Innholdsfortegnelse for January - February 2015 i Adirondack Explorer

Environmentalists challenging the proposed Adirondack Club and Resort in Tupper Lake have lost their bid to continue their lawsuit against the developer and the Adirondack Park Agency. In December, the Court of Appeals, the state’s highest tribunal, rejected without comment a motion by Protect the Adirondacks and the Sierra Club seeking permission to appeal a lower court’s dismissal of the lawsuit. The green groups contended, among other things, that the project violated the APA Act by fragmenting timberlands into “Great Camp” estates. The APA, which approved the project in January 2012, maintains that the project is legal. “We’re very disappointed in the decision,” said Peter Bauer, executive director of Protect. “It takes thousands of acres of timberlands and puts them on the chopping block.” Bauer noted that the developer, Preserve…

Darcy Wiltse, a veterinarian, was driving on Route 458 near Meacham Lake one night early last winter when she saw a large animal crossing the road. She’s convinced it was a cougar. “I saw the whole profile again. I saw the body. I saw the tail,” said Wiltse. “She even hesitated on the other side of the road before she went into the trees.” Wiltse said this was the second time she’s seen a cougar in the Adirondacks. The first one was outside her house in Lake Placid about eight years ago in early winter. In that case, the cougar set off a motion-sensor light outside a window while it was eating bacon grease set out for birds. Wiltse watched the animal through a window with the aid of a…

After writing about the state’s acquisition of the MacIntyre West Tract for the last issue of the Explorer, I was eager to explore it, and Lake Andrew seemed like the logical place to start. In early December, my friend Carol and I hiked the 4.7 miles to the lake and, on the way back, took a side trip to a spectacular view of the Twin Slides on Santanoni Peak. Although the state has yet to mark any trails on the tract, getting to Lake Andrew is pretty straightforward: we followed well-maintained logging roads for four miles and then followed a skid road for the remaining seventenths of a mile. The state bought the 5,770-acre tract from the Adirondack Nature Conservancy last year and opened it to the public on October…

The Adirondack Park Agency’s promise to consider allowing mountain biking in the Essex Chain Lakes Primitive Area has generated a broader discussion—with much disagreement—of the place of bikes in the Forest Preserve. The Adirondack Park State Land Master Plan allows bikes on trails in tracts classified as Wild Forest Areas but prohibits them in Wilderness Areas. They are allowed in Primitive Areas only on old roads used by state officials for managing natural resources. Under these guidelines, bikes would not be allowed in the 9,940-acre Essex Chain Lakes Primitive Area. However, when the APA classified the Essex Chain tract in 2013, it promised to look at amending the State Land Master Plan to permit bicycling on the tract’s network of old roads. Local officials see mountain biking as a tourist…

Last summer at my farm in Westport in the Champlain Valley, little brown bats swarmed thick over the meadows and marshes. As I walked at dusk, it was a huge relief to see them flitting and darting above the cattails. The bats have been in decline for years, victims of a fungal epidemic known as white-nose syndrome. Back in 2006, when the deadly disease was first identified in caves near Albany, it seemed possible that Adirondack bat populations would vanish altogether. Now they were back, or so it seemed. But I knew that I was seeing only one tiny, if hopeful, piece of a much bigger puzzle. So I was thrilled when Al Hicks, one of New York’s top wildlife biologists, called and invited me to join him on a…

The Adirondack Museum has amassed a large collection of paintings, prints, and photographs the Adirondacks, works that helped shape the way the nation thinks of wilderness. This winter, in an exhibit titled Wild Nature, the Hyde collection in Glens Falls will display sixty- two of these artworks, dating as far back as 1821 and many rarely seen. The artists include such masers as Rockwell Knet, Thomas Cole, Winslow Homer, Frederic Remington, Currier and lves, Seneca Ray Stoddard, Harold Weston, and Paul Matthews. The exhibit will run from January 18 to April 12. THE HYDE COLLECTION 61 Warren Street, Glens Falls, NY 518-792-1761 Hydecollection.org HOURS Tuesday to Sunday:10a.m-5p.m Sunday: 12 noon-5p.m General admission:$ 15…

