pictured here). I thought the crampons would be overkill on the trail, but it turned out I needed them.

Black Diamond Sabretooths

Thanks to all the rain on Monday, followed by subfreezing temperatures, parts of the trail were sheer ice. I encountered a couple of snowshoers and a guy wearing Kahtoola MicroSpikes, and all were having a much harder time than I was. (I like MicroSpikes, but they were overmatched by today’s ice.)

Monday’s storm also brought strong winds. I saw the evidence on my hike: several trees and countless branches had fallen on the trail.

When I got back to the office, I called David Winchell at the state Department of Environmental Conservation to ask about trails elsewhere in the Adirondacks. After checking with folks in the field, he reported back: “Expect blowdown and icy conditions under whatever fresh snow we’ve got. That’s pretty much the case across the Adirondacks.”

Winchell said the blowdown is not so bad that DEC needs to send in crews to clear trails.