Prospect Mountain highway leads skiers to the peak
By Phil Brown
March 5, 2020
Over 4.5 miles, the highway gains about 1,650 feet in elevation, much less than the Whiteface road, so the climb is easier.
Phil Brown
Phil Brown edited the Adirondack Explorer from 1999 until his retirement in 2018. He continues to explore the park and to write for the publication and website.
When a binding breaks in the backcountry
By Phil Brown
March 2, 2020
He figured he’d have to walk back to the car or, at best, try to gingerly schuss down the road with a broken binding. All that uphill climbing for naught.
Alpine enchantment on ice
By Phil Brown
February 10, 2020
Avalanche Mountain Gully lies across the lake from the Trap Dike. It’s an old climb that rated a brief mention in Tom Rosecrans’s 1976 guidebook “Adirondack Rock and Ice Climbs,” the first guidebook to catalog the region’s ice routes.
A look at the 30th-anniversary edition of ‘Forest and Crag’
By Phil Brown
October 23, 2019
When Laura and Guy Waterman began researching and writing a history of hiking in the Northeast in 1979, they figured the project would take three years. Ten years later, the Appalachian Mountain Club released “Forest and Crag: A History of Hiking, Trail Blazing, and Adventure in the Northeast Mountains.”
State and Protect disagree on tree-cutting limits
By Phil Brown
October 11, 2019
In July, the Appellate Division of State Supreme Court agreed with Protect the Adirondacks that the number of trees cut for community connectors is excessive, violating Article 14, the clause of the state constitution mandating that the preserve “shall be forever kept as wild forest lands.”
Improved Boreas Ponds access opens
By Phil Brown
September 12, 2019
Last Friday the state Department of Environmental Conservation opened Gulf Brook Road as far as the Four Corners near LaBier Flow, allowing the public to drive to within a mile of Boreas Ponds.
The next land preservation fight?
By Phil Brown
September 10, 2019
The list of Adirondack lands protected over the past two decades is long and impressive, but one choice property coveted by conservationists remains wholly in private ownership, its future uncertain: Whitney Park.
Adirondack Wild questions bike trail work in Wilcox Lake Wild Forest
By Phil Brown
August 23, 2019
The environmental group Adirondack Wild is questioning the legality of work done this summer on a trail in the Wilcox Lake Wild Forest.
Warning: ‘Endangered spruce grouse on road’
By Phil Brown
August 21, 2019
This summer the state Department of Environmental Conservation released spruce grouse in the area of Blue Mountain Road. The birds were captured in Maine and Ontario.
State takes comments on Tupper Lake-Lake Placid rail trail
By Phil Brown
July 26, 2019
The state Department of Environmental Conservation and Department of Transportation developed the rail-trail plan in 2016, but the following year a judge blocked its implementation.