Innholdsfortegnelse for September/October 2016 i Adirondack Explorer

Ajudge has denied a request by Protect the Adirondacks to prohibit the state Department of Environmental Conservation from cutting trees for a community-connecter snowmobile trail whose legality is being contested in court. State Supreme Court Justice Gerald Connolly ruled in August that Protect failed to demonstrate that it is likely to prevail in its lawsuit against DEC and the Adirondack Park Agency. Protect contends that community-connector trails, which are wider than other trails and maintained by tracked groomers, violate Article 14 of the state constitution, which holds that the Forest Preserve “shall be forever kept as wild forest lands.” Notwithstanding Article 14, state courts held in earlier cases that trails and other amenities can be built in the Preserve if they do not entail the removal of timber “to any…

The number of hikers in the High Peaks has been steadily increasing in recent years, especially near Lake Placid and Keene Valley, raising concerns about safety and degradation of natural resources. “I think that we’ve got a serious overuse of some of our places in the High Peaks,” said Neil Woodworth, executive director of the Adirondack Mountain Club (ADK). “Clearly, Cascade and Pitchoff are just getting a very large number of people.” Located along Route 73, Cascade Mountain is one of the easiest and most accessible of the High Peaks to climb. Pitchoff Mountain, while not a High Peak, also is popular and rises just across the highway. On a busy weekend, it’s not unusual to see dozens of cars lining the narrow road and large numbers of hikers on…

The Adirondack Park has its share of uninspired names for lakes and ponds. Think of all the Mud Ponds, Grass Ponds, Deer Ponds, and Moose Ponds scattered over our topo maps. Perhaps no toponym is more prosaic than County Line Flow. Yes, it’s accurate, more or less. County Line Flow lies in Hamilton County less than a mile from the Essex County border. But the name hardly does justice to the charm of this small water body and its marshy inlet. County Line Flow has only recently been open to the public as part of the state’s deal with the Nature Conservancy to preserve the former Finch, Pruyn timberlands. But it hasn’t received the publicity of other waterways once owned by the paper company, such as the Essex Chain Lakes,…

In 2013, Glens Falls native Drew Cappabianca got the idea to open a combination bicycle repair shop and tavern somewhere in the eastern Adirondacks. Then he found the former Horicon town hall, and The Hub was born. “I just saw an opportunity,” said Cappabianca, who spends summers on Friends Lake in the neighboring town of Chester. “I had a lot of experience riding up here, and I knew how wonderful it was. A lot of people don’t ride up here because they don’t know ‘up here’ exists.” Located on the shore of tiny Mill Pond in the hamlet of Brant Lake, The Hub is helping to turn northern Warren County into a cycling destination. Known more for hunting and ice-fishing, Horicon has not been a major draw for self-propelled outdoor…

After covering the region’s politics for nearly two decades, I’ve learned that the Adirondack Park and its issues just don’t rank very high during big House races. Which is weird, right? New York’s twenty-first congressional district is largely defined by the Park. Eleven of the twelve Adirondack counties are represented by Representative Elise Stefanik, a Republican who has established a residence at her parents’ seasonal home in Willsboro. There’s only one county in her district that doesn’t have land or communities inside the Blue Line. You’d think the Park’s unique mix of beauty and strict zoning laws would shape the debate in election years in big ways. But the truth is the Park just doesn’t get much play. “I have to say that as a Green, I’m a lot less…

One week last June, an endless series of rainstorms drenched the Adirondack Park, leaving me housebound. When the skies finally cleared, I was anxious to get on the trail, but where to go? I settled on Hurricane Mountain, one of my favorite peaks for its bald summit and its 360- degree view. Although not a four-thousand-footer, Hurricane is a prominent mountain, visible from many of the eastern High Peaks. It is a recognizable landmark because of its fire tower, which continues to pierce the sky even though its useful life ended several decades ago … or so I thought. Hurricane Mountain (elevation 3,694 feet) is the centerpiece of the 13,784-acre Hurricane Mountain Wilderness. When I last climbed the peak in 2008, the tower was closed, its lowest flight of steps…

