Innholdsfortegnelse for November - December 2015 i Adirondack Explorer

A hiker who posted photos on Facebook of a keg party on top of Phelps Mountain over Columbus Day weekend has been ticketed by the state Department of Environmental Conservation. Raja Bhatt of Queens was ticketed for allegedly taking part in a day-use group with more than fifteen people—the legal limit for a day hike in the High Peaks Wilderness Area. Bhatt, who is thirty-two, said he didn’t organize the hike or the keg party. “I was simply on the summit with some friends, and some friend of a friend brought a keg,” he told the Explorer. Bhatt posted photos on his Facebook page showing a large group of people on the 4,161-foot summit. In one image, a woman was held upside-down while drinking from the tap. The photos were…

Even the intact aquatic ecosystems may be no match for climate change. Wolf Lake is considered a “heritage lake” by scientists because of its pristine condition, yet it has been impacted more by warming than have four other nearby lakes. The State University College of Environmental Science and Forestry (ESF) has long-term lake-ice records for five lakes (Wolf, Deer, Arbutus, Catlin, and Rich) on its Huntington Wildlife Forest in Newcomb. Scientists reviewed the dates of ice formation on the lakes from 1975 to 2007 for a 2012 report in the journal Climate Change. The data showed that median ice-in dates for all five lakes shifted from November 28 to December 9, while the median ice-out dates shifted from April 28 to April 23. The ice season decreased on all five…

This summer the state received hundreds of written comments on a proposal to replace thirty-four miles of railroad tracks between Lake Placid and Tupper Lake with a recreational trail, and it was like deja-vu all over again. Again. As in the past, advocates for the railroad and those for a trail offered starkly different opinions of what is the best use of a ninety-mile line from Old Forge to Lake Placid. And as in the past, each side contended its plan would do more for the local economy. But in a debate that has played out for several years in public hearings, letters to the editor, and online free-for-alls, there was one new wrinkle: the successful startup of Rail Explorers, a company that leads rail-bike tours out of Saranac Lake.…

I once met a man on the Jackrabbit Trail who was skiing to Lake Placid as part of an arduous loop. He had skied from the end of Averyville Road outside the village to Oseetah Lake and across the lake to the village of Saranac Lake, where he followed local trails to the Jackrabbit for the return to Lake Placid. Well, maybe it wasn’t a complete loop. I don’t know how he got from the village of Lake Placid to his starting point on Averyville Road. Anyway, it’s an interesting trip, but I figure most people probably aren’t up for an eighteen-mile ski that includes a mile-and-a-half climb on the Jackrabbit toward the end of the day. Last winter, Carol MacKinnon Fox and I did just a portion of the…

Recently I had time to reflect on my nearly fifty years of observing and writing about events in the Adirondack Park, some of them truly momentous. The 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid was probably the most important event in the North Country in my lifetime. The Miracle on Ice, when the U.S. hockey team defeated the Soviets, drew unprecedented national and international attention to the region, and Lake Placid continues to capitalize on the fame even now, thirty-five years later. Likewise, the village capitalized on its success in hosting the 1932 Winter Olympics to attract the 1980 Games. Can we even imagine what the economy of the Adirondacks would be today without those Winter Games? Prison escapes The big story this year was the massive manhunt for Richard Matt…

After five years of public debate the Adirondacks are on the verge of seeing a new rail trail that should prove to be an important tourist draw and a recreational opportunity in keeping with the natural beauty it will traverse. But at the same time, the state government may settle for a compromise that will keep the recreational trail from becoming the truly exceptional resource that it could be. And as we near decisions about what to do with that rail line between Lake Placid and Big Moose, another proposed rail trail deserves serious consideration, this one stretching from Saratoga Springs to Tahawus. If New York fully embraces the potential of these trail ideas, the Adirondacks could become a major destination as a cycling center. In June the state Department…

For the town of Newcomb, Bissell’s Store will be remembered as a cornerstone of the community. Thanks to a large bequest from its former owner Marvin Bissell, the store—and the family name—will be forever tied to this central Adirondack town. My own recollection of the store, located on Bissell Loop near Route 28N since 1918, is somewhat foggy, limited to less than a handful of visits as a child and a young teenager. Those stops mostly occurred after canoe and kayak trips with my father. I can recall shelves stocked, somewhat randomly, with all sorts of products. Sadly, I never got to meet Marvin. He passed away in 2013. Marvin left a large bequest with Adirondack Foundation. Two years after his death, Marvin’s passion for history is being realized as…

