The only independent, nonprofit news organization solely dedicated to reporting on the Adirondack Park.
Retired Forest Ranger Steve Ovitt aims to connect North Creek with the wild lands around the community. By BILL MCKIBBEN To really understand this story, you have to bear in mind two distinctive things about North Creek. One, it butts up against the mountains much tighter than most Adirondack communities. Start on the path that…
By Mike Lynch
Observers say more money is needed to repair and maintain an antiquated network of hiking routes. By MIKE LYNCH When many of the High Peaks’ trails were cut more than a century ago, the work was done by guides and hired hands. Keene Valley’s Orson “Old Mountain” Phelps created the first trail up Mount Marcy in 1861; Verplanck Colvin’s survey workers cut routes up…
A coterie of climbers tames the cliffs at one of the wildest, remotest, and most sublime locales in the High Peaks. By ALAN WECHSLER Four and a half hours after our 4:30 a.m. departure from the Garden trailhead in Keene Valley, my two climbing partners and I dropped our packs and looked around. We were surrounded by cliffs: free-standing pillars, tiered walls, slabby…
By Tom Woodman A little over eight years ago, Margaret Hawthorn spotted the cabin of her dreams. Set on a small island in the Saranac River beneath a canopy of evergreens and with a view across a marsh to Adirondack peaks, the home spoke to her. “I was helping on the Ninety-Miler [canoe race], and I came through, took one look,…
Though on private timberlands, County Line Flow and Fishing Brook are open to the public as a result of Nature Conservancy deal. By PHIL BROWN The Adirondack Park has its share of uninspired names for lakes and ponds. Think of all the Mud Ponds, Grass Ponds, Deer Ponds, and Moose Ponds scattered over our topo…
By Mike Lynch
Guideboat makers carry on a craft born in the Adirondacks in the mid-1800s. By MIKE LYNCH Building a traditional Adirondack guideboat is a complex task, with ribs carved from spruce-tree roots and with thin hull planks held in place with several thousand tiny tacks. It can take many weeks to complete one. “I grew up working with…
By Mike Lynch
A sharp rise in hikers climbing some of the region’s highest mountains has lead to the degradation of natural resources and raises a variety of other issues.
Following a disappointing winter for skiing, I came into May looking forward to the next season of outdoor enjoyment. But spring turned out as contrary as winter, with the first days of warming sun followed by spells of bone-chilling cold.
Citing unanswered questions, state’s highest court sends trespassing suit against Adirondack Explorer back to lower court for a trial. By KENNETH AARON The six-year-old navigation-rights dispute between Adirondack Explorer Editor Phil Brown and a group of property owners has been sent back to State Supreme Court Justice Richard T. Aulisi for a full trial, which…
By PHILIP TERRIE On a snowy winter night in Lake George, in 2010, Cindy Eggleston’s motion-detecting light came on in her back yard. She looked out her kitchen window and saw a big cat. A really big cat. Her husband, a retired conservation officer, guessed that it must have been a bobcat. No, she said, “it had a long tail.” So he…