Men have dominated the craft of building guideboats ever since the middle of the nineteenth century, when the first guideboats were made. The only known female builder is Allison Warner from Lake Clear. Warner’s interest in wooden boats dates back to when she paddled wooden canoes while growing up in southern Texas. As a young adult, she moved to the Adirondacks and began working with AmeriCorps as a carpenter’s helper at Great Camp Santanoni under Tupper Lake carpenter Michael Frenette, who introduced her to boat restoration and guideboats in 1999. “That was my first exposure, and I was just blown away,” said Warner. She also attended the No Octane Regatta, a wooden-boat festival in the Adirondacks that showcased many guideboat builders. Warner later learned the craft from Michael Frenettte’s brother,…

“Of all the rare birds of North America, the hummingbird is the most admirable, or at least the most worthy of peculiar attention.” – Peter Kalm, 1750s Hummingbirds, characterized by their small size, inability to walk, and highly evolved flight capabilities, are a uniquely Western Hemisphere bird family. Only sixteen of the 330 known species breed in North America, and only one species, the ruby-throated hummingbird, breeds in eastern North America. (In contrast 163 hummingbird species have been recorded in Ecuador, forty-three of these in one small valley.) Here are some fascinating facts about our smallest bird: • Ruby-throated hummingbirds weigh slightly more than a penny—less than a tenth of an ounce. • To meet their energy needs, hummingbirds breathe three hundred to five hundred times per minute and consume…

In 2013, the public voted to amend the state constitution to resolve a century-old dispute between the state and residents of Raquette Lake over land ownership, but this past spring some state lawmakers raised concerns that the settlement would shortchange the Forest Preserve. Under the deal approved by voters, the state would cede title to about two hundred parcels near Raquette Lake, totaling roughly a thousand acres, if the residents raised money to purchase the Marion River carry from the Open Space Institute (OSI). No state money would be used in the transaction. The amendment, however, stipulated that the deal would have to result in a “net benefit” for the Forest Preserve, and this became a point of contention in the state Assembly. Long Island Assemblyman Steven Englebright, who chairs…

The biggest Adirondack snake, or at least the longest, commonly reaches six feet in length. It’s the ratsnake. There are multiple North American species. At the moment, taxonomists (scientists who puzzle out the distinctions between living things) don’t agree on exactly how many kinds of ratsnakes there are in total or where each kind lives. It is unclear into which cubbyhole, or cubbyholes, Adirondack ratsnakes should be placed. Within the Park, ratsnakes are found in the southern borderlands. The best-known population inhabits the hills around Lake George. Ratsnakes also occur in western St. Lawrence County. If you’re lucky to see a ratsnake in the wild, you may notice several things. For one, the scales are shiny, unless the snake is preparing to shed its skin. By contrast, the scales of…

The people of New York were right to welcome moose back, and we are right to continue protecting them. State officials should not now, or anytime soon, open a hunting season on moose. As with so many wildlife-conservation priorities, reasons for continuing to protect moose include ecological, cultural, recreational, aesthetic, and moral. Concerned New York residents should weigh in on this issue soon. This spring the State Senate passed a bill allowing the Department of Conservation (DEC) to institute regulations for hunting of moose. The bill has not passed the Assembly; and we should stop it before it does. Let DEC and your Assembly members know of your concerns for our region’s biggest land animal. Ecologically, the natural recolonization of New York by moose is proving a wonderful rewilding success…

YES By CLYDE RABIDEAU The Adirondack Park Agency (APA) must treat Saranac Lake the same way it treated other Hamlet Areas within the Park and approve the Lake Flower Resort and Spa. This four-story project, unanimously approved by the Village Board and Planning Board (with one abstention), goes to the APA for final approval only because it would exceed forty feet in height—a low threshold for any hotel—and because part of it would lie within the fifty-foot setback from the lakeshore, though this would be less of an infringement than the existing buildings on the site. There are no other APA jurisdictions in Hamlet Areas—none. Why? Because Hamlet Areas are special zones created when the APA was formed, singular places meant to be guided by local government for development, population…

Mary Buszuwski has been chief executive officer of the Girls Scouts of Northeastern New York since January 2014. Prior to joining the Girl Scouts she was chief operating officer of the American Nurses Association in Washington, DC. The Girl Scouts of Northeastern New York is the result of the merger of four Girl Scout Councils in 2007. Its region, which includes the Adirondacks, encompasses fifteen counties, stretching from Columbia and Green counties in the south to the Canadian border, and from Columbia and Washington counties on the Vermont border west to Schoharie, Montgomery, and Hamilton counties. It currently operates four camps, including two in the Adirondacks: Hidden Lake Camp near Lake Luzerne and Lake Clear Camp northwest of Saranac Lake. Within the region there are 1,100 troops, with about ten…