Beavers (Castor canadensis) occupy a special place in our history. Trapping for beaver pelts provided much of the impetus for the exploration and colonization of the United States and Canada. Before European settlement, North America was home to an estimated 100 million to 400 million beavers. But unregulated trapping took its toll: when C. Hart Merriam published The Mammals of the Adirondack Region in 1884, the only Adirondack beaver colony known to him was in southern Franklin County. Today, thanks largely to conservation laws, beavers are once again flourishing in the Adirondack Park. Beavers are perhaps best known for their engineering works: dams, lodges, and canals constructed to provide access to food and protection from predators. In The American Beaver and His Works (1868), Lewis Morgan identified two types of…

Fire tower spruced up The state has reopened a fire tower on 2,005-foot Spruce Mountain near the village of Corinth, providing hikers with a panorama of the southern Adirondacks. In addition, the Adirondack Mountain Club has rerouted the 2.4-mile trail to the tower to avoid private land. The Student Conservation Society began rehabilitating the tower in 2014 and the state Department of Environmental Conservation finished the job this year. The steel tower was built in 1928 and staffed until 1988. The trail gains a thousand feet. It starts off on the Forest Preserve before passing through a tract owned by Saratoga Preserving Land and Nature. Just before the tower, it crosses land owned Lyme Timber. The trail is closed during big-game season but will reopen December 7. The Spruce Mountain…

Understanding scale A topo’s scale is the ratio of distance on the map versus distance on the ground. Typically, USGS maps have a scale of 1:24,000 or 1:25,000. That means one inch on the map represents 24,000 or 25,000 inches on the ground. There are 63,360 inches in a mile. With either of the USGS scales, about 2.5 inches equals a mile. The smaller the number in the denominator the larger the scale. For example, a 1:24,000 map has a larger scale than a 1:75,000 map. Typically, a large-scale map shows a small region in great detail. In contrast, a map that depicts a large area, such as the entire Adiron-dack Park, is a small-scale map. Minutes and seconds The number of minutes on a map indicates how much territory…

Driving to meet Ed McNeil this morning I worried that after thirty-six years in journalism I might be in danger of violating one of my important rules: never whimper. And as I hear Ed’s voice in the headphones of my cloth helmet I understand that I’m about to find out. I have a fear of heights that can verge on immobilizing. Yet I’m sitting behind Ed in the open cockpit of a small two-seater AirCam floatplane with Ed showing every intention of beginning this flight. I decide not to dwell on the term “experimental.” It must be some sort of aeronautical term of art. It’s true Ed built this aircraft himself from a kit. But he’s been flying the twenty-eight-foot, twin-engine plane on scientific missions throughout the Adirondacks for years.…

Over the last few centuries, roads and human development in the Adirondacks have fragmented aquatic habitats, severing natural corridors for fish and wildlife. Culverts on rivers and streams are a prime example. They can become barriers for fish when water levels drop below the height of the pipes in summer—the very time of year when brook trout swim upstream to find cooler water in shaded tributaries. The Adirondack Nature Conservancy and Ausable River Association have partnered with town and state agencies to replace a number of problematic culverts in the Ausable River watershed. The new structures don’t include pipes. Instead they leave the area under a bridge wide open to allow water to flow in its natural streambed. So far, culverts have been replaced on two tributaries on River Road…

A state judge has ruled against a controversial bid to rename Paul Smith’s College in honor of philanthropist Joan Weill, saying the college failed to demonstrate that the name change—and the money that would go with it—was necessary to ensure the college’s survival. The college had agreed to change its name to Joan Weill-Paul Smith’s College in exchange for a $20 million gift from Weill, but it needed court approval. Although the New York State Board of Regents and the state attorney general’s office both signed off on the name change, State Supreme Court Justice John T. Ellis ruled against it in early October. The college is named after Apollos “Paul” Smith, a well-known nineteenth-century guide who started a hotel on the shore of Lower St. Regis Lake, where the…

The midsection of Lake George, known as the Narrows, is so tightly squeezed with steep mountainsides that there are no highways along its shorelines; without such access, most of that stretch of lake is bordered by state land. Roads connecting the north and south basins of the lake have to run well back from the shore. The nineteenth-century throughway on the west side, called Wardsboro Road, was built several miles from the lake and had to climb and descend 1,300 feet to connect the towns of Bolton and Hague. The road is named for the early farming community at its southern end. Most of the original Wardsboro Road is still open—to snowmobilers, skiers, snowshoers, hikers, mountain bikers, and horse riders (and cars and trucks for a mile or so at…

The last time the Adirondack Park Agency (APA) defined the nature of cross-country-ski trails in the Park, it was 1979. Skis were skinny. Backcountry skiing wasn’t much of a thing. Now, though, some of the farthest reaches of the Adirondacks are regularly explored by backcountry skiers. Fat, lightweight, all-terrain skis, as well as splitboards that turn from skis to snowboards, have opened some of the High Peaks’ gnarliest terrain to powderhounds. As a result, the APA and Department of Environmental Conservation are exploring ways to make trails more skier friendly. At the APA’s meeting in October, Senior Natural Resource Planner Kevin Prickett discussed possible amendments to the State Land Master Plan that would create two new classifications for ski trails: one for traditional Nordic trails on rolling or gentle terrain…

