The only independent, nonprofit news organization solely dedicated to reporting on the Adirondack Park.
By Phil Brown
You might think climbing the forty-six High Peaks is no big deal. After all, more than 6,200 hikers have done it. But I’ve got news for you: those peaks are as big as they were when Bob and George Marshall and their guide, Herb Clark, climbed them. The Marshall brothers and Clark completed the first…
By Phil Brown
There’s snow in the High Peaks now, so if you plan on hiking to a summit, you’d be smart to pack a pair of Yaktrax, MicroSpikes, or similar grippers for your feet. On Sunday, my daughter Martha and I encountered snow and ice on the trail from Crow Clearing in Keene to Hurricane Mountain, which…
By Phil Brown
The next time you’re in Lake Placid and looking to kill an hour or two, check out the new 2.5-mile trail at Henry’s Woods on the outskirts of town. Locals have been using the trail for a while now, but village and town officials celebrated its official opening just this week. I went there after…
By Phil Brown
Last weekend I climbed Lyon Mountain, the 3,830-foot peak west of Dannemora. What a great view! I had been up it a few times before but not since the Adirondack Mountain Club (ADK) rerouted the trail. The old trail was an old jeep road that shot straight up the mountain. It was a rubbly mess.…
Easement deal opens trail to the scenic summit of Loon Lake Mountain. By PHIL BROWN I’m hiking with two professional photographers, and I’ve come to the conclusion that photographers are not like other people. They see things we don’t. Like the way the late-afternoon light strikes the bud of a striped maple. Or the beauty…
By TOM WOODMAN Consider the cairn. A pile of rocks. For the hiker, these are usually pretty simple constructs: Stones placed at intervals to show the best route across open terrain. They are balanced and arranged just enough to make clear they are manmade guideposts, not accidental heaps. Many summits boast slightly grander stacks celebrating…
By Phil Brown
We at the Explorer just received copies of our new book, Wild Times, a full-color anthology of 120 hiking and paddling adventures from the past ten years of our newsmagazine. This is news you can use, whether you’re looking to paddle a quiet river, spend time on an uncrowded summit, visit a fire tower, or…
By Phil Brown
Last weekend, I climbed the Lake Placid slide on Whiteface Mountain with Sue Bibeau, who designs the Explorer, and her husband, Jeff Oehler. We paddled across the lake, went up the hiking trail for two miles, and bushwhacked up Whiteface Brook to the slide. The round trip took ten and a half hours, including a…
By Phil Brown
One of the best half-day hikes in the Park.
You don’t expect a mountain that shares a name with a fairy tale to be too daunting, especially when that fairy tale is Sleeping Beauty, a name that conjures visions of peace and serenity, which is exactly what you find on Sleeping Beauty Mountain.