The Nature Conservancy has demolished a lodge built by Finch, Pruyn & Company at Boreas Ponds, removing one thorny issue facing state officials responsible for coming up with a management plan for a large tract of newly acquired Forest Preserve. The Adirondack chapter of the conservancy, which sold the ponds to the state this year, hired a contractor to dismantle the lodge over the summer. The state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) agreed that the lodge should be removed—even though local officials wanted it to stay. Rob Davies, head of DEC’s Division of Lands and Forests, said it was not feasible to keep the lodge, partly because of the maintenance expense and partly because it was a “non-conforming structure” in the forever-wild Forest Preserve. North Hudson Supervisor Ron Moore had…

Afatal boating accident on Lake George in late July has spurred calls for ending the annual Log Bay Day, a boisterous daylong drinking party that attracts hundreds of revelers. Eight-year-old Charlotte McCue of Carlsbad, California, was killed when the boat she was riding in was struck by a boat piloted by a man who had been at the Log Bay Day gathering, according to the Warren County Sheriff’s Department. The girl’s mother was also seriously injured. The accident took place at 9:30 p.m. on July 25. Police said the other boater, twenty-four-year-old Alexander West of Lake George, fled the scene after his boat plowed over the top of a twenty-eight-foot Garwood boat piloted by McCue’s grandfather. West and his four passengers turned themselves in to authorities the next day and…

We all see things differently. My distinguished writer friend the late Maurice Kenny and I argued on more than one occasion over what sorts of books we like. I provoked the debate, asserting that given a choice between a brilliantly written book with not much at its core and a book of fabulous material presented in pedestrian prose, I’d choose the fabulous and the pedestrian every time. Maurice, a champion of fine writing and a gifted writer himself, disagreed, vehemently. I wish, when we last crossed swords, I had Darryl McGrath’s Flight Paths to thump on the table. Make no mistake. McGrath’s prose is every bit as good as it needs to be. Yet in creating this book, the author, an Albany-based journalist, chose to devote the lion’s share of…

From north to south, from east to west, the Adirondack Park is a spectacular place. We have vast expanses of intact forest, unpolluted lakes, and crystalline rivers with roiling whitewater. Everywhere you look, there’s something wonderful. But let’s face it: the High Peaks, especially that extraordinary environment on the alpine summits with its rare and delicate flora of the tundra, found nowhere else in New York, is the truly astonishing part of this splendid Park. Can anything really compare with the view from Haystack (or Dix or Gothics or Colden—fill in your personal favorite) on a cloudless, low-humidity day in late September? My High Peaks epiphany occurred on Panther in 1966, after a bushwhack from Couchsachraga, before there was any sign of a herd path on that ridge. Panther was…

Ajudge has denied a request by Protect the Adirondacks to prohibit the state Department of Environmental Conservation from cutting trees for a community-connecter snowmobile trail whose legality is being contested in court. State Supreme Court Justice Gerald Connolly ruled in August that Protect failed to demonstrate that it is likely to prevail in its lawsuit against DEC and the Adirondack Park Agency. Protect contends that community-connector trails, which are wider than other trails and maintained by tracked groomers, violate Article 14 of the state constitution, which holds that the Forest Preserve “shall be forever kept as wild forest lands.” Notwithstanding Article 14, state courts held in earlier cases that trails and other amenities can be built in the Preserve if they do not entail the removal of timber “to any…

Alittle over eight years ago, Margaret Hawthorn spotted the cabin of her dreams. Set on a small island in the Saranac River beneath a canopy of evergreens and with a view across a marsh to Adirondack peaks, the home spoke to her. “I was helping on the Ninety-Miler [canoe race], and I came through, took one look, and said, ‘I want this cabin.’” As it turned out the cabin in the midst of the Saranac Lakes Wild Forest did become available. But there was one condition: she needed to hire on as a lock tender to operate the Upper Locks that sit in front of the cabin, providing passage for canoeists, anglers, pleasure boaters, and state campsite workers. New York State, which operates the locks in the Saranac River between…