The writer of the letter “Trail etiquette for snowshoers” [November/December, 2014] seems to feel that cross-country skiing should be given preeminence in the use of a foot trail once ski tracks are laid down. I could certainly agree while using established and signed ski trails throughout the Adirondacks, but when on multi-use foot trails during the winter, “trail etiquette” is not so clear-cut in favor of skiers. A ski track on a foot trail does not a ski trail make. I use all methods of trekking on my favorite multi-use trails in the foothills of the Adirondacks. During the winter, there are “booters,” snowshoers, and skiers using the same trail for whatever reason. These methods are all appropriate since the trails are marked with red, yellow, and blue foot-trail markers.…

Will Adirondack waters still be as clean, clear, and free of invasive species in twenty-five years as most of them are now? The answer depends on how we act now. The Adirondack Park is literally an island in a sea of destructive invasive species. As of 2011, there were 184 aquatic invasive and non-native species in the Great Lakes, 122 in the Hudson River, eighty-seven in the St. Lawrence River, and forty-nine in Lake Champlain. In the Adirondacks, we have only eighteen aquatic invasive and non-native species, including Eurasian watermilfoil, Asian clams, zebra mussels, and spiny waterfleas. Even more menacing species, such as quagga mussels and hydrilla, are headed this way. Most aquatic species arrive via trailered boats (usually motorboats). This year, Lake George successfully implemented the first mandatory boat-inspection…

Bill Chase has been supervisor of the town of Dannemora since January 2014 and served on the town council for two years prior to that. He retired as a sergeant for the state Department of Corrections in 2011 after twenty-six years with the department, serving mostly in facilities in the Malone area. Located in the northeast corner of the Adirondack Park, Dannemora has a population of about five thousand. It includes the village of Dannemora, site of the Clinton Correctional Facility. First built in 1844, the facility is the state’s largest maximum-security prison, housing close to 2,700 inmates and employing a staff of 1,200. The town also includes Chazy Lake, Upper Chateaugay Lake, and the hamlet of Lyon Mountain, once an important ironmining center and home of a minimum-security state…

Don Mellor’s Blue Lines: An Adirondack Ice Climber’s Guide ($25.95) is the standard guidebook for winter climbers. Published in 2005 it includes a foreword by Jeff Lowe, a celebrated climber, and describes 350 routes. Mellor hopes to publish a second edition next year with a foreword by Steve House, another world-class climber. The new book will describe about six hundred routes, many outside the High Peaks region, the traditional destination of ice climbers. It will be published by the Mountaineer, the outdoors shop in Keene Valley. The book uses the New England Ice system to grade the difficulty of climbs. The ratings are defined in the book as follows: NEI 1: easy, low-angled, yet still warranting a rope for weak climbers. NEI 2: harder, low-angled ice, climbable without front-pointed crampons.…

A plan to upgrade eight bridges on Route 73 in the town of Keene over the next two years has local business owners concerned that traffic delays could drive away customers during the prime tourist season. The state Department of Transportation (DOT) is fortifying the bridges so they will be better able to withstand floods. DOT has preliminary plans to work on four bridges this year and four next year. During construction, traffic on a bridge generally will be restricted to one lane. Richard Filkins, DOT’s project manager, told local residents at a meeting in November that travelers can expect to be delayed only four minutes during the construction—a prediction that some in the community questioned. “I think that might not be realistic in any way,” said Kristy Farrell, owner…

For many of us memories of growing up in the Adirondacks are filled with time spent at the local ski hill. Unlike the mega-mountains that dominate the industry today, these community ski areas were scaled for homey, family-style outings. Kids would troop onto buses at the end of the school day for a short drive and an hour on the slope. Modest lodges were social centers as well as warming huts where neighbors could catch up with each other and families could celebrate birthdays. Ski tows were likely to be of the tricky, old-fashioned sort: T-bars, rope tows, or Poma Lifts. (The last consisting of a springed, metal shaft with a plastic disk that went through your legs and used your rear end for purchase as it yanked you up…

May 2013, North Elba: “My grandfather and I saw a Mountain Lion right across from the entrance to Meacham Lake campground on a Sunday morning in August of 1974 while driving from Saranac Lake to Malone. We got a very good look at it, it loped, not ran, over a hundred yards along the edge of the woods. 39 years later, about 2 am driving past the Cascade Inn, what I thought was a small dear jumped up in the middle of the road. I realized that it was not moving like a deer. I hit the brakes and almost stopped. It zig zagged, then stopped and turned and looked at me over its shoulder. The head and long tail were plainly visible. I called DEC in the morning and…