Leashing dogs can prevent conflicts I love walking in the woods with our dog. All of us who do, however, must acknowledge that dog/wildlife encounters are often not pleasant for one side or the other. I gather from the article about the bear mauling a hiker in August [“Hiker mauled by bear,” September/October 2015], Eric Spinner’s dog, Pippy, was off leash when the encounter with the bear occurred. It is not always what we want for our dogs, but keeping them on leash in the woods usually is the best thing for them and for us. All the “how to avoid bear encounters” advice should include the suggestion to leash our dogs, for their protection and ours. Hopefully both dog and owner are recovering well. Mary A. Brown, Saranac Lake…

Although most people have never heard or seen one, the rusty blackbird (Euphagus carolinus) is a sentinel, or bellwether, species of North America’s boreal ecosystems, and it is in trouble in New York State. Rusty blackbirds summer in forested wetlands across Alaska, Canada, northern New England, and the Adirondacks. Yet this bird of peatlands and wooded river corridors is experiencing serious threats to its existence in the southeastern portion of its range. The state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) should consider adding the rusty to the state list of species that are endangered, threatened, or of special concern. The rusty blackbird has experienced a population reduction of over 90 percent throughout its range since 1960, one of the continent’s most significant declines in bird populations. The reason is unclear, but…

Bill Ferebee has been supervisor of the Town of Keene since 2006 and in May of this year he was also elected chairman of the Essex County Board of Supervisors. He served as councilman from 2000 to 2004. The town includes the hamlets of Keene and Keene Valley. He spent part of his youth in Ausable Forks and Keene and then lived in Norfolk, Virginia, before moving back to Keene with his family in 1986. Before taking the full-time supervisor position, he held a number of jobs, including operating gas stations and working in local car dealerships. How would you describe Keene for people who aren’t familiar with it? I think it’s a combination of a lot of things. We have a lot of seasonal residents. However, a number of…

On March 1, 1872, President Ulysses S. Grant signed legislation creating Yellowstone National Park, the world’s first effort to set aside a large undeveloped tract, protect it solely for its scenic and natural appeal, and make it available to the public. Exactly what Grant and the Congress had in mind for Yellowstone was unclear, as was whose responsibility it was to take care of it. For several decades, protecting the natural splendors found there was assigned to the United States Army, which for the most part had other obligations it considered more pressing. It wasn’t until 1916, after complaints from the public about the government’s failure to take proper care of the growing list of parks, that the Congress created the National Park Service (NPS), under the direction of conservationist…

Sitting beside a small stream in the southwestern Adirondacks, Spencer Bruce clipped a tiny brook-trout fin and placed it in a small container. The fin is one of more than a thousand he has collected in recent years from waters in New York State for a genetic study. Studying the genetic makeup of fish may provide clues to how resilient a population is to climate change and other environmental problems. In the Adirondack Park, several cold-water species of fish are thought to be at risk from climate change. Besides brook trout, they include lake trout and round whitefish. Other aquatic species, including amphibians and loons, also could be at risk. A researcher at the New York State Museum, Bruce believes heritage-strain brook trout that have evolved in the Adirondacks for…

Iowa Pacific is nearing an agreement to move waste rock from an old mine in Tahawus and has no immediate plans to store empty oil railcars on its tracks, according to Ed Ellis, the railroad’s president. Ellis touched off a controversy in late July when he told a committee of Warren County supervisors that Iowa Pacific was exploring the possibility of storing hundreds of oil tankers on its tracks, which run twenty-nine miles from North Creek to Tahawus. At the time, Ellis said revenue from the storage would help keep afloat Iowa Pacific’s tourist train, the Saratoga & North Creek Railway, which operates on leased tracks south of North Creek. In early October, Ellis said the railroad now hopes to move rock from the mine—something it hoped to do when…

Any backcountry skier who has slogged seven and a half miles up Mount Marcy realizes that the old saying “What goes up must come down” has got it backwards. It should be “What comes down must go up.” Yet that’s not always true. Poor Man’s Downhill in Wilmington is the exception to the rule—more than three miles of descent with no uphill. It runs from the Whiteface Veterans Memorial Highway to Route 86, losing 1,225 feet in elevation. The state Department of Environmental Conservation built the trail as a snowmobile route several years ago, but it doesn’t get a huge amount of use by sledders. When mountain bikers started using it in the non-winter months, they nicknamed it Poor Man’s Downhill, because it became popular with those who couldn’t afford…