The number of hikers in the High Peaks has been steadily increasing in recent years, especially near Lake Placid and Keene Valley, raising concerns about safety and degradation of natural resources. “I think that we’ve got a serious overuse of some of our places in the High Peaks,” said Neil Woodworth, executive director of the Adirondack Mountain Club (ADK). “Clearly, Cascade and Pitchoff are just getting a very large number of people.” Located along Route 73, Cascade Mountain is one of the easiest and most accessible of the High Peaks to climb. Pitchoff Mountain, while not a High Peak, also is popular and rises just across the highway. On a busy weekend, it’s not unusual to see dozens of cars lining the narrow road and large numbers of hikers on…

The Adirondack Park has its share of uninspired names for lakes and ponds. Think of all the Mud Ponds, Grass Ponds, Deer Ponds, and Moose Ponds scattered over our topo maps. Perhaps no toponym is more prosaic than County Line Flow. Yes, it’s accurate, more or less. County Line Flow lies in Hamilton County less than a mile from the Essex County border. But the name hardly does justice to the charm of this small water body and its marshy inlet. County Line Flow has only recently been open to the public as part of the state’s deal with the Nature Conservancy to preserve the former Finch, Pruyn timberlands. But it hasn’t received the publicity of other waterways once owned by the paper company, such as the Essex Chain Lakes,…

When nineteen-year-old Bulgarian native Mihaela Vasilva arrived in Lake George this spring as a seasonal student worker, she was disappointed at the condition of her summer housing. “It wasn’t what we expected, she said. “There were bugs all over the place.” But rather than find a new location, Vasilva and her three roommates cleaned up the place and made the best of it while enjoying their stay this summer in Lake George. She was willing to do so because the rent seemed cheap: $80 per person per week for a room in what she described as a local motel. She wanted to save money for traveling to the West Coast in the fall. Things worked out for Vasilva, but some foreign student workers find themselves in similar situations that don’t…

After covering the region’s politics for nearly two decades, I’ve learned that the Adirondack Park and its issues just don’t rank very high during big House races. Which is weird, right? New York’s twenty-first congressional district is largely defined by the Park. Eleven of the twelve Adirondack counties are represented by Representative Elise Stefanik, a Republican who has established a residence at her parents’ seasonal home in Willsboro. There’s only one county in her district that doesn’t have land or communities inside the Blue Line. You’d think the Park’s unique mix of beauty and strict zoning laws would shape the debate in election years in big ways. But the truth is the Park just doesn’t get much play. “I have to say that as a Green, I’m a lot less…

Building a traditional Adirondack guideboat is a complex task, with ribs carved from spruce-tree roots and with thin hull planks held in place with several thousand tiny tacks. It can take many weeks to complete one. “I grew up working with wood one way or another, and these are by far the most complex, demanding things, by a long shot, I’ve ever built,” said Rob Davidson, who started building guideboats a few years ago after moving to the Adirondacks from Oregon. Most builders spend about three months on one boat and might sell it for $18,000 to $20,000. Jim Cameron, a builder on Upper St. Regis Lake, tells prospective customers that he charges about $1,000 a foot for a fourteen-foot solo guideboat. “They’re definitely the most beautiful small craft ever…

Men have dominated the craft of building guideboats ever since the middle of the nineteenth century, when the first guideboats were made. The only known female builder is Allison Warner from Lake Clear. Warner’s interest in wooden boats dates back to when she paddled wooden canoes while growing up in southern Texas. As a young adult, she moved to the Adirondacks and began working with AmeriCorps as a carpenter’s helper at Great Camp Santanoni under Tupper Lake carpenter Michael Frenette, who introduced her to boat restoration and guideboats in 1999. “That was my first exposure, and I was just blown away,” said Warner. She also attended the No Octane Regatta, a wooden-boat festival in the Adirondacks that showcased many guideboat builders. Warner later learned the craft from Michael Frenettte’s brother,…

After retiring from his education career, Sherman Craig opened a furniture-making business with his wife in Newton Falls. Craig closed that business last year, but he sees parallels between woodworking and his new post as chairman of the Adirondack Park Agency. “You have to have patience,” Craig said in July shortly after wrapping up his first meeting at the agency’s helm. “You can’t move quickly on anything. You have to shape things very carefully. You have to think about how they go together because you’re thinking about a piece of furniture that hopefully will be around a hundred years from now. And it’s not so different than the decisions we’re making. We’re making them for the community and the Park. And I do think about many generations out, and my…