It’s little wonder that Owen, Copperas, and Winch ponds are popular hiking destinations in summer: for little effort, you can walk through quiet woods to visit these pretty ponds, take in some nice scenery, and perhaps go for a swim—all just a few miles from downtown Lake Placid. Well, it turns out the ponds (or two of them, anyway) are popular in winter, too. Mostly, the visitors are snowshoers, but the trail can be skied if there is enough snow (at least a foot) and if you can handle the few short downhills. There are two trailheads along Route 86 for the ponds. If you’re skiing, you want to start from the southern one, which is closer to Lake Placid. The trail from the northern trailhead is too steep and…

The Adirondack Explorer asked the Park’s four largest environmental organizations and the Adirondack Park Local Government Review Board where they stood on four questions: 1. Should mountain biking be allowed on designated roads in the Essex Chain Primitive Area? 2. Should the State Land Master Plan allow biking on designated roads in Primitive and Wilderness Areas throughout the Park? 3. Should the plan allow Primitive Bicycle Corridors in Wilderness Areas where desirable so mountain bikers can ride between communities? 4. Should the APA create another land classification, Backcountry, where motors are banned but bikes are allowed?…

With Andrew Cuomo embarking on four more years in the statehouse in Albany, what can the Adirondacks expect from his second term? In his first term, the region received an unexpected but rather spectacular windfall of attention from the governor, part of a statewide promotion of good old-fashioned tourism. There were the whitewater challenges and the winter challenge, the frequent visits, and unabashed praise for the virtues of the Adirondacks every chance he got. It was a delight to see, and it didn’t seem to be forced on his part. He loves the fishing and the hiking and chose a variety of North Country locations for vacation visits with his daughters and his brother Chris, the CNN anchor. And he fit the part—unlike his father, Mario, who as governor always…

In managing public lands within the Adirondack Park, the state constitution controls: they must remain forever wild. But in applying this principle to decisions about how to classify and manage particular areas within the Park, the state relies on the Adirondack Park State Land Master Plan. This forty-two-yearold document divides the Forest Preserve into different classifications by what can be seen as degrees of wildness. The classifications determine what activities can take place where. The SLMP, as it’s frequently known, is a critically important document. Its rules determine decisions that shape the very character of the Park, saying for instance where people can use motor vehicles and what kind of structures are permitted. It also articulates the central principles that decision-makers must meet. Here you will find the words: The…

By Bill Ingersoll Yes The Backcountry designation is a necessary tool if we are to have a full spectrum of management options for the Forest Preserve. Currently there are seven classifications available in the State Land Master Plan (SLMP), but two of them (Wild Forest and Wilderness) account for 96.4% of the Preserve’s acreage. My proposal is to create a third major designation, a semi-primitive, non-motorized Backcountry classification that would encourage muscle-powered recreation (including biking) in a wilderness-like environment. Fire towers and lean-tos would be permitted, but motorized access would be kept to peripheral areas (with reasonable accommodations for the disabled). It would protect large areas of state land and include provisions against overuse, bridging the gap between Wild Forest and Wilderness in a way that other, more specialized classifications…

At the mouth of the Ausable River, Lake Champlain looked like a mirror of the sky, or maybe vice versa, a swirling, paisley cloudscape of light and medium grays spliced together by the rolling, dusty blue hills of the Vermont horizon. Twenty-five or so goldeneye ducks dove repeatedly in staccato synchrony, with three or four remaining on the surface while the rest fed underwater, the ripples from their diving and surfacing radiating outward like nacreous halos. Suddenly a goldeneye apart from the group caught my eye, a duck obviously in trouble, jerking and wrenching and seemingly in acute pain, even as four other goldeneye, three males and a female, watched his agony with downright clinical detachment. The suffering duck stuck his head straight out and then raised it up vertically…

After nearly two weeks of tense negotiations, the Cuomo administration agreed to allow David Wick to keep his job as head of the Lake George Park Commission, but questions linger about Albany’s move to oust him. Wick had been targeted by the governor’s office in November after high-level state officials raised concerns that he failed to properly report a one-gallon gasoline spill that occurred last summer at a government dock on Lake George. At the same time that Cuomo’s staff was working to remove Wick, the state inspector general’s office announced that it had begun a probe of allegations that he had violated ethics rules. That review involved the Park Commission’s acceptance of a free cruise last summer from a local tour-boat operator. The cruise, which included free alcohol and…