The nineteenth-century writings of George W. Sears—best known as Nessmuk—have inspired countless Adirondack paddlers. Among the most recent is his great-great-great-grandson Will Madison. In September, the twenty-two-year-old St. Lawrence University graduate retraced much of Nessmuk’s 1883 canoe trip from the Old Forge area to Paul Smiths and back. “I’ve known about the family connection for a long time, but it didn’t really hit me until the past couple of years how cool it was,” Madison said. Nessmuk was a lead writer for Forest and Stream magazine and published numerous articles about his Adirondack canoeing trips. He is credited for popularizing lightweight canoes made by J. Henry Rushton of Canton and was an early proponent of the go-light camping ethic. The canoe used by Nessmuk, the white-cedar Sairy Gamp, was a…

Bobcats? Canada lynx? Mountain lions? Opinion varies widely in the Adirondacks regarding the presence, if any, of these big wild cats. Bobcats turn up dead and occasionally pose for photos, so their presence is universally accepted. The other two are problematic. Some are underwhelmed by the lack of documentary evidence to support the presence of lynx and mountain lions. Others claim to have seen one yesterday—or they know a biologist or naturalist or DEC employee who has seen one, or thinks she has, or he has. One thing is certain. Wild Adirondack felines must do what every North American carnivore needs to do: hunt, kill, meet, mate, raise offspring, retreat to a den in harsh weather, urinate, and defecate. None floats over the landscape like a hovercraft. Big cats leave…

By Neil Woodworth Yes The recent proposal by Iowa Pacific Holdings to store as many as five hundred obsolete DOT-111 oil-tank cars on the North Creek-to-Tahawus rail line for an indefinite time drew spirited opposition. Iowa Pacific believed it could earn over $1 million for storing these tank cars on the twenty-nine-mile stretch of tracks from North Creek to the Tahawus mine. These tank cars would have been emptied but not cleaned. Company officials admitted that each “dirty” tank car could still contain as much as two to three gallons of crude oil and hazardous hydrocarbons. They said it would cost $3,500 to $4,500 per car to clean the railcars, so it was unlikely that anyone would do so. Many were outraged that the Tahawus line might be used as…

The view from the junction of Clark, Cross, and Whallons Bay roads in Essex embraced a sweeping panorama of grassy farm fields sloping down and away to a tree line a mile distant and considerably below eye level. Beyond the uncannily even line of treetops, a jagged wall of Adirondack mountains twenty miles away, from the Dix Range to Rocky Peak to Giant to Hurricane, stretched across a deep-orange sky splattered with a few charcoal-gray clouds. A half-dozen short-eared owls suddenly levitated upward from the fields and started mewing like cats, clapping their wings and diving and swooping at each other, seeming to fight but not actually making contact. At one point their clapping wings sounded to me like some sort of bizarre, staccato applause, and their mews and hoots…

Marcy Dam work begins The state has begun dismantling Marcy Dam, which once impounded a small pond with an oft-photographed view of the High Peaks Wilderness. After Tropical Storm Irene severely damaged the wooden dam in 2011, allowing most of the pond to drain, the state Department of Environmental Conservation decided against rebuilding the structure. The decision upset many hikers who would stop at Marcy Dam on their way to Mount Marcy or other destinations in the High Peaks. Neil Woodworth, executive director of the Adirondack Mountain Club, said he understands DEC’s decision, noting it might cost several million dollars to rebuild the dam. The club, however, took no position on the issue. DEC began taking apart the dam in September. The project will be done in stages over five…

Most Adirondack environmental groups praised Governor Andrew Cuomo’s nomination of Basil Seggos, one of his top aides, to head the state Department of Environmental Conservation. Seggos, who is forty-one, has been Cuomo’s deputy secretary for the environment since 2013. If his nomination is approved by the New York State Senate, he will replace Joe Martens, who resigned in July. In making the announcement in October, Cuomo called Seggos “a strong advocate for the environment.” Seggos has a law degree from Pace University and once worked as the attorney for the Hudson Riverkeeper. He also has worked for the Natural Resources Defense Council and the White House’s Council on Environmental Quality and served as a vice president of the Hugo Neu Corporation, a company that focuses on recycling and sustainable industry.…

Forest Green Liana M. Mahoney Illus. by Maggie Henry North Country Books, 2014 Hardcover, 32 pages, $19.95 When I visit an Adirondack camp I like to wander over to the corner of the house that has a pile of board games and a shelf of books, entertainment for those cool, rainy days of summer. The row of books for adults often features the shiny covers of thrillers and romances as well as books about the Adirondacks for readers who like to learn more about the grand place they’ve found for a vacation. It’s less likely for me to find books about the Adirondacks in the stack of children’s books close to the floor. Traditional publishers may see Adirondack stories as too regional, as books that won’t sell well in the…