In 2013, the public voted to amend the state constitution to resolve a century-old dispute between the state and residents of Raquette Lake over land ownership, but this past spring some state lawmakers raised concerns that the settlement would shortchange the Forest Preserve. Under the deal approved by voters, the state would cede title to about two hundred parcels near Raquette Lake, totaling roughly a thousand acres, if the residents raised money to purchase the Marion River carry from the Open Space Institute (OSI). No state money would be used in the transaction. The amendment, however, stipulated that the deal would have to result in a “net benefit” for the Forest Preserve, and this became a point of contention in the state Assembly. Long Island Assemblyman Steven Englebright, who chairs…

An environmental coalition’s proposal to protect as Wilderness the Boreas Ponds and the most sensitive of new state lands adjoining the Adirondack Park’s High Peaks Wilderness Area is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make history. Magnificent waters and lands closed to the public for over 150 years can be protected for future generations while providing new public access. The BeWildNY coalition comprises eight organizations—Adirondack, New York State, and national, representing millions of people—united in seeking protection for some of the state’s tallest mountains and rarest wildlife habitat and the headwaters of the mighty Hudson River. The plan would safeguard them from invasive species and the impacts of motorized uses. (Learn more at BeWildNY.org.) Some have criticized the coalition’s vision as not big enough; or as providing too much recreational access; or…

The people of New York were right to welcome moose back, and we are right to continue protecting them. State officials should not now, or anytime soon, open a hunting season on moose. As with so many wildlife-conservation priorities, reasons for continuing to protect moose include ecological, cultural, recreational, aesthetic, and moral. Concerned New York residents should weigh in on this issue soon. This spring the State Senate passed a bill allowing the Department of Conservation (DEC) to institute regulations for hunting of moose. The bill has not passed the Assembly; and we should stop it before it does. Let DEC and your Assembly members know of your concerns for our region’s biggest land animal. Ecologically, the natural recolonization of New York by moose is proving a wonderful rewilding success…

At four inches long and weighing two-tenths of an ounce, golden-crowned kinglets lack the body mass and lipid reserves to maintain their body temperature and survive through forty-below nights in the North Country, but they do. One theory is that they must use nocturnal hypothermia, a lowering of body temperature that induces a metabolic torpor, in order to make it through the night, but no one has either documented or induced nocturnal hypothermia in a golden-crowned kinglet. So Bernd Heinrich, the naturalist and writer, cased the trees on his property in Maine until he identified one where golden-crowned kinglets would roost for the night. He noted where in the tree the kinglets seemed to go and returned the following day with a ladder, which he placed against the tree near…

Mary Buszuwski has been chief executive officer of the Girls Scouts of Northeastern New York since January 2014. Prior to joining the Girl Scouts she was chief operating officer of the American Nurses Association in Washington, DC. The Girl Scouts of Northeastern New York is the result of the merger of four Girl Scout Councils in 2007. Its region, which includes the Adirondacks, encompasses fifteen counties, stretching from Columbia and Green counties in the south to the Canadian border, and from Columbia and Washington counties on the Vermont border west to Schoharie, Montgomery, and Hamilton counties. It currently operates four camps, including two in the Adirondacks: Hidden Lake Camp near Lake Luzerne and Lake Clear Camp northwest of Saranac Lake. Within the region there are 1,100 troops, with about ten…

Four and a half hours after our 4:30 a.m. departure from the Garden trailhead in Keene Valley, my two climbing partners and I dropped our packs and looked around. We were surrounded by cliffs: free-standing pillars, tiered walls, slabby slides, and vertical stone faces, some more than three hundred feet high. There were caves, hidden talus fields, and giant fins of rock. Vertical cracks abounded. I gaped in wonderment at one of the most remote and beautiful rock-climbing destinations in the Adirondacks. “There are so many lines here,” I remarked. “That’s what I’ve been telling you,” said Kevin “MudRat” MacKenzie. Welcome to Panther Gorge. Located deep in the Adirondack High Peaks, the gorge is reached by hiking about eight miles on marked trails, followed by a twenty-minute bushwhack on a…

