Where to find perfect snow? Try the Debar Mountain Wild Forest

Sheep Meadow ski trail in Northern Adirondacks boasts good conditions, quiet solitude

By Tom French

With a name like “Sheep Meadow,” wouldn’t you be curious too? Alas, it doesn’t look like Central Park, and there’s no meadow, though a horse barn sits opposite two lean-tos. 

A Forgotten History: The Debar Mountain Game Refuge

Part of the Debar Mountain Wild Forest, the Sheep Meadow may have a history as part of the Debar Mountain Game Refuge, but the connection is nebulous. According to a 1928 “Malone Farmer” news story, the 10,000-acre refuge was “bounded” with a “single strand of wire stretched around it” that included “the headwaters of Hays Brook.” Regardless, many sources confirm an actual meadow with sheep at some point in the past. 

The trailhead is along Mountain Pond Road, part of the Theodore Roosevelt International Highway, an early transcontinental highway that weaved from Portland, Maine, to Portland, Oregon, via Keeseville, Jay, Lake Placid, Saranac Lake, and Gabriels before turning north to Malone at Paul Smiths.

Although the trailhead can be accessed in summer via the southerly Mountain Pond Road entrance (along with several car camping sites), the aging asphalt is rough and a high clearance vehicle is recommended. In winter, vehicular access is the Hays Brook Trailhead, formerly Assembly Area, three miles north of the Paul Smith’s VIC. It may or may not be plowed, so unless you reconnoitered, high-clearance and four-wheel drive may be required as it was on the first day of February when I skied with my daughter Emma and friends Doug and Susan Miller.

Getting there

The trail is to the right of the parking lot as you enter, up the old road. After 100 yards, a shortcut might appear on the left. The official trail is another 100 yards further at the yellow gate.

It was a chilly (forecasted high of 10 degrees), blue-sky day when we signed in to a perfectly packed ski track. The area is popular with skiers, though we didn’t see anyone else the entire day. 

We glided down to the bridge over the Osgood River, also a put-in for paddlers who wish to ply the narrow, winding, snag-clogged stream. I should know; I once dragged my wife down the meandering backwater, which might be why she won’t canoe with me anymore.

A well-marked junction with the Grass Pond Trail, a 1.4-mile out and back that parallels the Osgood, is just past the bridge. Less obvious might be the shortcut to the Sheep Meadow two bends beyond. The sign for the Hays Brook Horse Trail was wearing a hat of snow the day we passed. Fortunately, Doug knew the way.

Yellow Conservation Department (sic) horse and snowmobile disks dot the trees, relics from at least the 1960s before a number of “state programs” were combined into the New York State Department of Conservation in 1970. 

Rolling hills through a relatively untouched trail

The Horse Trail alone is worth a dedicated trip with its roly-poly sashays up and down through a forest of red pines – artifacts from the area’s CCC days during the depression. Camp S-60 was between Barnum and Osgood Ponds.

The topographical map shows the area as a square-mile plateau, which means its rolling hills are less than twenty feet in elevation, or it’s never been accurately measured in the modern era. Herringbone climbs were required, and several amusing tumbles barely averted. 

After a mile, the trail connects with the official Sheep Meadow Trail. Those wishing for a shorter, 3.5-mile loop should turn right. Our fate was to the left down a wide gully as the woods road curved to Hays Brook. The DEC website claims it’s a 35-foot descent, though it’s pleasantly gradual. It was the 40-foot pitch on the northern side that presented the steepest grade of the day. 

After reaching the top, the true nature of the Paul Smiths/Lake Clear snow pocket became clear as the still perfect track sank into a canyon of snow – pushing eighteen inches at times. Locals and old timers have long recognized this mini snow belt. 

A snow scape haven filled with wildlife

According to Tyler Jankoski, Chief Meteorologist at WPTZ, “The primary driver this season has been a moist northwest or north wind bumping into the mountains and squeezing out snow.” Titus has been buried by this upslope snow.

Hays Brook also marked the beginning of our wildlife encounter. We spotted a hole in the brook with slides used by mink or otter. Hollows of deer bedding dotted both sides of the trail. Dozens of traces crisscrossed the track, including perfect deer prints outlining the front toes of cloven hooves. An animal had marked territory as it crossed the path. We even discovered what looked like a caddisfly twitching its legs in the snow. When we stopped to rest, we were surrounded by a completely silent wood without even a breeze in the trees.

Unfortunately, whoever had blazed the trail before us had turned back. Doug recognized a swampy clearing to the east and said our destination was “just around the bend,” not more than 15 minutes. I blazed forward, never losing sight of my tips in the powder until the last 50 yards when the trail curled to the right like a fishhook into a clearing. The track disappeared into large drifts as the lean-tos and horse barn appeared. We had been skiing for almost two hours.

Returning to the trailhead

For our return, we chose the slightly longer route to complete the aforementioned loop. Emma sped ahead as we turned onto the gentle flats of the Hays Brook Trail. She randomly stopped to wait for us at one point. When we caught up to her, she pointed to a black-backed woodpecker chipping the trunk of a scotch pine – a new life-list bird for everyone. 

The Hays Brook Trail descends 100 feet from the square-mile plateau as it approaches the Osgood River. Both Emma and I agreed it was a choice between snowplowing through ungroomed snow in an awkward stance with an unstable center of gravity, or tucking low and going for it. We both chose the latter. I reached an uncomfortable speed toward the bottom, but successfully slowed through the bends before the bridge over the Osgood River. Doug and Susan followed, and we skied back to the car. 

What’s next for the Debar Mountain Complex?

The Debar Mountain Complex is one of several areas inside the Adirondack Park without a final Unit Management Plan. A draft UMP was released in 2020. It calls for the prohibition of snowmobiles on all the trails in the Hays Brook area. Orphaned from the wider network, they don’t see much if any snowmobile traffic. 

The draft UMP also proposes connecting the three trails from their current terminuses to create loop riding options for equestrians as well as creating connector trails from Grass Pond to the Kushaqua Tract and from the Sheep Meadow to Meacham Lake.