Don Mellor’s favorite moderate ice routes include Roaring Brook Falls, the Cascade, Multiplication Gully, and Chapel Pond Slab. After going up Chouinard’s Gully with Don, I climbed the other routes with Dan Plumley, who lives in Keene. Dan led all four routes in the following order: Roaring Brook Falls, 350 feet, NEI 3+ This is the large waterfall on Giant Mountain visible on the right when you drive down the big hill from Chapel Pond to St. Huberts on Route 73. In summer it’s a fun rock climb, but it’s perhaps better known as an ice climb. Dan and I did it in three pitches, but the second pitch was so easy (mostly a walk) that we didn’t bother to place protection. On the first and third pitches, we climbed…

Adirondack historians, including me, have given short shrift to the story of Native Americans in our part of New York. We have all paid too much attention to the generally shared assumption that the Adirondack region was used only seasonally by Indians who thus had no permanently established towns or villages here. The surrounding river valleys were indeed more hospitable in the winter than the higher elevations in the Adirondacks, but that doesn’t mean that Indians didn’t know this region, use it, and have a variety of important connections with it. One of the chief sources of evidence of Native Americans in the Adirondacks is archaeological. And one of the several virtues of The Legacy of Fort William Henry: Resurrecting the Past, by David R. Starbuck, is that this archaeological…

After four public meetings on the future of the eighty-mile rail corridor between Big Moose and Lake Placid, the public seems as divided as ever, and the state now must make a decision sure to leave many people unhappy. The Department of Environmental Conservation and Department of Transportation plan to review the public comments and make a recommendation for the best use of the state-owned corridor. After the public has had a chance to weigh in on that recommendation, the departments will make a final decision, probably later this year. The Adirondack Scenic Railroad, which operates tourist trains out of Utica, Old Forge, and Lake Placid, wants the state to retain and refurbish the entire eightymile stretch of tracks. ASR says it could then expand its services and spur economic…

NYCO Minerals inte nds to begin drilling for wollastonite in the Jay Mountain Wilderness as soon as possible if a state judge’s decision clearing the way is not appealed. John Brodt, a spokesman for NYCO, said the company is working with the state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) on a plan to drill a series of test bores and “will begin drilling as soon as this process is complete.” He would not speculate when that might be. In early December, State Supreme Court Justice Thomas Buchanan dismissed a lawsuit filed by environmental groups against NYCO, DEC, and the Adirondack Park Agency. He also lifted a temporary restraining order issued in July that had put the drilling on hold. The coalition—Adirondack Wild, Protect the Adirondacks, the Sierra Club, and the Atlantic…

Dressed in white from head to toe, Lee Ann Sporn is dragging a white cloth flag on the forest floor near the West Branch of the Ausable River looking for deer ticks. After spending a few minutes in a small valley, Sporn yells out that she has found one, a rarity on this warm mid-October day. Using tweezers, Sporn picks the tick off the white flag, against which the dark speck is easy to spot, and puts it into a vial that she will share with other researchers, who will test it for Lyme and other diseases. Sporn, a professor at Paul Smith’s College, is one of several Adirondack researchers working on a Lyme-disease study in the Adirondack Park. She is leading the fieldwork for the college, collecting ticks and…

This fall, the Adirondack Park Agency invited the public to offer ideas for revising the State Land Master Plan—which hasn’t been substantially amended since 1987— and the agency got an earful. Among those submitting suggestions were the Adirondack Park Local Government Review Board, environmental organizations, mountain bikers, and backcountry skiers. The Local Government Review Board, which has a non-voting seat on the APA board, proposed a number of amendments. Perhaps the most fundamental change would put economic development on an equal footing with natural-resource protection in the plan’s mission statement. Fred Monroe, the review board’s executive director, said when the APA was created in 1972, Governor Nelson Rockefeller and state legislators spoke of the need to balance economic and environmental considerations. The State Land Master Plan, however, states that “the…