Afatal boating accident on Lake George in late July has spurred calls for ending the annual Log Bay Day, a boisterous daylong drinking party that attracts hundreds of revelers. Eight-year-old Charlotte McCue of Carlsbad, California, was killed when the boat she was riding in was struck by a boat piloted by a man who had been at the Log Bay Day gathering, according to the Warren County Sheriff’s Department. The girl’s mother was also seriously injured. The accident took place at 9:30 p.m. on July 25. Police said the other boater, twenty-four-year-old Alexander West of Lake George, fled the scene after his boat plowed over the top of a twenty-eight-foot Garwood boat piloted by McCue’s grandfather. West and his four passengers turned themselves in to authorities the next day and…

Years ago I often used to see a line of cars parked along McKenzie Pond Road outside Saranac Lake and wonder why they were there. There was no trailhead there, no house, just nondescript woods. Eventually, I learned that those woods harbored a collection of giant boulders and that people would drive for hours to climb them. Not just any people, but hard-core climbers willing to abrade their fingertips on tiny crimps, strain their biceps on overhanging rock, and curse the sky as they labor up routes that are often less than ten feet long. That is, boulderers. Bouldering began as an offshoot of rock climbing, a way for people to train for “real climbing” on cliffs, but it has long since evolved into a sport unto itself, with its…

From north to south, from east to west, the Adirondack Park is a spectacular place. We have vast expanses of intact forest, unpolluted lakes, and crystalline rivers with roiling whitewater. Everywhere you look, there’s something wonderful. But let’s face it: the High Peaks, especially that extraordinary environment on the alpine summits with its rare and delicate flora of the tundra, found nowhere else in New York, is the truly astonishing part of this splendid Park. Can anything really compare with the view from Haystack (or Dix or Gothics or Colden—fill in your personal favorite) on a cloudless, low-humidity day in late September? My High Peaks epiphany occurred on Panther in 1966, after a bushwhack from Couchsachraga, before there was any sign of a herd path on that ridge. Panther was…

Alittle over eight years ago, Margaret Hawthorn spotted the cabin of her dreams. Set on a small island in the Saranac River beneath a canopy of evergreens and with a view across a marsh to Adirondack peaks, the home spoke to her. “I was helping on the Ninety-Miler [canoe race], and I came through, took one look, and said, ‘I want this cabin.’” As it turned out the cabin in the midst of the Saranac Lakes Wild Forest did become available. But there was one condition: she needed to hire on as a lock tender to operate the Upper Locks that sit in front of the cabin, providing passage for canoeists, anglers, pleasure boaters, and state campsite workers. New York State, which operates the locks in the Saranac River between…

In 2013, Glens Falls native Drew Cappabianca got the idea to open a combination bicycle repair shop and tavern somewhere in the eastern Adirondacks. Then he found the former Horicon town hall, and The Hub was born. “I just saw an opportunity,” said Cappabianca, who spends summers on Friends Lake in the neighboring town of Chester. “I had a lot of experience riding up here, and I knew how wonderful it was. A lot of people don’t ride up here because they don’t know ‘up here’ exists.” Located on the shore of tiny Mill Pond in the hamlet of Brant Lake, The Hub is helping to turn northern Warren County into a cycling destination. Known more for hunting and ice-fishing, Horicon has not been a major draw for self-propelled outdoor…

When nineteen-year-old Bulgarian native Mihaela Vasilva arrived in Lake George this spring as a seasonal student worker, she was disappointed at the condition of her summer housing. “It wasn’t what we expected, she said. “There were bugs all over the place.” But rather than find a new location, Vasilva and her three roommates cleaned up the place and made the best of it while enjoying their stay this summer in Lake George. She was willing to do so because the rent seemed cheap: $80 per person per week for a room in what she described as a local motel. She wanted to save money for traveling to the West Coast in the fall. Things worked out for Vasilva, but some foreign student workers find themselves in similar situations that don’t…

One week last June, an endless series of rainstorms drenched the Adirondack Park, leaving me housebound. When the skies finally cleared, I was anxious to get on the trail, but where to go? I settled on Hurricane Mountain, one of my favorite peaks for its bald summit and its 360- degree view. Although not a four-thousand-footer, Hurricane is a prominent mountain, visible from many of the eastern High Peaks. It is a recognizable landmark because of its fire tower, which continues to pierce the sky even though its useful life ended several decades ago … or so I thought. Hurricane Mountain (elevation 3,694 feet) is the centerpiece of the 13,784-acre Hurricane Mountain Wilderness. When I last climbed the peak in 2008, the tower was closed, its lowest flight of steps…

