Adirondack Explorer

By Adirondack Explorer

This story starts in 1896. That year, on Aug. 20, Newell Martin and a companion, Milford Hathaway, ascended the vast rock cirque on the South Face of Gothics—no ropes, no helmets, no pitons, nothing at all to protect them from a deadly fall. By Phil Brown

By Adirondack Explorer

A river primeval By Mark Bowie Before dawn on an early September day, fellow paddler Rick Rosen and I drifted in a pea-soup fog on Lewey Lake, anticipating a colorful sunrise. A loon wailed nearby, tantalizingly out of sight. We waited. And waited. The mists rose, unveiling a swatch of mountain forest, some blue sky, then resettled, dashing…

By Adirondack Explorer

A songbird’s call pierced the stillness of the hardwood forest. It sounded like “Teacher! Teacher! Teacher!” Bill Ingersoll identified the bird by its call. “That’s the ovenbird,” he said. “Barbara taught me that.”

By Adirondack Explorer

I was not born with a plastic camping spoon in my mouth. Unlike my wife, Debbie, who was raised in rural upstate New York, I was city-born and grew up more familiar with asphalt playgrounds than with green woods. In my neighborhood, we didn’t have swimming holes; we had potholes.

By Adirondack Explorer

Rachel and I recently discovered a great little hike up 1,420-foot Mount Gilligan on the opposite side of Pleasant Valley from Rocky Peak Ridge.

By Adirondack Explorer

Rocky Peak Ridge rewards hikers with continual views By Phil Brown Few who have climbed Rocky Peak Ridge and Giant from New Russia would dispute that it’s one of the best hikes in the Adirondacks. Just be sure to bring lots of water and lots of stamina. If you do the 11-mile traverse, ending at…

By Adirondack Explorer

My friend Brian Mann and I took the long way to Grass Pond Mountain. We paddled across Cranberry Lake, camped at Chair Rock Flow and hiked six miles the next day to Lows Lake, following an old trail that the state reopened a few years ago.

By Adirondack Explorer

We stuck our canoes in the water at Round Lake—a name that tells you confoundingly little. There are Round lakes and Round ponds scattered across the Adirondack region; I can call to mind half a dozen without even looking at a map.