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By Phil Brown The other day I received in the mail a slim book of verse titled Sightings of the Eagle and Other Adirondack Poems. The author, Bud Church, rhapsodizes about his adventures on Osgood Pond, including seven eagle sightings in recent years. I’m no poet, and I know it, so I don’t intend to…
When the Explorer asked me to write about two of my favorite ski trips, I didn’t have to rattle my brain long before I hit on the two gems below. Both should be great skiing in late winter, when there is (or should be) lots of snow. If you love the winter wilderness and enjoy backcountry skiing, you won’t be disappointed with either of these trips.
Carl Heilman knows snowshoes. He made and sold them for 15 years, always out of hand-split ash, and he’s used them for much longer. Although he got out of the business a few years ago to devote his energies to photography, he still goes out on snowshoes two or three times a week when conditions permit.
By Phil Brown Back in 1979, Almy and Anne Coggeshall published 25 Ski Tours in the Adirondacks, the first guide to cross-country skiing in the North Country. They dedicated it to John Apperson, an ardent conservationist and the first person to climb Mount Marcy on skis.
This is how it was meant to be. The wax is holding firm as we ascend the mild uphill behind Pitchoff Mountain and settle into a comfortable kick and glide through the still woods, slow enough to maintain conversation but fast enough to know we’re getting somewhere. By Rick Karlin
By Jeff Schmidt The roller-coaster ride through the krummholz was exhilarating and unlike any skiing I’d ever done. I had just come through the Romper Room, a magical section on the shoulder of Mount Marcy that epitomizes the best in Adirondack trail skiing. The trail rolls, dips, turns and twists. Blind corners lead to blinding…
If you’re looking for a challenging backcountry ski, you might want to go to Owl Head Lookout in the Giant Mountain Wilderness. It’s an ideal trip for late winter, because the trail needs 1½ to 2 feet of snow to be skiable. By Phil Brown
The Peavine Swamp Ski Trail is a long ways from the High Peaks. When I visited the trail one Sunday in mid-January, in the midst of a snowy winter, I had it all to myself. Judging by the scarcity of names in the trailhead register, solitude is the norm here. By Phil Brown
The Dial-Nippletop loop overlooking the Ausable Lakes valley has always been one of the most spectacular—albeit arduous—day hikes in the Adirondacks, but now it’s even better, thanks to a fire that raged out of control for more than a week last September.
When I decided to move to Saranac Lake last year, a friend joked, “Yeah, Saranac Lake is a great place to live—for two months of the year.” He meant summer. I saw the humor, but I didn’t agree. Every season in the Adirondacks has something to recommend it. Spring has its wildflowers; fall has its foliage, and winter has its digit-numbing cold.