Building a traditional Adirondack guideboat is a complex task, with ribs carved from spruce-tree roots and with thin hull planks held in place with several thousand tiny tacks. It can take many weeks to complete one. “I grew up working with wood one way or another, and these are by far the most complex, demanding things, by a long shot, I’ve ever built,” said Rob Davidson, who started building guideboats a few years ago after moving to the Adirondacks from Oregon. Most builders spend about three months on one boat and might sell it for $18,000 to $20,000. Jim Cameron, a builder on Upper St. Regis Lake, tells prospective customers that he charges about $1,000 a foot for a fourteen-foot solo guideboat. “They’re definitely the most beautiful small craft ever…

“Of all the rare birds of North America, the hummingbird is the most admirable, or at least the most worthy of peculiar attention.” – Peter Kalm, 1750s Hummingbirds, characterized by their small size, inability to walk, and highly evolved flight capabilities, are a uniquely Western Hemisphere bird family. Only sixteen of the 330 known species breed in North America, and only one species, the ruby-throated hummingbird, breeds in eastern North America. (In contrast 163 hummingbird species have been recorded in Ecuador, forty-three of these in one small valley.) Here are some fascinating facts about our smallest bird: • Ruby-throated hummingbirds weigh slightly more than a penny—less than a tenth of an ounce. • To meet their energy needs, hummingbirds breathe three hundred to five hundred times per minute and consume…

After retiring from his education career, Sherman Craig opened a furniture-making business with his wife in Newton Falls. Craig closed that business last year, but he sees parallels between woodworking and his new post as chairman of the Adirondack Park Agency. “You have to have patience,” Craig said in July shortly after wrapping up his first meeting at the agency’s helm. “You can’t move quickly on anything. You have to shape things very carefully. You have to think about how they go together because you’re thinking about a piece of furniture that hopefully will be around a hundred years from now. And it’s not so different than the decisions we’re making. We’re making them for the community and the Park. And I do think about many generations out, and my…

The biggest Adirondack snake, or at least the longest, commonly reaches six feet in length. It’s the ratsnake. There are multiple North American species. At the moment, taxonomists (scientists who puzzle out the distinctions between living things) don’t agree on exactly how many kinds of ratsnakes there are in total or where each kind lives. It is unclear into which cubbyhole, or cubbyholes, Adirondack ratsnakes should be placed. Within the Park, ratsnakes are found in the southern borderlands. The best-known population inhabits the hills around Lake George. Ratsnakes also occur in western St. Lawrence County. If you’re lucky to see a ratsnake in the wild, you may notice several things. For one, the scales are shiny, unless the snake is preparing to shed its skin. By contrast, the scales of…

An environmental coalition’s proposal to protect as Wilderness the Boreas Ponds and the most sensitive of new state lands adjoining the Adirondack Park’s High Peaks Wilderness Area is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make history. Magnificent waters and lands closed to the public for over 150 years can be protected for future generations while providing new public access. The BeWildNY coalition comprises eight organizations—Adirondack, New York State, and national, representing millions of people—united in seeking protection for some of the state’s tallest mountains and rarest wildlife habitat and the headwaters of the mighty Hudson River. The plan would safeguard them from invasive species and the impacts of motorized uses. (Learn more at BeWildNY.org.) Some have criticized the coalition’s vision as not big enough; or as providing too much recreational access; or…

YES By CLYDE RABIDEAU The Adirondack Park Agency (APA) must treat Saranac Lake the same way it treated other Hamlet Areas within the Park and approve the Lake Flower Resort and Spa. This four-story project, unanimously approved by the Village Board and Planning Board (with one abstention), goes to the APA for final approval only because it would exceed forty feet in height—a low threshold for any hotel—and because part of it would lie within the fifty-foot setback from the lakeshore, though this would be less of an infringement than the existing buildings on the site. There are no other APA jurisdictions in Hamlet Areas—none. Why? Because Hamlet Areas are special zones created when the APA was formed, singular places meant to be guided by local government for development, population…

At four inches long and weighing two-tenths of an ounce, golden-crowned kinglets lack the body mass and lipid reserves to maintain their body temperature and survive through forty-below nights in the North Country, but they do. One theory is that they must use nocturnal hypothermia, a lowering of body temperature that induces a metabolic torpor, in order to make it through the night, but no one has either documented or induced nocturnal hypothermia in a golden-crowned kinglet. So Bernd Heinrich, the naturalist and writer, cased the trees on his property in Maine until he identified one where golden-crowned kinglets would roost for the night. He noted where in the tree the kinglets seemed to go and returned the following day with a ladder, which he placed against the tree near…