Given their sheer bulk, the wooliness of their dark winter coats, and the astonishing length of their shapely chorusgirl legs, one would expect moose to take northern winters in stride. So it may come as a surprise to you, as it does to me, and perhaps as it does even to the animal itself, that the largest of the world’s deer struggles through the cold and deep snow just like the rest of us. Size, certainly, stands in their favor. There’s an old rule in zoogeography, Bergmann’s rule, which states that animals even within a species tend to get larger the farther they live from the Equator. Canadian robins are bigger than South Carolina robins, for example. However, the rule doesn’t always hold. As the distinguished nature writer and experimental…

letters@adirondackexplorer.org Winter road option: use no salt The article “Cutting down on Salt” [November/December 2014] brought up several good points. One idea not discussed is the use of no salt on roads. Use salt only on hills and intersections. My wife and I lived in western Montana for several winters. We lived on a ranch in a very rural area. No salt was used at all; they just plowed the roads. We had a 4x4 truck and drove differently than most people do “back East.” It required a more cautious driving style along with a set of tire chains, but it was worth it. Taxes were much lower, and there was no salt damage. Maybe it is time to make a real change in New York. Thomas Callens, Sodus Point…

For good reason, the Remsen-Lake Placid Travel Corridor that runs through the Adirondack Park is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The railroad that began operating on this line in 1882 opened the Adirondacks to millions of health seekers and visitors in the decades that followed (rail service ended in 1972). This was also a mind-boggling engineering feat: the 120-mile line through forests and wetlands, over streams, and across lakes was completed by Dr. William Seward Webb and his army of laborers in just eighteen months. Equally mind-boggling is the position taken by two otherwise rational organizations, Historic Saranac Lake and Adirondack Architectural Heritage (AARCH). Both groups insist that the rusting rails and rotting ties should be preserved for historic reasons—not recognizing that it is the railroad corridor…

Redpolls are one of the most common breeding passerine or songbirds in boreal and taiga habitats around the world—from Alaska, northern Canada, and northern Scandinavia to northern Russia. Every other winter, like clockwork, millions of these birds move from their breeding grounds to more southerly locations, including the Adirondacks. Redpolls are small, about the size of goldfinches and siskins. They are distinguished from other small seed-eating finches by their streaked undersides and by the spot of red on their forehead and on the breast of males. Why do redpolls come south only in alternate years? As with most migratory birds, the reason is food. The periodic irruptions are driven by the shortage, every other year, of seeds produced by certain high-latitude tree species, especially birch and spruce. Redpolls readily come…

The Adirondack Park has thousands of rock-climbing routes, many of them stellar, but it will never rival such climbing destinations as Yosemite Valley in California, New River Gorge in West Virginia, or the Shawangunks in downstate New York. Bugs, mud, moss, lichen—let’s face it, our cliffs can be manky. But come winter, they turn white and, in many places, silvery blue. And so when it comes to ice climbing, the Adirondacks are hard to beat. “We’re the real deal nationally. We’ve got water, so we’re better than out west,” observes Don Mellor, the author of Blue Lines: An Adirondack Ice Climber’s Guide. Don and I are at the Ausable Inn in Keene Valley, where we gathered for beers after he took me on my first ice climb—the famous Chouinard’s Gully…

Ice climbers use some of the same gear used by rock climbers, including harnesses, ropes, helmets, carabiners, and nylon slings. But the sport also requires special equipment. Crampons Crampons are necessary for walking on low-angle ice and climbing steep ice. For ice climbing, you need crampons with front points that can be sunk into frozen walls. On a mountaineering crampon, the flat sides of the two front points are parallel to the boot sole. These horizontal points are adequate for beginners, but serious ice climbers use crampons with front points that are perpendicular to the sole. These vertical points are easier to kick into ice and provide a better purchase. Many climbers prefer a crampon with a single vertical front point—known as monopoint—for greater mobility. Boots Ice climbers wear mountaineering…

The telemark turn is an old technique that continues to enjoy a cachet among backcountry skiers. The turn was conceived in Norway in the 1860s for cross-country skis with bindings that don’t fix the heel. Nowadays, dedicated telemarkers use beefy skis and bindings designed for aggressive turns on steep terrain. Here’s a brief primer on how to make the turn. 1. Learn the stance. Stand on level ground with skis equally weighted and shoulder width apart. Sink straight down, sliding one ski forward and the other back, raising your rear heel. The stance provides fore-and-aft stability. 2. Practice striding. Staying on the flats, rise up and sink down again while shifting the lead ski. Keep both skis equally weighted. Practice in place, then try moving forward with bent-legged strides. 3.…