The Nature Conservancy has demolished a lodge built by Finch, Pruyn & Company at Boreas Ponds, removing one thorny issue facing state officials responsible for coming up with a management plan for a large tract of newly acquired Forest Preserve. The Adirondack chapter of the conservancy, which sold the ponds to the state this year, hired a contractor to dismantle the lodge over the summer. The state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) agreed that the lodge should be removed—even though local officials wanted it to stay. Rob Davies, head of DEC’s Division of Lands and Forests, said it was not feasible to keep the lodge, partly because of the maintenance expense and partly because it was a “non-conforming structure” in the forever-wild Forest Preserve. North Hudson Supervisor Ron Moore had…

Four and a half hours after our 4:30 a.m. departure from the Garden trailhead in Keene Valley, my two climbing partners and I dropped our packs and looked around. We were surrounded by cliffs: free-standing pillars, tiered walls, slabby slides, and vertical stone faces, some more than three hundred feet high. There were caves, hidden talus fields, and giant fins of rock. Vertical cracks abounded. I gaped in wonderment at one of the most remote and beautiful rock-climbing destinations in the Adirondacks. “There are so many lines here,” I remarked. “That’s what I’ve been telling you,” said Kevin “MudRat” MacKenzie. Welcome to Panther Gorge. Located deep in the Adirondack High Peaks, the gorge is reached by hiking about eight miles on marked trails, followed by a twenty-minute bushwhack on a…

We all see things differently. My distinguished writer friend the late Maurice Kenny and I argued on more than one occasion over what sorts of books we like. I provoked the debate, asserting that given a choice between a brilliantly written book with not much at its core and a book of fabulous material presented in pedestrian prose, I’d choose the fabulous and the pedestrian every time. Maurice, a champion of fine writing and a gifted writer himself, disagreed, vehemently. I wish, when we last crossed swords, I had Darryl McGrath’s Flight Paths to thump on the table. Make no mistake. McGrath’s prose is every bit as good as it needs to be. Yet in creating this book, the author, an Albany-based journalist, chose to devote the lion’s share of…

Years ago I often used to see a line of cars parked along McKenzie Pond Road outside Saranac Lake and wonder why they were there. There was no trailhead there, no house, just nondescript woods. Eventually, I learned that those woods harbored a collection of giant boulders and that people would drive for hours to climb them. Not just any people, but hard-core climbers willing to abrade their fingertips on tiny crimps, strain their biceps on overhanging rock, and curse the sky as they labor up routes that are often less than ten feet long. That is, boulderers. Bouldering began as an offshoot of rock climbing, a way for people to train for “real climbing” on cliffs, but it has long since evolved into a sport unto itself, with its…

Erik Schlimmer is a man who likes to make lists, and check them off. After he climbed all the highest peaks in the Northeast he decided to climb all the less-than-high peaks of the Adirondacks, hundreds of them. Then he designed and hiked the Trans Adirondack Trail, a route that bisects the Park north-south from Blue Line to Blue Line. With his beaver-like energy and red-squirrel enthusiasm Schlimmer has also written four books about the Adirondacks. The best of them, My Adirondacks, Ten Stories from Twenty Years, contains personal essays that are funny, thoughtful, and well-written. It recently won the Adirondack Center for Writing’s first prize for memoir. Almost all the essays are about his bushwhacking trips, beginning with his first one as a sixteen-year-old in 1989. Schlimmer is the…

Erik Schlimmer is a man who likes to make lists, and check them off. After he climbed all the highest peaks in the Northeast he decided to climb all the less-than-high peaks of the Adirondacks, hundreds of them. Then he designed and hiked the Trans Adirondack Trail, a route that bisects the Park north-south from Blue Line to Blue Line. With his beaver-like energy and red-squirrel enthusiasm Schlimmer has also written four books about the Adirondacks. The best of them, My Adirondacks, Ten Stories from Twenty Years, contains personal essays that are funny, thoughtful, and well-written. It recently won the Adirondack Center for Writing’s first prize for memoir. Almost all the essays are about his bushwhacking trips, beginning with his first one as a sixteen-year-old in 1989. Schlimmer is the…